Optimizely Content Management System powers the corporate websites and allows complete control of content across the board. We utilize Optimizely Content Management System v11 and 12 and soon all websites will be on 12.
Allows for quick and easy spool up of new SEM pages using templated design blocks and then additional custom blocks for specific use cases.
Pros
Management of pages
Management of assets
Integrates well with other third party tools
Cons
One really has to buy the entire tech stack to get maximum benefits
Some third party tools will require custom integration
While extremely full featured; one could always ask for more
Likelihood to Recommend
I’ve found it works well for sparse sites as well as for significantly larger sites with multiple subthemes along with the primary theme. It also offers the perfect mix of WYSIWYG and code level manipulation. Also full featured and allows for the ultimate in customization when it comes to marketing needs.
VU
Verified User
Manager in Marketing (Retail company, 10,001+ employees)
I'm in UX so I use it to create custom blocks for CMS pages. We are on an old install of EPI Server, so I'm guessing we aren't experiencing Opti to its full potential.
Pros
Folder structure - I was on Magento 1.x & 2.x for 10 years, which had no folder structure for blocks or images - it was very difficult to find things. We couldn't keep anything straight without it.
The fact that it knows what block or image is being used and links to where it's being used is pure gold. It prevents deletion of needed elements.
I like that I can drag a block or image somewhere new and it doesn't break anything.
Our search of blocks and images is now working, that's very helpful.
Cons
Magento did have some nice tools for creating product groups or carousels for promotion. Opti seems to be lacking in that.
A blog - maybe this is available and we don't have it installed, but a searchable blog would be very appreciated.
Structured Data/MicroData - maybe it's our install, but this seems to be missing
Meta data: we have access to limited types and need to make a request from IT, it would be nice to be able to access more to adjust for SEO needs.
When in a folder on the BLOCKS tab, it would be wonderful to hit the MEDIA tab and stay in that same folder.
I have some less technical people that will make folders with spaces - which Opti handles, but it would be great if it wouldn't accept a space or gave an error message not to use them.
I think I know why the extra code is added to urls and image links, but it causes issues when taking things from our testing site to the live site. For example, I need to copy the Navigation from Inspect Element on testing to put it in production. I have learned to work around it, but it's not my favorite.
Likelihood to Recommend
Speaking from a UX/CMS standpoint - the ability to keep blocks and images organized in folders is key. I can move blocks or images without breaking anything and the system tells you if you about to delete something that is being used and links you to those locations.
VU
Verified User
Team Lead in Marketing (Retail company, 1001-5000 employees)
We use Optimizely Content Management System to manage all of our site content for a QA and prod environment, as well as managing all dynamic promotions. Our site is made for ecommerce sales but we also provide a lot of value to customers doing research before visiting one of our many stores as well as being a resource to our store employees. We recently switched to a different site search provider (that uses AI, which for the breadth of what we sell is very helpful) and brought in reviews platform.
Pros
Asset and block organization (using same folder structure)
Page type options (html, css options)
Search within CMS
Commerce editing UI
Cons
promo types, several have been released that do not work as they are advertised/labeled which has caused us to make custom promos for just about all of them where we've actually fixed the functionality. The OOB types are completely unreliable
promo exclusions/sorting -- this is very buggy, and some of this would normally be "out of the box" like no two order discounts should ever be able to stack. This gets incredibly difficult to manage when you have 75 active promos at a time.
asset management - replacement files with same name aren't recognized even when the first version is deleted, this creates a mess in asset folders - nothing can be successfully deleted from epi asset library
html automatic edits -- issues when typing in either content page links or asset links, epi always adds random characters to the end (?"Epieditmode=false,6789" for example, which doesn't break content, but does make it more difficult for the team to use non-epi html tools to build or edit
auto dimensions on images -- when adding an image in the html, you have the address exactly, but any other way causes the editor to put width and height dims on the code, making the image warp in mobile, this is adding steps to undo the automatic edits, they are completely unhelpful
blogs - we are running a blog in Opti that is compeltely manual, every "related article" and every "articles about x topic" block is hard coded, there is nothing dynamic in the content library which is frustrating, and creates a huge time suck for articles across the site, every time there is a new one, that's 10+ manual page updates
Likelihood to Recommend
It is strong in the basics of site management, but it could use a lot of work with promotions and running online offers. Organization of content is pretty simple UI, and there are several page types to make a variety of content layouts. This CMS is great for sites with a need for a lot of landing pages, but it does not allow for much dynamic content, such as events, a blog, product recs/feeds, etc. It is clunky when it comes to product info management and even worse with promos, it can work but not without a lot of workarounds which is very demanding of time for those working with it. The ability to search pages is helpful, but the search within assets or blocks does not work, which makes it very complicated to use unless the user knows exactly where they put something - therefore there is a lot of copying, rebuilding, duplication because of this lack of being able to find older content that is not on live pages anymore. At a point this becomes overwhelmingly full, and infeasible to sort through.
VU
Verified User
Team Lead in Marketing (Retail company, 1001-5000 employees)
We use Optimizely Content Management System to manage the front end of our website. It allows a large amount of more complex features to be possible and enables a quick way to update the site with relative ease. The program itself, although complex in places, once you are used to it, it is built rather logically, making it easier to find your way around.
Pros
Creating new pages and blocks are is simple to do
The layout of how the system works is logical and easy to understand
Uploading documents before running jobs is easy to do
Cons
It seems to be quite difficult to be developed for new features
There seem to be some issues when trying to update just the front end data without doing a full catalogue import to over-write it
Likelihood to Recommend
It has been useful for updating specific pages, that process is very simple and it makes for an easy task to do that isn't too time consuming. It can also be quite long winded to do some jobs, although functional, it doesn't always work exactly as we would want it to.
VU
Verified User
Administrative Assistant in Marketing (Retail company, 1001-5000 employees)
At Coastal Farm, we use the Optimizely CMS in conjunction with the Optimizely Commerce Cloud for our site: www.coastalcountry.com. The templating system in commerce allows us to make extensive use of the localization feature in CMS on all pages of the website, including product listing pages, product detail pages, and cart and checkout pages. This allows us to change page elements on the fly without requiring code changes. We use the core CMS functions for promotional pages and for our blog, which is extensive. Content tagging allows us to link products in the catalog to relevant blog topics and specific articles which provides additional value to our customers. The Optimizely platform is very extensible, so we can build what we need on top of it in order to provide the right experience for our customers.
Pros
Optimizely CMS is highly extensible and customizable.
Optimizely CMS CMS editor allows easy configuration of new pages.
Optimizely CMS allows developers to prebuild highly customized content blocks for later use.
Optimizely OMS localization enable fast content changes on very programmatic pages.
Cons
The CMS admin UI is based on frames, which can be problematic when reloading.
The CMS admin UI can sometimes be slow to respond.
Likelihood to Recommend
Optimizely CMS is well suited for standalone content-rich sites. The templating system and localization along with the platform's extensibility allow designers and developers to build highly functional components that business users can use to build pages that provide customers with great website experiences. It works extremely well when paired with Optimizely Commerce.
I feel that Optimizely CMS is less well suited for very media-heavy sites. The media management features are not as fully functional as what you would find in a Digital Asset Management (DAM) system, but Optimizely CMS can be integrated with a DAM which would solve the issue.
Episerver CMS is primarily used as a tool, in conjunction with Episerver Commerce, to provide content, information, and products to our bicycling customers. Episerver CMS provides page and block formats in which our marketing department formulates content for consumers and the back-end CMS the tooling necessary to execute. The CMS system is primarily used by our content management team, associated with our marketing department, and solves our need to have a system accessible to the less technical members of our staff.
Pros
Allows for easy content updating by less technical members
Provides avenues for improving and customizing the underlying system
Executes quickly for fast rendering to end-users
Cons
A more tightly integrated E-Commerce set of tools
Improvement of the back-end runtime speed
More out of the box visualization options for interface development
Likelihood to Recommend
Episerver CMS provides a very well rounded system that will meet the needs of most businesses, in my experience. The biggest draw-back that I've seen with the underlying system is the response time in the back-end. Being on the digital experience cloud allows you to spread the load between services, but our experience has shown, even with a distributed network, the response time on the back-end can prove time-consuming and have delays in loading for content writers/editors. If there's a lot of hands-on, constantly, you will need to make sure the architecture has the response time your team needs.
It maintains 75% of our company websites with the plan to convert all the websites to Episerver. It is being used by our Marketing and Merchandising departments.
Pros
Ease and ability to make changes to Website content.
Easy to maintain.
Non-technical staff are able to understand the how the website is configured.
Cons
A better explanation of Security/Permissions for Functions. It was a trial by fire to determine which area each Permission controlled. I had to create a spreadsheet turn off and on specific areas and document what was taken away as access. It was very time-consuming.
Speaking of permissions for functions, the design could be better. The EDIT button does not align properly to the given permission.
