What is a Digital Experience Platform (DXP)? And what does it mean to WordPress?

1. What is a Digital
Experience Platform?
(and what it means to WordPress?)
Tampere WordPress Meetup, 13.2.2019
Ari-Pekka Koponen, Vincit, ari-pekka.koponen@vincit.fi

2. Who am I?
Ari-Pekka Koponen, everybody calls me A-P.
I work as Tech Director at Vincit, where I help our customers
in selecting the best possible technologies for their business
needs and create wonderful digital services.
Twitter: @APKoponen LinkedIn: /in/apkoponen

3. vincit.fi
Psst… We’re hiring!

4. Why should I know
what a Digital
Experience Platform is?

5. Why Should I Care?
Jan 2020 Gartner
kills their “Web Content Management (WCM)” Magic Quadrant
in favor of “Digital Experience Platform (DXP)” Magic Quadrant
Feb 2020 The City of Vantaa
sends out a request for proposals for Vantaa.fi renewal
with a requirement: “The Solution should include Digital
Experience Platform capabilities”
Things move fast. 🤷

6. Vantaa.fi-renewal
budget is 600 000€
and Gartner is an
Enterprise hand-waving
consultancy, how does
this affect my life?
“

7. Does this affect my life?
Is the budget of the things you build less than 100 000€?
If yes, then likely not.
However, the trends behind the need for Digital Experience Platforms are interesting
for everyone, who are building digital experiences like websites and eCommerce sites.

8. What is a Digital
Experience Platform
(DXP)?

9. A digital experience platform (DXP) is
an integrated set of core technologies
that support the composition,
management, delivery and
optimization of contextualized digital
experiences.
– Gartner
“

10. WTF is a
contextualized
digital
experience?
“

11. The Road to the Birth
of Digital Experience
Platforms
Explain Like I'm Five -version

12. The Characters
Developer Marketer Manager
Illustrations created by created by brgfx - www.freepik.com

13. Marketer
ManagerDeveloper
Digital Experience
Platform

14. What is the Developer Looking for? 🤓
I can use the skills I already have.
○ ✅ REST APIs, my favourite frontend
○ ❌ Huge framework, platform-specific knowledge
It is easy to model my content types and their relationships.
○ ⚙ Multiple data types, flexible data querying
The system should be fast and scale easily.
○ 🤷 Like, who wants to debug performance issues? Really.

15. Veikonkone.fi normal
dishwasher section

16. Veikonkone.fi Miele
dishwasher brand section

17. Veikonkone.fi Miele
dishwasher brand section
Veikonkone.fi normal
dishwasher section
Two totally
different UIs
on the same site

18. What is the Marketer Dreaming of? 🍰
I want to personalize my content.
○ 👩‍🏭👨‍🎤🧟‍♂ CRM, user segmentation, targeted content
I want to optimize my user experience.
○ 📈 Funnels, goals, conversion rates, analytics, A/B testing
I want to contact my clients, when they’re ready.
○ 💌 Lead generation, email marketing
I want to control the way things look like.
○ 🎨 WYSIWYG & drag-and-drop editors, context-aware previews

19. Power.fiPolk-speakerdescription
Power.fiSamsung-speakerdescription

20. What is the Manager Anxious about? 🔎
I want to coordinate the work we do.
○ 🗓 Editorial calendar, publishing workflow, internal
communication
I should be able to control what everyone is doing.
○ 🔒 Audit logs, revisions, access control, roles
I don’t want to duplicate my content.
○ 🖥📱⌚🤖 Multi-channel publishing, ready-made integrations

21. Marketer
ManagerDeveloper
Digital Experience
Platform
Mmm…
JSON is as sweet as
euchalyptus!
Hubspot-bot-bot-bot!
I’ve got the
power!
The goal of a Digital Experience
Platform (DXP) is to serve all
these stakeholders in a way that
is easy-to-use.

22. A digital experience platform (DXP) is
an integrated set of core technologies
that support the composition,
management, delivery and
optimization of contextualized digital
experiences.
– Gartner
“

23. Different Contexts in Digital Experiences
Technology Persona
● Desktop Browser
● Mobile Browser
● Mobile App
● Smart Watch
● eCommerce Platform
● Chat-bot
● Facebook
● Twitter
● ...
● A parent
● Home-owner
● Young person
● Scrooge
● Big spender
● ...
State-of-mind
● Fear / Uncertainty
● Hurry
● Peer pressure
● Excitement
● Boredom
● ...

24. A digital experience platform (DXP) is
an integrated set of core technologies
that support the composition,
management, delivery and
optimization of contextualized digital
experiences.
– Gartner
“

25. Common DXP Features
JSON API
Scalability
Flexible data modeling
Actionable analytics
User segmentation
A/B testing
Editorial calendar
Marketing automationVisual content creation
Publishing workflow
Multi-channel publishing
Integrations

26. Common DXP Features with WordPress
JSON API
Scalability
Flexible data modeling
Actionable analytics
User segmentation
A/B testing
Editorial calendar
Marketing automationVisual content creation
Publishing workflow
Multi-channel publishing
Integrations
✅ Great support! 🤷 It depends… ⛔ PLZ GIF ME 100k€ and I will build this.
⛔
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✅ ⛔
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✅

27. At the core of the advent of DXPs is the
realization of Developers, Marketers
and Managers that there are better
tools out there for the job.
“

28. The biggest challenge for WordPress
with the advent of DXPs is the lack of
consistent and integrated developer
and admin experience.
“

29. Time for some Q&A!

30. Additional Reading
Gartner’s Magic Quadrant for DXP
Full report with analysis on all the most important products, requires you to sign-up for marketing.
https://www.episerver.com/reports/gartner-magic-quadrant-for-digital-experience-platforms/
Acquia Open Digital Experience Platform
Digital Experience Platform based on Drupal and Mautic
https://www.acquia.com/products-services/acquia-platform
osDXP for WordPress
The idea and the approach are great, but you would not ship a forked version of WordPress to
production, would you? 😅
https://osdxp.org/

31. Thank you!
Twitter: @APKoponen LinkedIn: /in/apkoponen