Unlock the Best of Both Worlds with a Hybrid DXP as the Ultimate CMS Solution

TL; DR: When it comes to content management systems, the “one-size-fits-all” approach often falls short. That’s where Kentico comes in — a hybrid digital experience platform that combines the best of traditional and headless content management systems. With insights from CEO Dominik Pintér, we talked about how Kentico prioritizes marketing teams with an all-in-one, customizable platform.

My partner has a hat problem. He’s a sucker for a good baseball cap, but the issue is that none of the hats he ever finds fit him. When we see the little label on the inside, we realize we’re about to be hit with another disappointing fitting: the four dreaded words that say one-size-fits-all.

For many people, the “one-size-fits-all” approach often falls short. I’m sure most of us know this is true beyond just retail. For instance, a medical treatment that has worked on a thousand patients may only work 90 out of 100 times. So the question becomes: What about everyone else?

So many industries are seeing a greater demand for tailored solutions as consumer expectations evolve and businesses face increasingly diverse needs.

Take WordPress, for example. As a traditional content management system (CMS), WordPress allows you to update content on the backend and immediately see those changes on the frontend. Although it’s the most popular CMS in the world, modifying the frontend design can require systemwide changes and may restrict some customization options.

Kentico is a hybrid headless CMS platform that combines the best of both worlds. When one size doesn’t fit all, hybrid CMSes bridge the gap by offering customization without sacrificing ease of use.

We spoke with Dominik Pintér, CEO of Kentico, about how the digital experience platform (DXP) has evolved into a versatile solution that allows you to manage content, use eCommerce tools, and implement digital marketing strategies.

Kentico was founded in 2004 by Petr Palas. It wasn’t until 2007 that Dominik joined the team as a developer.

After a successful tenure, he left the company in 2015 to pursue other opportunities. During his time away, he gained some valuable experience, which he brought back to Kentico when he returned in 2020 as VP of Product. From there, Dominik moved to a Managing Director role in 2021 before taking the seat as CEO in 2022.

Since then, Kentico has met some impressive milestones.

“It’s been quite a journey, and I think hitting that 20th anniversary in this industry is amazing,” Dominik shared.

Kentico started as a .NET CMS before transitioning to cloud implementations. But its team noticed the increased demand for more versatile solutions, so Kentico eventually expanded to become a DXP with eCommerce, personalization, and marketing automation features, such as email marketing (think techniques like A/B testing or newsletter personalization based on behavior).

My main wish is that one day the industry will return to focusing on what users need and how we can help them solve their problems, rather than just on profits and growth.

Dominik Pintér, CEO of Kentico

“We are on a really good growth trajectory,” Dominik added. “Along the way, we’ve basically been able to reinvent ourselves multiple times.”

With that said, Dominik shared that Kentico is enhancing its analytics platform and capabilities.

“The issue is that hundreds to thousands of tools compete for attention. When you ask clients which tools are important to them, they often don’t know. They’ve just heard the buzzword somewhere,” explained Dominik. “So many technologies have outpaced people. The marketplace is flooded, and buyers are often persuaded to purchase tools they don’t need.”

And that brings us to Xperience by Kentico.

If you’re unfamiliar, a digital experience platform (DXP) is like a content management system — but taken to the next level. DXPs differ in that they connect all digital channels into one platform and can create and deliver custom experiences.

Dominik likened it to a bank. Banks typically cater to two distinct groups: consumers and companies. Consumers require online access to log in, transfer money, check their accounts, and make bill payments. On the other hand, companies may use the bank for merchant services such as credit card processing, reconciliation, and reporting.

“We put a lot of emphasis on multichannel and multibrand management because most of the companies we work with don’t have just a single brand, but instead multiple products or branches,” Dominik noted.

So just as banks serve both consumers and businesses, Kentico’s clients often need to reach different audiences across various channels. That’s why Kentico’s multi-brand and multichannel approach enables its clients to tailor their messaging for each unique audience, whether it’s B2C or B2B.

In 2020, Kentico began developing its next-generation platform and released it in 2023. Xperience by Kentico serves as the primary DXP platform for delivering a unified experience for website creation, content management, or customer journey analysis.

But before Xperience by Kentico, there was Kentico Xperience 13.

Kentico has been developing the Xperience platform since 2004, continuously innovating and releasing incremental updates each year.

But with so much functionality, it can be easy to become overwhelmed or bogged down. So, in 2020, the company introduced Xperience by Kentico and officially launched it in 2023.

“The foundation and key problems we are trying to solve remain the same,” Dominik said. “We are still primarily focused on digital marketing teams, helping them represent their companies and achieve their business objectives effectively. Sometimes, it’s about selling products online, and other times, it’s about expanding their fan base.”

Xperience by Kentico allows businesses to start with a small setup and scale quickly as needed without having to deal with migration down the line.

“It serves very well to our existing clients because it’s a full-fledged DXP. It contains a lot of functionality, content management, system marketing automation, email marketing, personalization, and so much more,” Dominik added.

Dominik emphasized that agility is particularly why Kentico did not opt for a 100% headless CMS. Headless CMSes allow you to build your digital experience platform with the option to integrate any tools you need.

But there’s an issue.

“It prevents you from experimenting fully because every tool you bring in means additional costs, licensing, integration, and maintenance,” Dominik pointed out. “One of our core values as a company is to experiment and evolve, and we try to preach the same to our clients.”

That’s why Kentico opted for a hybrid solution. Here’s what you can expect from Xperience by Kentico:

• Multichannel CMS: Manage and organize content across channels with tools like Page Builder, Content Hub, and headless delivery. Create secure portals for different user groups.
• Digital marketing: Analyze customer behavior to provide personalized experiences, optimize reach with SEO, and build loyalty with relevant content. Use AI for enhanced analytics and customer insights.
• Easy development: Add custom extensions easily. Enjoy seamless integration with your ASP.NET Core app, and choose from SaaS, on-premises, or cloud deployment. Benefit from Kentico’s ISO 27001 and SOC 2 Type 2 certifications for optimal data protection.

Learn more about Xperience by Kentico with its product vision and road map, where you can see what Kentico is up to behind the scenes.

Agility and experimentation are sought-after attributes in a CMS, and in today’s world, this is impossible without some automation or generative AI.

Dominik mentioned that Kentico plans to integrate AI into all its sub-platforms soon. But Kentico isn’t implementing AI just because.

“We’re not adding AI because it’s trendy. We’re looking at how we can help people automate things to make things easier. We are focusing on practical use cases where AI is proven reliable, such as generating alternative text for images,” he explained.

AI is already used in digital marketing for basic tasks such as email generation.

Soon, however, Kentico users can employ AI for more advanced functions such as analytics, customer profile updates, and other processes that can help marketers save time.

The primary focus will be on using analytics to give digital marketing teams deeper insights into their audience’s behavior and user journeys.

This involves tracking user interactions across various channels — such as websites, emails, and social media — to understand their behavior and how they move through different stages of engagement.

“We want to help our digital marketing teams to understand how their audience is behaving, including their user journeys and so on throughout those multiple channels if they’re engaging with multiple brands,” Dominik said.

The goal is to integrate these insights into a single, comprehensive dashboard.

This would allow digital marketing teams to see all their data in one place, including interactions with different brands and channels. It would also make it easier to analyze and respond to user behavior across multiple touchpoints.

Take Procter & Gamble, for example. The multinational consumer goods corporation owns popular brands such as Tide, Pampers, Crest, and Head & Shoulders.

A parent purchasing Pampers diapers may also use Tide detergent. Understanding these cross-brand interactions is important because P&G can determine which brands exhibit strong synergy and answer questions such as: Are Tide users also loyal to Crest toothpaste? Do Pampers buyers often choose Head & Shoulders shampoo?

With this in mind, Kentico plans to keep customer needs at the forefront.

Dominik said it best: “My main wish is that one day the industry will return to focusing on what users need and how we can help them solve their problems, rather than just on profits and growth.”

That sounds like the kind of company I would want to do business with. (And maybe the hat industry can follow suit.)

Book a demo with Kentico today.