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Ion Interactive vs. Optimizely Content Management System

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    Overview
    ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price

    Ion Interactive

    Score8 out of 10
    Enterprise companies (1,001+ employees)
    Ion is an enterprise-grade content experience platform that empowers modern marketers and designers to create no-code interactive content experiences integrated with their CRM or marketing automation tools.N/A

    Optimizely Content Management System

    Score8.4 out of 10
    N/AOptimizely Content Management System (CMS) is purpose-built for marketers, and fully composable for developers. The CMS supports the end-to-end content lifecycle, helping users to deliver on-brand, high-impact digital experiences that 'wow' audiences.N/A
    Pricing
    Ion InteractiveOptimizely Content Management System
    Editions & Modules
    Managed Services + SaaS
    Custom
    per year
    No answers on this topic
    Offerings
    Pricing Offerings
    Ion InteractiveOptimizely Content Management System
    Free Trial
    NoNo
    Free/Freemium Version
    NoNo
    Premium Consulting/Integration Services
    YesYes
    Entry-level Setup Fee$5,500 per customerRequired
    Additional Detailsion’s Build Anything SaaS platform provides organizations with an entirely new and agile interactive content marketing capability. It enables non-technical marketers and designers to create, test and measure an unlimited number of all types of interactive content marketing experiences. It includes unlimited seats, experiences, tests, customization, phone and email support, analytics and more.—
    More Pricing Information
    Community Pulse
    Ion InteractiveOptimizely Content Management System
    Considered Both Products
    Ion Interactive LLC
    No answer on this topic
    Optimizely
    No answer on this topic
    Key User Insights
    Would buy again
    No answers on this topic
    97%
    Would buy again
    170 Answers
    Delivers good value for the price
    No answers on this topic
    98%
    Delivers good value for the price
    144 Answers
    Happy with the feature set
    No answers on this topic
    93%
    Happy with the feature set
    164 Answers
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    No answers on this topic
    93%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    104 Answers
    Implementation went as expected
    No answers on this topic
    86%
    Implementation went as expected
    120 Answers
    Features
    Ion InteractiveOptimizely Content Management System
    Content Creation
    Comparison of Content Creation features of Ion Interactive and Optimizely Content Management System
    Feature
    Ion Interactive
    7.5
    105 Ratings
    4% below category average
    Optimizely Content Management System
    -
    Ratings
    Ideation10.099 Ratings00 Ratings
    Content collaboration5.094 Ratings00 Ratings
    Content Publishing
    Comparison of Content Publishing features of Ion Interactive and Optimizely Content Management System
    Feature
    Ion Interactive
    8.7
    120 Ratings
    11% above category average
    Optimizely Content Management System
    -
    Ratings
    Content hub10.0104 Ratings00 Ratings
    Forms / Gated content10.0107 Ratings00 Ratings
    Embedded CTAs10.0108 Ratings00 Ratings
    Content distribution8.093 Ratings00 Ratings
    Content promotion8.086 Ratings00 Ratings
    Content automation6.090 Ratings00 Ratings
    Content Reporting & Analytics
    Comparison of Content Reporting & Analytics features of Ion Interactive and Optimizely Content Management System
    Feature
    Ion Interactive
    8.5
    118 Ratings
    14% above category average
    Optimizely Content Management System
    -
    Ratings
    Audience profiling and targeting6.091 Ratings00 Ratings
    Closed-loop tracking and reporting8.095 Ratings00 Ratings
    Content performance analytics10.0116 Ratings00 Ratings
    Campaign optimization dashboard10.0107 Ratings00 Ratings
    Security
    Comparison of Security features of Ion Interactive and Optimizely Content Management System
    Feature
    Ion Interactive
    -
    Ratings
    Optimizely Content Management System
    8.4
    169 Ratings
    2% above category average
    Role-based user permissions00 Ratings8.4169 Ratings
    Platform & Infrastructure
    Comparison of Platform & Infrastructure features of Ion Interactive and Optimizely Content Management System
    Feature
    Ion Interactive
    -
    Ratings
    Optimizely Content Management System
    7.8
    166 Ratings
    0% below category average
    API00 Ratings7.8159 Ratings
    Internationalization / multi-language00 Ratings7.8127 Ratings
    Web Content Creation
    Comparison of Web Content Creation features of Ion Interactive and Optimizely Content Management System
    Feature
    Ion Interactive
    -
    Ratings
    Optimizely Content Management System
    7.7
    194 Ratings
    2% below category average
    WYSIWYG editor00 Ratings7.6178 Ratings
    Code quality / cleanliness00 Ratings7.9166 Ratings
    Admin section00 Ratings8.0178 Ratings
    Page templates00 Ratings8.0172 Ratings
    Library of website themes00 Ratings7.497 Ratings
    Mobile optimization / responsive design00 Ratings7.9176 Ratings
    Publishing workflow00 Ratings8.1172 Ratings
    Form generator00 Ratings6.4131 Ratings
    Web Content Management
    Comparison of Web Content Management features of Ion Interactive and Optimizely Content Management System
    Feature
    Ion Interactive
    -
    Ratings
    Optimizely Content Management System
    7.5
    180 Ratings
    0% below category average
    Content taxonomy00 Ratings7.9165 Ratings
    SEO support00 Ratings7.1164 Ratings
    Bulk management00 Ratings6.9137 Ratings
    Availability / breadth of extensions00 Ratings7.5142 Ratings
    Community / comment management00 Ratings8.0117 Ratings
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    Ion InteractiveOptimizely Content Management System
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    Medium-sized Companies
    CoSchedule Marketing Suite
    Score10 out of 10
    Square Online
    Score7.7 out of 10
    Enterprises
    PathFactory
    Score8.3 out of 10
    RWS Tridion Sites
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    All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
    User Ratings
    Ion InteractiveOptimizely Content Management System
    Likelihood to Recommend
    10.0
    (135 ratings)
    8.5
    (223 ratings)
    Likelihood to Renew
    7.0
    (22 ratings)
    9.8
    (34 ratings)
    Usability
    7.4
    (17 ratings)
    8.5
    (92 ratings)
    Availability
    10.0
    (1 ratings)
    9.2
    (4 ratings)
    Performance
    9.0
    (1 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Support Rating
    10.0
    (18 ratings)
    10.0
    (8 ratings)
    Online Training
    8.0
    (1 ratings)
    10.0
    (4 ratings)
    Implementation Rating
    10.0
    (6 ratings)
    6.4
    (2 ratings)
    Product Scalability
    10.0
    (2 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    User Testimonials
    Ion InteractiveOptimizely Content Management System
    Likelihood to Recommend
    Ion Interactive LLC
    If you want to choose a quick start template and fill in the fields with your content, Ion will be fantastic for you. We've done this with whitepapers and quizzes and it's been great and extremely easy to use. If you have an exact idea of what you want, and a background in web development, you may get frustrated. Ion has some quirks that make it tricky to fully customize - everyone once in a while I really just want to go into the HTML and make some changes, but can't. If you are looking to reuse a piece of content for specific targeting (industry or account-specific), Ion is great. The dynamic substitutions are great and very helpful.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Optimizely
    If you want to build a website quickly there are plenty of ways to do so with some great examples and plenty of support both from the company and in the forums. if you want to build a more complex structure you can but be ready to spend the time to build exactly what you need as a solid foundation goes a massive way before building out content and making those choices early and sticking with them helps
    Incentivized
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    Pros
    Ion Interactive LLC
    • Quick Starts make it so easy to get started.
    • Real-time updates are awesome and save a ton of wasteful process.
    • The combination of user friendliness for simple things and the flexibility to do more complex things is great.
    • Chat support is excellent and deeper-dive support has been super helpful.
    • The ability to use these tools in the cloud or embedded has given us tactic flexibility.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Optimizely
    • I think the user interface for content admins is very good and very competitive. And compared to other providers, the technology that CMS in particular has. So the way it integrated the net ecosystem is very well because it follows the MBC pattern. So basically it just allows really simple implementations for what would normally be complex components on any other sort of vendor that's out there.
    Incentivized
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    Cons
    Ion Interactive LLC
    • Ion University, while stacked with a wealth of information, is difficult to navigate from a troubleshooting perspective. The tutorial videos are all very helpful, but they are also very long. Sometimes I would want to search for how to address a particular issue I was struggling with and it would be a two-minute segment buried in a 45-minute video.
    • Again, getting back the self-guidance side of things. I think a lot of the tutorials are set up in a way that makes sense to Ion, but not as much to the end user.
    • I think the controls admins use when creating new users could be a bit more straightforward.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Optimizely
    • 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.
    Incentivized
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    Likelihood to Renew
    Ion Interactive LLC
    We use it for every landing page and we plan on only doing more dynamic content creation. We dont see that option coming in-house any time ever in the future. ION has a very robust platform for us to work with that really allows us to do more for our customers in regards to having the one-to-one conversation.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Optimizely
    Since I work on the implementation side of things, and do not directly own licensing for Ektron CMS, I have to base this rating off of how I think it will be received or presented to customers looking to start a new site deployment. I try to remain CMS agnostic, though my specialty is with the .NET and Microsoft stack. Because of the experience I have working with Ektron, I tend to be more forgiving with the shortcomings as I am familiar with how to work around them or past them from experience. Being familiar with the community available also helps, as you become familiar with the best approaches to find solutions to your issues. Each product has it's ups and downs and all of them are only going to be as good as the company or development team implementing them can make them. This is EXTREMELY important to remember when choosing a CMS, as it can make or break your expensive investment.
    Read full review
    Usability
    Ion Interactive LLC
    Usability is straightforward, with extensive documentation and tutorials provided to ensure landing pages are built to specifications and can be optimized for performance. Built-in platform funnels give insight into customer dropoff, success/failures, and conversions (at a glance). Setting up a landing page can be done quickly and easily, with numerous integrations (CRMs like SalesForce, for instance) supported
    Incentivized
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    Optimizely
    From our editors perspective they find the CMS system easy and to clear to use. Our developers find it very easy to design on and appreciate the level of service support available. It's also always evolving and getting better every year. We find this investment reassuring and encourages us to try keep pace and see how we can continue to push the envelope and continue to improve all aspect of our websites and online touch points.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Reliability and Availability
    Ion Interactive LLC
    No answers on this topic
    Optimizely
    Unplanned outages or errors are fairly rare in our instance. And when there are issues, they're usually fixed fairly quickly
    Read full review
    Performance
    Ion Interactive LLC
    Sometimes the editor can be a little slow.
    Read full review
    Optimizely
    No answers on this topic
    Support Rating
    Ion Interactive LLC
    The ION support team is amazing. There has not been a single issue they they could not solve for me. If there is a feature or request that they do not have, they have even, on occasion, created custom scripts for our team. *Update 6/5/17 - ION has continued to delight on multiple occasions. I appreciate their attention to detail and ability to solve whatever issue I have. After 3+ years of use and support, ION still has my full endorsement.
    Incentivized
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    Optimizely
    I attended multiple trainings/tutorials early in the process. The vendor-supplied content about Optimizely was engaging for users/attendees (I often analyze training content, compliance programs, governance plans), which helps our OCM people by having good "word of mouth" about the product long before a rollout ever happens. I actually when the user-focused portion of the Optimizely Academy twice in 2022 to ensure I had a grasp on operability and to be able to support the training and OCM efforts
    Incentivized
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    Online Training
    Ion Interactive LLC
    They offer a great amount of online training, videos, articles, etc. There is usually an answer available if you run into an issue. I would recommend taking advantage of the online training they offer. I wish I would have done it sooner.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Optimizely
    Ektron is one of the best solution for .Net platform. Over the years have improved the performance issues that the previous versions had. My only complain is right now you can't do Page builder pages if you choose to have a MVC architecture
    Read full review
    Implementation Rating
    Ion Interactive LLC
    There were a lot of things we learned about the tool once we really got in and got our hands dirty. Being hands-on was essential for our team to be able to utilize ION in the most effective manner.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Optimizely
    I was not fully involved.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Alternatives Considered
    Ion Interactive LLC
    I was not the decision maker to choose this over Uberflip, but the UI is much more appealing to me. It's incredibly easy to use, clean, and from a backend standpoint, it requires little to no tech savvy'ness. Our team has really enjoyed using it and has required no training what-so-ever.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Optimizely
    Optimizely Content Management System is much more feature rich, and less complex that the other CMS platforms we have used. Optimizely Content Management System is more intuitive in how the content is structured and how easy it is to pull blocks of content to create the layout of a page.
    Incentivized
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    Scalability
    Ion Interactive LLC
    Separate client portfolios enable scalability, however, some elements are still grouped for all accounts so it's difficult to scale for an ad agency with multiple clients. Would prefer totally separate sections of the platform for all clients with each element housed separately.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Optimizely
    No answers on this topic
    Return on Investment
    Ion Interactive LLC
    • Though we have not had the service long enough to see any measurable outcomes, we've been able to create interactive web content faster than ever before
    • The speed with which we can build interactive pages and re-use assets has been critical as projects we've done with Ion have made their way around and more and more internal clients have said "me too" for their own projects
    • It is very pricey at $28K for the base annual subscription (dropping to $24k after the first year), so depending on your budgetary situation, that may make no sense for your team--but we had contract money set aside for a company to build us a microsite for around the amount, so we just used it for Ion instead and will now be building the microsite ourselves using it
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Optimizely
    • Flexibility with design that allows us to work towards our mission of 'Tennis Opened Up'
    • Speed of deploying content, meaning users can really on us for the most up-to-date content on tennis in Britain
    • Ability to have different logged-in areas for different user groups, allowing us to create more bespoke and personalised experiences
    Incentivized
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    ScreenShots

    Ion Interactive Screenshots

    Screenshot of ion empowers your other marketing technologies to deliver higher fidelity, data-driven scoring, targeting, segmentation and personalization.Screenshot of The types of interactive experiences the ion platform can create is near-endless. These are the most common types used by our customers: Assessments, Calculators, eBooks, Interactive Infographics, Interactive White Papers, Landing Pages, Lookbooks, Quizzes, Resource Library, Solution Finder.Screenshot of See what our customers are saying about our platform and services!Screenshot of Starting at $2,000 per month, you get an unlimited, scalable interactive content platform with our full feature set. Including: Unlimited experiences, unlimited use of Quick Starts, Unlimited Seats/Users, Unlimited A/B/n Testing, Unlimited Sell-Side Experiences, Unlimited Phone, email & chat support, unlimited analytics... PLUS a FREE custom-branded theme that can be applied to all of your experiences.Screenshot of You have the option to start from a template or entirely from scratch. Our Quick Start template library includes more than 100 fully tested, responsive and flexible interactive experiences you can brand, customize and launch.Screenshot of ion is the only interactive content platform that provides the scalable foundation to grow from one interactive experience to one thousand interactive experiences. With ion, interactive content development complexity, long timelines, high costs and maintenance problems are replaced with freedom and agility.

    Optimizely Content Management System Screenshots

    Screenshot of Content delivery: Developers can use modern GraphQL and REST APIs to query content from any source and send it to any channel or device.Screenshot of User roles and permissionsScreenshot of (SaaS CMS): Visual Builder: Add an image: Optimizely Visual Builder offers a range of editing features designed to make content creation and layout building intuitive and accessible to both technical and non-technical users. A drag-and-drop system is used to add, move, and rearrange elements within the layout, for quick and flexible content organization.Screenshot of (SaaS CMS): Visual Builder: Create an experience: Create an Experience functionality in Optimizely Visual Builder offers a code-free way to build and manage captivating digital experiences. It offers pre-built content blocks or elements (like text, images, buttons, forms, etc.) that can be positioned on the page layout as desired. Visual Builder offers extensive options to customize the appearance and behavior of these elements. Users can modify colors, fonts, sizes, animations, and even add interactive features providing flexibility in arranging content, accommodating various design needs and responsiveness across different screen sizes.Screenshot of (SaaS CMS): Visual Builder: Publish: The Visual Builder displays changes in real-time as they are made. This includes side-by-side previews for different devices like desktops, tablets, and mobiles. Before publishing, the Interactive Preview mode can be used to test elements like forms, buttons, and other interactive components to ensure they work as expected on the live site. Changes can then be published directly from the Visual Builder interface, making them instantly available to site visitors.Screenshot of the central location to manage assets, editing and publishing content.