Item: Optimizely Content Management System
Rating: 8
Author: Brady Adams

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

We utilize Optimizely (Episerver) as the primary content management system (CMS) for all of our website environments. The system is managed by a team in our IT department, and marketing has a team of Web Content specialists and administrators who oversee the content implementation strategies. My team also provides CMS training to other individuals throughout our organization who need to make regular updates to their web pages. We have a variety of websites supported by this platform, including five major brands, a list of subdomains, and our testing environments used by our developers.

Pros and Cons

Easy to navigate between pages and across domains.
Block-based page building makes it easy to house media/content assets and apply shared content to multiple pages.
Robust administrative/developer features make it possible to manage backend tasks.

Optimizely/Episerver could improve the functionality for managing redirects to address conflicting redirects, possible redirect chains, and if existing redirects are being overwritten.
Optimizely/Episerver could also make it easier to manage old or no longer used blocks and contest assets. We are facing a maintenance issue in our organization where there are many old contest assets that remain on our CMS.

Return on Investment

Episerver/Optimizely's CMS allows us to make edits to the website in real-time and publish content immediately. There is no downtime for changes to go into effect, whether it's updating admin settings or producing webpage content.
Our workflow as a Web Content team is manageable because we are able to provide quick turnaround times when there are time-sensitive requests. The publishing settings allow us to schedule out content to publish ahead of time, or we can route changes to go into effect immediately. This has a huge impact on providing great customer support within our organization.

Usability

As a web content specialist with some technical background, Optimizely is fairly easy to use. As an enterprise-level CMS, it is simple to switch between domains, sections, and pages. I have quick access to some fundamental admin settings that I use on a regular basis. It also provides features to add custom HTML, CSS, JS, and other scripts as needed that are pretty straightforward. My only concern with usability is when it comes to training others in our organization who are not familiar with web development or using a CMS.

Time to Value

I am not sure as I joined the organization after this product had already been implemented.

Key Insights

Do you think Optimizely Content Management System delivers good value for the price?

Yes

Are you happy with Optimizely Content Management System's feature set?

Yes

Did Optimizely Content Management System live up to sales and marketing promises?

Yes

Did implementation of Optimizely Content Management System go as expected?

I wasn't involved with the implementation phase

Would you buy Optimizely Content Management System again?

Yes

Other Software Used

Oracle CX Marketing (formerly Oracle Marketing Cloud), BrightEdge, Canto, Wistia, Google Analytics

Likelihood to Recommend

I find that Episerver/Optimizely CMS is a great enterprise solution. It is great for managing multiple domains and subdomains within the same organization. I have not used this CMS for e-commerce but that may be one weak point. For content optimization, SEO-related work, and content production, the CMS provides a great experience with lots of flexibility and ease of organization.

A Flexible Enterprise-Level CMS for Agile Content Publishing

Software Version

Overall Satisfaction with Optimizely Content Cloud (formerly Episerver Content Cloud)