How to select the right digital experience platform

So... you’re looking to modernize your brand’s digital experience because your customers expect more, your competitors are evolving, and your team needs tools that actually empower them. Where do you start? 

The market for digital experience platforms (DXPs) has exploded, with options ranging from composable stacks to monolithic suites. Every vendor promises agility, innovation, and ROI.  

But what you choose now will either accelerate your digital ambitions or instead, create long-term complexity, cost, and frustration. 

This article helps you cut through the noise and evaluate DXPs not just as technologies, but as strategic enablers for your business.

What is a DXP? 

A modern, composable DXP is more than just a CMS. It’s an integrated set of capabilities designed to manage and deliver digital experiences across channels—content, assets, personalization, analytics, governance, even commerce.  

At its best, a DXP supports both developers and marketers: developers get flexibility and composability; marketers get a streamlined, intuitive interface to build, test, personalize, and analyze content-driven experiences. 

But the reality is, not all platforms deliver on that promise. Some are too rigid or too sprawling. Some lack innovation, lose market traction, or quietly sunset. Others lure you in with low upfront costs, only to escalate spend with hidden fees and expensive services. That’s why selecting the right DXP means looking beyond features. You need to assess long-term fit, flexibility, and value. 

Ten considerations for selecting a DXP 

When helping clients evaluate DXPs, these are the questions we always return to: 

1. What is your Total Cost of Ownership (TCO)?  
   Go beyond licensing costs. Consider professional services, scaling, training, support, and maintenance. Ask for pricing transparency. Many platforms become far more expensive as usage grows, or integrations deepen. The true cost of ownership should be measured against expected benefits, aiming for exceptional ROI. Ask vendors about their pricing transparency and how costs might scale as your usage grows.  
   
   
   
2. How many departments play a role in content and asset management?  
   Do you have multiple functions within the organization that are each responsible for content and asset creation, review and approval, publishing and ultimately analysis of the results and course correction? Then a strong workflow and governance features are essential for success. 
   
   
   
3. Does your marketing team need control over digital experiences?  
   The flexibility to alter the layout of pages from time to time without developer intervention? This may help decide between a headless CMS versus a full-fledged DXP with authoring capabilities. If your teams want to update layouts, test variations, or launch campaigns without significant dev involvement, a headless CMS alone might not suffice. A marketer-friendly authoring environment is crucial. 
    
   
   
4. What are the strengths and skills of your internal teams?  
   Do you have a balanced mix of design, user experience, development or technology talent? A pure headless CMS may offer flexibility, but you’ll need strong front-end, UX, and platform expertise. Evaluate the skills you have as well as the ones you need. 
    
   
   
5. How much are you willing to manage infrastructure and security? 
   A DXP SaaS-based solution shifts the burden of scaling, patching, and availability to the vendor. This frees your team to focus on strategy and innovation, not infrastructure and security maintenance. 
   
    
6. Do you have the need for any commerce capabilities? 
   Not all DXPs support native or integrated commerce. If you manage product catalogs, need transactional workflows, or plan to evolve into a digital storefront, make sure your platform can scale with you. 
   
   
   
7. How critical is personalization for your customer experience? 
   Recent McKinsey research found that over 70% of consumers now consider personalization a basic expectation. When evaluating platforms, it’s important to look at platforms that offer real-time, AI-driven personalization and easily integrate with customer data platforms (CDPs).
   
   
   
8. How asset-heavy is your digital footprint? 
   If your brand produces and reuses large volumes of videos, imagery, or branded content, you may need integrated digital asset management (DAM) capabilities. 
   
   
   
9. Do you need to support multiple brand sites with shared functionality?  
   A strong design system, theme management, and content reuse model are vital for teams managing multi-brand ecosystems. Read more about our multi-site, enterprise approach to efficiently scaling digital experiences across hundreds of websites. 
   
   
   
10. Will the DXP evolve with you?  
    Trends like AI, composable architecture, privacy-first personalization, and omnichannel content delivery aren’t going away. Choosing a platform that actively innovates and proves its long-term ROI is going to save you many headaches down the road. 

Whichever you choose, your platform should seamlessly connect with existing and new systems, third-party applications, and external data sources. This should be central to the solution; not an afterthought.  

 

Make your DXP decision with clarity, not compromise. 

In 2025 and beyond, the digital experience platform you choose is a foundational part of how your organization connects with customers. Your DXP decision must align with your long-term goals, technical realities, and organizational strengths. 

The right DXP will unify teams, streamline operations, and power exceptional experiences across channels.  

The wrong one will hold you back. So, choose wisely! 

We’ve helped businesses across industries evaluate, implement, and optimize the right-fit DXP. If you’re at a crossroads, we’d be glad to help you think through the options with a strategic lens. Let's get connected.