The VIP Xperience: 13 reasons why you need Kentico Xperience

A complete technical solution that combines content management with digital marketing and commerce capabilities, Kentico Xperience 13 makes it easier for content creators, marketers and developers alike to deliver outstanding digital experiences. 

Now that we’ve had a chance to play with it, we can safely recommend upgrading to Kentico Xperience 13 as soon as possible – and here are 13 reasons why. 

MVC is MVP

With Kentico Xperience 13, Kentico has become one of the first digital experience (DXP) vendors to switch to the ASP.NET Core MVC framework.

That’s important because older versions of Kentico, including 2019’s Kentico Xperience 12, supported Portal Engine, a framework that was specific to Kentico. And while Portal Engine’s simple drag-and-drop functionality certainly had its advantages, it was also beginning to struggle to keep up with the modern trends in building websites. 

From now on, however, the only way to write new projects in Kentico Xperience 13 is with the forward-facing ASP.NET Core MVC framework. This allows developers to use the latest programming structures and languages, and provides users and their customers with improved site performance.

Sites running on the next generation ASP.NET Core MVC framework benefit from faster load times and the ability to process larger amounts of data and traffic while using fewer resources, opening up more possibilities for web and app development.  

Support for the older Portal Engine technology is expected to stop at some point in the near future, so it will be essential for Kentico users to upgrade to Kentico Xperience 13 and begin enjoying the benefits of building with the ASP.NET Core MVC model soon.

Improved marketing automation 

Kentico Xperience 13 comes with straightforward and intuitive automation and analytics tools that give businesses the ability to streamline workflows and communication processes with an easy drag-and-drop interface. 

Using the built-in tools, you can simplify everyday tasks through the creation and saving of templates, so you can spend less time on busywork and more time on tasks that require a human touch. 

Out-of-the-box templates include time-based triggers like abandoned shopping cart notifications, birthday messages, and reminders that it’s time to re-order particular products, helping businesses reach customers at the right time with the right offers and information. Not only does this make life easier for you, but it gives customers a better experience and provides opportunities to build a stronger relationship with them.

Reusable content 

Kentico Xperience 13 brings back Kentico’s popular reusable content feature, which saves editors time by allowing them to reuse existing content to create new pages and sections. 

Instead of having to manually replicate content or update content in multiple places, content can now be updated in just one place and then distributed across multiple sites, in a mobile app, or in an email campaign, with canonical links to the main URL of the original page to satisfy SEO requirements for not duplicating content. 

The reusable content feature allows you to do more with less, and keep the information across your channels up-to-date with minimal effort.

Seamless integrations 

Kentico’s latest offering is endlessly customisable and extendable, and allows you to add functionality by creating your own modules, widgets, page templates or page types.

If that sounds a little too complex, you can also leverage pre-packaged integrations with SalesForce, Dynamics 365, Zoho, Marketo, SiteImprove, Recombee and Visual Studio to enhance your site or app. 

You can integrate with your chosen CRM, EPR, PIM, and virtually any other marketing technology, and if you’re running an eCommerce store, you can easily incorporate your preferred payment methods into your checkout process, providing customers with a frictionless shopping experience.

Beautiful pages

Kentico’s new Page Builder components enable you to build beautiful product pages without any technical skills, using simple drag-and-drop widgets to populate pages with rich interactions, imagery, videos, and technical specifications. 

Page Builder also makes it easy to enable your customers to choose from various product options and compound variants, so they can customise products according to their needs.

Multiple store management 

Kentico’s new DXP allows you to efficiently manage multiple stores in one place, rather than having to split your time between a variety of digital storefronts.

This means you can now share your products, payment methods, order statuses, invoices and other settings across all of your stores at the same time – another way Kentico Xperience 13 enables you to cut down on duplications and redundancies.

Increased accessibility 

Kentico Xperience 13 comes with KEVIN, Kentico’s code name for its integration with Amazon Alexa and Google Home. This enables users to control the Kentico Xperience interface with a voice assistant, and without the need for a keyboard or a mouse.

Not only might this be preferable for some users who prefer to use their voice instead of typing, but it makes the DXP more accessible to users with disabilities. Better yet, the voice assistant speaks in users’ native language.

Custom routing

Users who upgrade to the new Kentico DXP get access to the content tree-based routing functionality, which essentially makes it possible to automatically generate URLs for pages depending where they sit in the content tree.

Content tree-based routing also enables you to control the URL’s format and behaviour; store former URLs when moving content; and automate redirects for alternative and former URLs.

A new level of personalisation

The newest Kentico version enables you to provide your customers and site visitors with a personalised experience at every touchpoint, while ensuring compliance with the strictest data protection regulations.

Customer profiles, location data, demographics, behaviours and AI-driven recommendations to increase conversion rates are available to help you track and shape customer journeys across the web, mobile and email, so you can understand your visitors and optimise your results.

The new DXP will also automatically show your content to visitors in the appropriate language, currency and time zone.

Superior security 

The recent Microsoft Exchange attack once again highlighted the importance of securing your data, with at least 30,000 email systems compromised seemingly at random, including schools, hospitals, city councils and a variety of businesses.

Kentico Xperience 13 leverages various authentication methods and permissions to protect the information your customers and users have entrusted you with, and ensures the safety of your sites with multiple security layers separating data, administration and the live site from each other.

A/B testing 

Kentico Xperience 13 enables you to create and test multiple variations of your pages, so you can identify what’s really working for you – and what’s not – when you showcase and sell your products and services.

You can pick particular audience segments to include in the tests, set conversion goals, monitor conversion rates, and set your site to automatically run with the best-performing variant at the completion of the test.

A new licensing model

Last January, Kentico introduced a subscription model for its DXP, sitting alongside the traditional perpetual license model. With Kentico Xperience 13, the subscription model has become the default, which comes with certain advantages.

The subscription model is auto-scalable, so you can deploy your site across any number of servers and hosting environments without any licensing constraints.

Unlike many subscription-based models, you’re not charged on the basis of consumption-based metrics, so there are no extra fees for traffic, impressions, environments, user seats or email numbers.

Going forward, the maintenance renewal price is likely to increase for perpetual license holders, making the subscription model the clear choice for all Kentico users.

A longer lifecycle 

Kentico have announced that refreshes will be delivered for Kentico Xperience 13 until July 2023. Hotfixes and security updates will be provided all the way until July 2025, with technical support available until the end of 2026. 

In the meantime, they’ll be working on the next Kentico DXP, currently codenamed ‘Odyssey’. Odyssey will be available to subscribers when it’s released, and is likely to also use the ASP.NET Core MVC framework – another reason to make the transition now, instead of having to make the leap to Odyssey later on.

As Australia’s most awarded Kentico partner, Zeroseven are perfectly placed to help you make the upgrade to Kentico Xperience 13. Contact us to start enjoying the benefits of this highly flexible platform!