The ultimate guide to digital experience management

Do you know what digital experience management is – and why it's important?

Most customer engagement occurs digitally, so the digital experience you present is extremely important. 

Effectively creating, optimizing, managing and tracking that digital experience is what digital experience management is all about. 

Key takeaways

• The digital experience encompasses all the digital touchpoints where customers engage with your company or brand
• Digital experience is a subset of customer experience, focusing solely on digital interactions
• Digital experience management manages, optimizes and tracks all aspects of the digital experience for customers
• Digital experience management not only improves and personalizes the digital customer experience, but it also ensures brand consistency, shortens time to market and increases sales, profits and ROI

What is the digital experience?

The digital experience (DX) – sometimes called the digital customer experience – encompasses all the online interactions a customer has with your company or brand. These interactions can take place on any device (computer, phone, tablet) or any channel, including:

• Website
• Email
• Online advertising
• Social media
• Online reviews
• Your website and any affiliated websites
• In-store kiosks

The DX follows customers through their online journeys from discovery and evaluation through purchase and on to post-purchase support and advocacy. Every touchpoint at every stage of the customer journey is part of the digital experience. 

A customer's DX influences the perception of your company, brand, or product. A memorable DX across the board results in a satisfied customer who is likely to become a repeat customer. A poor DX at any point in the journey could end the journey right there, often before a purchase is made. 

How is the digital experience (DX) different from customer experience (CX)?

Old school marketers are familiar with the term customer experience (CX), which encompasses the customer journey through all media— online and traditional. The digital experience (DX) focuses solely on the digital part of the customer experience, leaving aside traditional print, radio and television advertising. 

Unlike traditional CX, all aspects of the DX are easily tracked and measured. This enables marketers to fine-tune the experience based on customer reactions – and to personalize the DX for an individual's likes, dislikes and online behaviors. 

The digital customer experience is also different in that, in many cases, customers interface with you in real-time. Digital customers expect immediate engagement, unlike traditional channels that have long lead times and tend to be one-way experiences. For example, 47% of customers online expect a web page to load in under 2 seconds. If their experience on your website takes longer than that, they'll quickly point their browsers to a faster-loading competitor. 

The following video further explores the differences between DX and CX.

What is digital experience management?

Digital experience management (DXM) is the strategic process of aligning your company's digital presence in order to optimize the customer experience.

It's all about managing the digital experience for your customers, including:

• Creating digital content 
• Creating an omnichannel experience for access from any device
• Presenting a consistent brand image and message
• Optimizing the user's digital experience
• Tracking messaging performance across all digital channels

DXM works by collecting and analyzing key data about your customers – what channels and devices they use, what products they buy and when, their online behavior and more. That data is then used to create and optimize the digital experience you offer to customers in all relevant channels. 

You manage the digital experience with a digital experience platform (DXP), such as Optimizely's Digital Experience Platform. A DXP consolidates a variety of marketing tools to help you present your message more efficiently. It builds on customer relationship management (CRM) solutions to manage not only customer data but also your marketing messages and campaigns. 

Why is digital experience management important?

Digital experience management helps you better understand your customers in order to meet their wants, needs, and expectations online. Managing the digital experience is crucial for success in today's highly competitive online environment and offers numerous benefits to both your company and your customers. 

Improves the digital customer experience

Improving the DX is a necessity if you want to increase customer satisfaction and create more repeat customers. PWC reports that 73% of customers say their customer experience and digital experience drive their buying decisions, after price and product quality. Equally important, 86% of customers say they'll pay more for a better customer experience. 

Ensures brand consistency

Focusing on DXM allows you to present a consistent brand image and message across all digital channels. This enables true omnichannel marketing, as customers experience your brand the exact same way no matter what digital channel they access.

Reaches all touchpoints

DXM doesn't focus only on a few channels or touchpoints, it addresses every possible interaction customers have with company and brand. You can now control the DX whether customers are using a computer, tablet, or mobile phone, in whatever channel they prefer.

Personalizes the customer experience

One of the most important aspects of DXM is that it enables you to personalize the digital experience for your customers. By collecting and analyzing key customer data, you can present each individual customer with personalized product selections, offers, messages and formats. Today’s customers expect a personalized experience and DXM helps you provide it. 

Shortens time to market

By actively tracking and analyzing key customer data and behaviors, DXM enables you to create and publish new content and campaigns almost immediately. You don't have to wait weeks or months for results; you can identify a trend and react to it in near real time.

Integrates multiple tools

When you use a DXP to manage the digital experience, you get a one-stop solution for all your DX needs. A full-featured DXP integrates into a single platform a variety of tools and services, including:

• Content management
• Asset management
• Commerce
• CRM
• Reporting and analysis
• Personalization and automation
• Experimentation
• APIs and integrations

Integrating all these tools and services not only improves efficiency, but it also helps you view the entire DX in a more holistic fashion. 

Provides more and better customer insights

DXM generates a large amount of valuable data about your customers. Robust reporting and analysis tools help you turn this data into actionable insights into what your customers want, what they need and what they expect online. These customer insights help you make more informed and faster decisions both for day-to-day operations and long-term planning. 

Increases sales, profits, and ROI

Ultimately, DXM helps your business grow its top and bottom lines. Providing a better and more personalized digital customer experience results in more sales from each customer. Being able to fine-tune that experience helps you gain those sales more profitably. All of which leads to a greater return on investment and stronger business growth. 

Turn to Optimizely for superior digital experience management 

When you want to use digital experience management to improve the digital experience for your customers, turn to Optimizely. Our Digital Experience Platform helps you seamlessly manage the digital journey for your customers across every possible touchpoint – and improve customer engagement. 

Contact Optimizely today to learn how digital experience management can help you better satisfy your customers and grow your business!