Episerver Acquires Idio

Episerver announced today that it has entered a definitive agreement to acquire U.K.-based Idio, the AI-powered solution for engaging individual customers with relevant content.

The news wasn’t ready to be released during the recent Episerver Ascend conference, although it will clearly have a significant impact on the product roadmap described there. There was a strong emphasis on content personalization at Ascend, and that’s Idio’s strong suit, although it’s main market has been in B2B. Episerver has a broader base of commerce customers, and one question is whether there’s enough digital maturity in that segment to leverage Idio’s 1:1 solution.

Idio’s real-time analytics uses intent signals to predict the interests and behavior of individual customers, surfacing next-best-content pieces to nurture the journey.

“Episerver plus Idio gives companies the technology they need to easily provide value to each individual in the form of a truly one-to-one digital experience,” said Episerver chief product officer Justin Anovick in a release. “The promise of one-to-one personalization is finally realized. Episerver and Idio are a seamless fit both technically and culturally, and we are highly motivated to prove our combined value now and in years to come.”

Although the cost of the acquisition is confidential, the move reflects Insight Partners’ willingness to invest in an accelerated roadmap for Episerver. Insight Partners, a venture capital and private equity firm, acquired Episerver in September 2018.

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Personalized content can be crucial in customer engagement, but what about the latest in experience? Customer and employee experience specialists Qualtrics has just released its Global State of XM (experience management, that is).

Some of their findings:

• XM performance correlates to sales growth and profitability.  Of the respondents who rate their company’s XM as “considerably above average,” four in five say that their profitability over the last year was above average for their industry, and 78 percent say their sales growth was above average.
• Customer and employee feedback are a powerful combination. Eighty-one percent of companies that use both customer and employee feedback classify their sales growth as “above average,” whereas only 58 percent of companies who use only one type of feedback, and 40 percent of companies who don’t use either type of feedback, say their sales growth is better than average.
• Executives value XM differently around the globe. More than 70 percent of executives believe that it is at least moderately important for their organizations to improve their XM capabilities.
• Companies face different obstacles to XM success. Executives who believe their organizations have considerably above average XM capabilities selected technology limitations as the most significant obstacle to their XM efforts. For executives at companies with average or below average XM capabilities, the top obstacles are lack of clear strategy and lack of leadership for these efforts.