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May 20, 2022

Introducing Asset Sidebar Extension and Additional Metadata Support

We are excited to introduce two of our latest features: Asset Sidebar Extension and Additional Metadata Support for entries and assets. Asset Sidebar Extension is a new type of Experience Extension. It lets developers create sidebar widgets to add capabilities or custom functionalities for editors to manage, transform and optimize stack assets. Additional Metadata Support lets developers add metadata to assets and entries (via API) without incrementing their versions. This helps better organize or categorize assets and aids easy search. Let’s look at the details of these two exciting features.Meet the Newest Member of the Experience Extension Family: Asset Sidebar Extension If you have been using Contentstack’s Experience Extensions, you already know the power of extensions and the value they can add to your content management experience. With the all-new Asset Sidebar Extension, you can create custom widgets that dramatically enhance the way your content editors manage assets. You can, for example, create widgets for cropping images, adding filters or converting assets into other formats. You can also add auto image tagging, audio to text, quality enhancer, file compression and finding similar images. The possibilities are endless. You can even choose to integrate with third-party applications to create custom widgets. Here is an example of the Asset Sidebar Extension: With few design limitations in the extension creation process, you can develop robust extensions for your growing business needs.Why Should You Use Asset Sidebar Extension? It can make asset management a lot easier for your content managers. That’s not all, let's look at some of the other valuable benefits you gain with this extension:Optimize your assets within a single application thus increasing productivityImprove front-end delivery and performance with underlying API-driven optimizationTailor your business experience to meet unique requirements using Contentstack as a medium, with the help of custom asset extensionsAccelerate utilization of media files in the native Contentstack repositoryAutomate mundane tasksRead our documentation to get started with Asset Sidebar Extensions.Manage Entries And Assets Better with Additional Metadata Support Metadata, as you might already know, is the data that gives more information about other data, but not about the content of the data. When you create a new entry or upload an asset, Contentstack adds some basic metadata by default, such as:created bycreated atfile sizelast modifiedcontent type referenced inBut as your content needs grow, you may want to add custom metadata to manage your content effectively. To that end, we have added support for custom metadata for your assets and entries. As of now, this can be done only via API (not through the UI), using the Metadata Content Management API requests. Examples of custom, additional metadata that you can add include:entry type (parent entry or referenced entry) orasset type (image, video, audio clip, or document)owner details for an entry or assetcopyrights for an image or documentgeneric SEO tagsrelated articlescustom tags or labelsWhy Add Additional Metadata and What Should You Consider While Adding Metadata? There is a fine line between having enough or too much metadata. Entries and assets become versatile and much easier to access and manage with additional metadata support. The absence of metadata defeats the purpose of the digital asset management system and makes it challenging to find content. However, if you give away way too much meta information about your digital content, it may allow harmful access to external users and lead to copyright infringements. So, add enough metadata to fulfill your business requirements, but make sure it isn't too extensive. Read more about Additional Metadata Support for entries and assets in our documentation. Note: These plan-based features are only available in the new Contentstack interface.

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Oct 19, 2021

Contentstack Makes “MACH Speed” a Reality with New Acquisition

I am excited to announce a significant addition to Contentstack that not only represents a massive investment into our partner and customer success, but also celebrates a full-circle achievement that truly challenges the status quo.We are adding more than 50 world-class CMS and integration experts from the CMS division of Raw Engineering, a digital solutions company I co-founded in 2007. This acquisition includes experts who were part of the original team that pioneered headless CMS (and who knew they were on to something big). Fast forward to today, we’re bringing this additional expertise to the Contentstack community in the form of Enablement Services. This allows us to not only instantly scale our Catalyst partner program and Care Without Compromise™, but it also makes a microservices, API-first, cloud-native SaaS, and headless (MACH) approach more achievable for every organization. Expertise and guidance are essential for accelerating the shift from monolithic suites to agile technology stacks. Contentstack’s new Enablement Services will provide access to CMS and MACH subject matter experts who will contribute technical know-how and tooling to make the journey to MACH faster than ever. The team will accelerate product innovation across the Contentstack ecosystem by contributing blueprints, integrations, developer resources, and ecosystem enablement services. Now enterprises can more easily realize their innovation potential and achieve their digital transformation goals. Together, the Contentstack tribe, our customers, and our catalysts will challenge the industry to never settle for the status quo.

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Jun 09, 2021

“B” Stands for “Believe” – and $57.5 Million!

Today marks another milestone at Contentstack! We announced our $57.5 million series B financing, bringing our total capital raised to $89 million!Putting The Capital To Work In the 21 months since we raised our series A financing, we have seen unprecedented demand for a better way to manage content. Helping customers realize their visions during the pandemic has brought the Contentstack tribe a great deal of joy in an otherwise tumultuous time. We anticipate a few key areas of added investment, including:International expansion - The EMEA market is the clear leader for international growth for this space, and Contentstack will continue to invest in growing its team and customer base in Europe and the UK. Increased market adoption in LATAM and APAC calls for new investments in these regions to meet this growing demand.Catalyst Ecosystem - Contentstack’s partnership program (the Catalysts) has grown into a thriving ecosystem of technology, digital agencies, and system integration partners worldwide. Continuing to invest in those relationships and related joint go-to-market activity will support mutual growth.Innovation & R&D - With over 200 feature releases and enhancements delivered last year, our innovation engine is already firing on all cylinders. The additional firepower (both capital and technology) Georgian brings to the table allows us to supercharge and accelerate a number of exciting projects that have been incubating in the Contentstack Labs. More on that soon... Who’s On The Boat? I often liken my entrepreneurial journey to a sailboat voyage. Who you have on the boat is extremely important as they are the players that help you weather a storm, navigate rough waters, and have your back along the way. And when it’s smooth sailing, everyone gets to have a little fun together! In addition to the Contentstack tribe, investors play an important role on this journey, and I’m super proud of who’s on the boat with us!Insight Partners - Lead investor Insight Partners has been much more than an investor. They’ve become a true member of the Contentstack tribe with Teddie Wardi serving as an invaluable sounding board and thought partner as we weathered the storm together through 2020. Insight has directly supported our growth by leveraging its network and programs. Additionally, Insight showed how to move beyond lip service and into action to demonstrate our combined commitment to values. As an example, with Insight’s support, select portfolio CEOs united to deliver the “Insight ScaleUp Pledge,” delivering commitments to move the needle on Diversity, Equity & Inclusion in our companies. We are thrilled to continue working with Insight into our next phase of growth.Georgian Partners - We are excited to welcome Georgian and Emily Walsh to the Contentstack tribe. Georgian brings unique A.I. product expertise to the table, which will help accelerate A.I. as a superpower for Contentstack’s enterprise customers. Georgian’s social impact commitment was icing on the cake. Their Higher Purpose report includes several examples of how the firm gives back to the community and plays a role in moving the needle in STEM education.Participation from all Existing Investors - Rounding it out, existing investors Cindy Padnos from Illuminate Ventures and Linnea Roberts from GingerBread Capital participated in the series B to recommit to our next stage of growth.Moving the Needle - In a world in which less than 3% of all VC capital goes to female-led startups and less than 5% of all investors are women, I’m proud to have the conviction and support of three female investors in Contentstack. What’s Different from Series A?When we raised our series A, the market for an API-first content management solution was still emerging. Since then, there have been new entrants, a significant growth in market adoption, and an incredible amount of momentum to signify that “headless” or “API-first” content management is the future. As a category, we have turned the corner from less educating to much more order taking.Growth - Since the series A, we saw over 150% growth of our customer base and more than doubled the number of Fortune 1000 companies using Contentstack.The Forrester Wave™ - We have seen the shift of digital content beyond the web for years. In February 2021, Contentstack was named a Strong Performer in the Forrester Wave for Agile CMS as a brand new entrant. Further, Contentstack excelled with the strongest channel support in this evaluation.MACH Alliance - As one of the four founding companies of the MACH Alliance, Contentstack is leading one of the largest technology shifts in decades. This new MACH (Microservices, APIs, Cloud, Headless) architecture provides companies a better alternative to the decades-old software suites. Even our fiercest competitors are joining (or wanting to join) the MACH Alliance because we all believe that the time for monolithic suites has passed. Digital Acceleration and Enterprise ScaleWhat no one could have anticipated in the last 18 months is the impact of a pandemic on the business. COVID-19 was the digital accelerant of the decade, according to a recent study from Twilio, as it expedited companies’ digital communications strategy by an average of six years. We are now amidst a $30B market opportunity over the next four years, which nearly tripled since 2019. Trends in e-commerce growth and the breadth of digital omnichannel use cases are key drivers.60X Scale - Contentstack is used as the core content hub for most customers. As a result, the amount of digital content powered by Contentstack grew a staggering 60X over the same time period before the series A. Individual customers now serve billions of API calls a day and petabytes of content to their audiences every month. In contrast, other headless CMS players serve SMB sites with much less traffic and platform scale. Contentstack delivers in a single day what most others do in a month.Growth Drivers - Although retail had a tough year in 2020, every national market saw double-digit ecommerce growth. This — coupled with the focus on more personalized digital experiences — is driving brands to consider new MACH-based solutions ranging from A.I. and personalization tools to more modern e-commerce and content management platforms.Project Venus - At Contentstack we believe that when business users and developers work together effectively, they achieve superior results for their organization. That’s why we give both the same attention, and it’s also why we completely reimagined the CMS experience for both – ensuring that Contentstack is appealing and intuitive for technical and non-technical content collaborators alike. We really do believe no one should have to read a manual to bring content experiences to life. We couldn’t have done it without you. Certainly this is a huge milestone for the company and for me as a founder and entrepreneur. I am filled with a sense of joy for how far we’ve come and with a greater sense of responsibility for where we are going next. I’m so excited for the next stage of this journey, and I have so much appreciation for all of the players that helped us get here.The Contentstack Tribe - At Contentstack, we are more than just colleagues; we are a tribe. The dedication across the entire organization is what keeps me going. This tribe encompasses a #OneTeamOneDream spirit like no other. Thank you for your hard work and for inspiring me to do better every day.Customers - Support pours in from customers like Chico’s, HP, Icelandair, Mattel, McDonald’s, Riot Games, and SAP. Customers who are changing the digital game push us to innovate and scale as their strategic partners. Thank you for your trust.Catalysts - Together, this ecosystem of partners is changing the digital game for good. Thank you to our catalyst community for challenging us to deliver the best solution in this space while sharing our Care without Compromise™ approach to supporting customers.Investors - And finally, thank you to our investors at Insight Partners, Georgian Partners, Illuminate Ventures and GingerBread Capital who believe in this team to break through and win this space. With series B fundraising complete, I am excited for what lies ahead. As we like to say at Contentstack…Chalo, let’s go!!

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Jun 03, 2021

Reimagining Agile Omnichannel Personalization with Headless Content

At the end of 2019, Gartner predicted “By 2025, 80% of marketers who have invested in personalization will abandon efforts due to lack of ROI, the perils of customer data management or both.”  Of course, since that prediction, a lot has happened. While traditional, rules-based personalization might very well be abandoned in a few years, the rise of intelligent personalization tools is opening the door for a new approach.  “We’re moving into a world where organizations have access to data that allows them to personalize not just the products you’re seeing, but the experience and the timing of conversations a business is having with you,” says Matt Bradbeer, MACH Business Lead at EPAM Systems, Inc. and Co-Founder of The MACH Alliance. “Personalization has moved from a very blunt approach of showing an ad or a product to having a constantly evolving conversation.” Fortunately, the enterprise technology market is adapting quickly to suit the omnichannel customer - and the busy teams that cater to them. To show just how fast companies can get content personalization up and running with modern MACH tools, Contentstack is partnering up with Uniform and EPAM to launch Project CUE - taking personalization from idea to market in less than 12 weeks.  Introducing Project CUE  To showcase the possibilities of a MACH approach to content personalization, Contentstack, Uniform, and EPAM have teamed up for what we are calling “Project CUE”. In less than one business quarter, the team will identify a personalization use case, develop a content model in Contentstack, add personalization with Uniform, and debut the omnichannel experience at the CMSWire DX Summit on July 29th.  “Most of the businesses I talk to are ready for personalization and many have tried it, but the question becomes how to do it successfully,” says Neal Prescott, Vice President of Digital Technology at EPAM. “We don’t see many people wondering if personalization is the right choice, it’s just unclear how to take those first steps.” This is the goal of the project. To show how - and how quickly - personalization can be implemented across the customer journey.  To kick off Project CUE, we spoke with the co-collaborators to understand the historical challenges to personalization, steps teams can take to overcome those barriers, and how a MACH approach (microservice-based, API-first, cloud-native, headless) is helping enterprises reimagine personalization in an omnichannel world.  Shift to Omnichannel Thinking Getting on board with the idea that customer journeys are no longer linear means digital marketers have to let go of old ways of thinking about channels, pages, and content. “One of the things that made personalization so difficult in the past was the traditional presentation or channel-centric approach to content.” explains Peter Fogelsanger, Global Head of Partnerships at Contentstack. “If there was content on one page that would be valuable for personalization on another it was a very cumbersome—and often manual—process to leverage that content elsewhere. Even within the same website.” Marketers stuck with single-use content often leaned towards two extremes when thinking about personalization. Content marketers tried to manually create a new set of assets for every possible interaction a customer could have, which required an overwhelming amount of content and didn’t always make sense from an ROI perspective. While technical marketers narrowed in on the UX aspect to optimize banners and CTAs, which moved the needle on conversions but focused on only a narrow slice of the customer-brand relationship.  'The technology has caught up to where the typical marketer is able to find the sweet spot in the middle,” says Fogelsanger, referring to the rise of headless content.  A headless approach decouples the content from its presentation. So the content on that landing page you just published can be broken up and reused in unlimited ways. Pull the intro copy over into an email, push the header banner to an in-store kiosk, or have the product descriptions read out loud by voice search. No more single-use content. Which means teams can escape the page-based walls of manual personalization and explore a more scalable approach of mapping individual pieces of content to multiple visitor intents.  Stop Proposing on the First Date  Uniform, the headless API-first personalization platform, is helping many customers adopt a mindset of delivering content as a response to customer in-the-moment intent. With personalization tools that adapt content as a visitor explores the site, marketing teams are no longer limited to A/B testing single interactions but can focus on a more long-term relationship with a customer.  'A good way to think about it is a love story, because content is what makes a visitor fall in love with your brand.” says Lars Petersen, Co-Founder of Uniform, “If you go on a blind date and the first thing your date asks is ‘will you marry me?’ that’s going to be awkward. Yet, as consumers, when we come into a website today the first thing we see is ‘buy this’ or ‘get a call from sales today’.”  Like any relationship, the one you have with your customer works best when it’s two-sided.  “Personalization is a feedback loop, it’s not just a one-way channel of showing customers what you think they want to see,” says EPAM’s Matt Bradbeer. “You have to give the customer a way to talk back, to have a conversation, and be able to use that information to change the way you do business.” Bridge the Gap Between Creation and Personalization  Using legacy, manual personalization tools to deliver an experience that reacts to visitor feedback is, for many enterprise companies, not scalable enough to be worth the time and effort.  “You essentially need to have a PhD in creating rules,” says Petersen about the traditional rules-based approach to personalization. “It’s a very technical task.”  For many marketing teams, the tool used to manage content is completely separate from the tool used to personalize it. Often, this means personalization efforts are handed over to someone else or just forgotten entirely.  But today, modern software vendors are designing their products with integration in mind, using standardized API building blocks that make it possible to manage multiple tools in a shared user interface. Sharing a UI makes it easy to weave personalization into the authoring process, so that the people closest to the content can be the ones who put it in context.  “Having an easy to understand personalization layer, like Uniform, and have it exposed right inside the content experience is a real game changer,” says Fogelsanger. “Now you don’t need to think about personalization differently, you’re just describing the content when you’re authoring it.” Take Control of Your Data  Not only do modular tools bring previously siloed applications into the same UI, but they also make it easier to connect the data behind it. “One thing I would say to people on this journey is to get your data into a place where you control it and own the structure, and it’s aggregated, agnostic and available to any system or touchpoint you want, when you want it,” says Bradbeer. Building this type of fully composable, data-agnostic architecture doesn’t happen overnight and a major benefit of MACH tools is that companies can start benefiting from this approach without waiting around for a big-bang replatform. “You can put a MACH frontend or backend on what you’ve got, which allows you to get some immediate benefits while chipping away at the larger architecture,” says Prescott. “You can get going where you can and where you’ll see the biggest impact, while also planning for the future.” This lowers the barrier of entry for personalization. Companies can gain momentum in one area, such as email nurture or the promotion of an annual event, and be able to reuse that data and scale efforts to the rest of the experience over time.  We’ll Show You How “Project CUE is about showing omnichannel experience can be fast time to market,” says Petersen. “That it can meet the requirements of fast performance based on the core web vitals, and the experience the visitor gets across the different channels being highly relevant to their intents.” “The overall theme of Project CUE is that you can start now.” says Fogelsanger, “There are things that you intuitively know about your customers and your business that can be a starting point.”  “I think there are a lot of brands interested in taking this approach, they’re just not sure how to do it or not sure if they can do it in a way that’s not too disruptive to their content machine.” adds Fogelsanger. “My hope is that we can show there is a lower impact way of doing things a lot smarter, that you can weave personalization into the way that you’re managing your content experiences today.”  Project CUE kicked off this May, so stay tuned for updates and insights.

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Feb 24, 2021

A Big Day for the CMS Industry – an Even Bigger Day for Contentstack

Echoing Neha’s sentiment, it is indeed a proud day here at Contentstack. Entering the Agile CMS Wave as a Strong Performer is, in our opinion, a reflection of the rapid enterprise adoption of Contentstack. Making Waves by Getting Rid of the "W" in WCMS The evolution of the Forrester Wave, including dropping the word “web” and adding the word “agile”, is sending an unmistakable signal: The time for web-only and web-first is over. Our customers embrace the surge of new channels and an explosion of digital touchpoints and confirm this trend. Today, “web” content management represents just one part of a much bigger digital arena. Best Omnichannel Support In a world beyond “web”, content must be managed across many digital channels. In fact, omnichannel support is a mandatory requirement and critical decision criteria in nearly every evaluation of content management platforms. Forrester stated that “Contentstack excels with the strongest channel support in this evaluation” and scored Contentstack highest in this evaluation criterion. Forrester further states that Contentstack offers “superior support in decoupled delivery from its headless roots and experience management capabilities to deliver content to omnichannel endpoints.” We believe that omnichannel delivery is the biggest driver of the market shift from monolithic vendors to headless vendors. tl;dr If you’re in the market for a modern CMS and looking for the best omnichannel support, look no further. :-) "M" Stands for Mission-Critical, not Microsite Contentstack’s customers include some of the largest financial institutions in the world, the largest retailers, the largest entertainment empires, pharmaceuticals, energy providers, hospitality and technology companies. What do they all have in common? High standards, complex infrastructure and the need to scale. In the last year alone we’ve added over 100 marquee enterprises as customers and now serve $1B+ API calls – daily! Enterprises trust Contentstack to power mission-critical content at the core of their most treasured digital initiatives, ranging from revenue-generating sites to customer loyalty-boosting apps, to innovative digital experiences that attract top talent and enable them to better engage with their target markets. Many CMSs can power a static website, a campaign microsite, partner portal or a corporate blog, but for digital engagement with so many new channels, more and more companies are turning to Contentstack. Agile CMS is for Everyone! Enterprises need a CMS that is agile, reliable, scalable – yes! – but it also has to be usable. While practitioners and developers have different requirements, here at Contentstack we believe that both are equally important. This sense of equality is reflected in the way we do business and in the way we designed our platform. The Forrester report quotes one of our customers, who sums it up best: “It’s been very easy to work with as a developer and very easy for our business users to use.” When the use case requires both business and IT teams to agree on a CMS platform, Contentstack shines. From CMS to Agile CMS The leap towards more CMS agility may sound exciting, as much as it does daunting – and for good reason. Historically, changing CMS vendors implied expense and disruption. The beauty of a modern, agile CMS is that it is additive in nature and the pace of change is controlled. Instead of ripping and replacing, a truly agile CMS acts as a catalyst to accelerate digital content initiatives, while gracefully interoperating and co-existing with legacy technology.Curious about Agile CMS? Read the full report here.

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Feb 23, 2021

Contentstack Named a Strong Performer in Agile CMS

It’s a proud day here at Contentstack. Being named a Strong Performer in The Forrester Wave™: Agile Content Management Systems (CMSes), Q1 2021 is the culmination of years of work and dedication from a team that was determined that there is a better way. Our better way is paved with a set of universal truths that I'd like to take you through.We are API-first Pioneers Years ago, before we were Contentstack, large organizations would hire our consulting company, Raw Engineering, to implement content management systems like Tridion, Sitecore, and Drupal in order to launch new web experiences. We felt the pain our clients felt trying to use these monolith technology suites to build new experiences for new channels. The world had changed but the technology options had not. In September 2011, our robotics client was attempting to use a traditional CMS to deliver content to its gaming robots and the cloud. Contentstack’s Founder and CTO Nishant Patel had had enough.“It was time to move on from the architecture of the 90s,” said Nishant, “which was still the default when our team built the first version of Contentstack. Long before the industry coined today’s buzzword, it was clear to our team that the move to a cloud-based, API-first architecture was as superior as it was inevitable. What was viewed as a leap of faith a decade ago has since become the mainstream approach for technology leaders.” Nishant sent around a message to his team at Raw Engineering with the mandate “We need to build a simpler CMS.” We had our Contentstack “Hello World” in October 2011, and our first customers in production by January 2012. This was the birth of API-first CMS. Next Your CMS’ is a Mindset Shift In 2018, Contentstack spun out of Raw Engineering to continue the dedicated journey of delivering a way to “Next Your CMS.” Given we had a proven product, enterprise customers and revenue, we were able to stay laser-focused on growth and execution before raising our $31.5M Series A from Insight Partners in late 2019. We built Contentstack to address the challenges innovative brands were facing nearly a decade ago. And those challenges have amplified into significant problems that every organization faces today. We knew at that time, there needs to be a better way. And as the market evolved, we did, too. The common thread for companies leading in digital is more than a shift to modern technology adoption; it’s a shift in mindset. This starts with understanding the players. It’s no longer acceptable for Marketers or IT to make technology decisions in siloes. Instead, all practitioners – from content creators to developers – have a seat at the table. The magic starts to happen when these players come together and realize that technology limits are no longer their barrier. The barrier lies only in their ability to think differently or dream bigger. “We don’t think of ourselves as a sales team as much as we think of ourselves as a partner in shifting this mindset. While getting to know prospects, we take the time to share what we believe is a better way to deliver on digital initiatives. By partnering with our prospects and customers in this mindset transformation, we’re not only a part of their journey, but we have an emotional stake in sharing their goals and seeing them succeed.” - G Vuckovic “EVP, Enterprise Global Sales at ContentstackBest Omnichannel Support Today, we get the opportunity to work with incredible brands like American Eagle Outfitters, Chase, Chico’s, EXPRESS, Icelandair, The Miami HEAT, Modcloth, Mitsubishi Electric, Morningstar, Promod, RetailmeNot, Sephora, Shell, 8x8, 1-800-Flowers, and many more. Brands turn to Contentstack to build digital experiences when they’ve hit limits on innovation from legacy vendors. Powering websites and mobile apps that drive billions of dollars in revenue is just the tip of the iceberg. Contentstack can enhance every digital experience for tens of millions of online gamers, elevates the in-store experiences for the world’s leading retail brands, and is the foundation for everything from digital conferences to sports events. Contentstack delivers on the true promise of delivering digital experiences to the right audience — at the right time — on any channel.“Contentstack excels with the strongest channel support in this evaluation. It offers superior support in decoupled delivery from its headless roots and experience management capabilities to deliver content to omnichannel endpoints.” - [The Forrester Wave™: Agile Content Management Systems (CMSes), Q1 2021]Stacks Not Suites With single-vendor technology platforms, organizations run the risk of locking themselves into a closed set of capabilities, dependent on the vendor for infrequent and bulky releases. Contentstack was born into the notion that the better way to architect solutions is by compiling the best-of-breed solutions. Rising to be at the forefront of this shift requires a different approach to working, backed by a software ecosystem that provides a flexible, truly open and future-proof architecture. That’s why we co-founded the MACH Alliance – to help companies take advantage of the most innovative and flexible enterprise technologies and break the release cycle. The Alliance’s mission is to future-proof enterprise technology and to propel current and future digital experiences with open and connected enterprise tech. Collectively The MACH Alliance represents the next generation of technology and business.“CMS in the enterprises used to mean making all sorts of binary choices – capability vs usability, speed vs stability, more power to marketing vs more power to IT. Contentstack’s founding belief was that there has to be a better way. Amidst the industry’s shift to Agile CMS and the strong momentum behind MACH, it is clear that the better way has become a reality. For enterprise brands this means they can now have it all – a truly best-in-class “content stack” that is superior in every way compared to the single-vendor CMS suite of yesteryear.” - Matthew Baier, Co-Founder and COO at Contentstack Contentstack also launched its Catalyst program in 2020 dramatically increasing the ecosystem of technology partners, system integrators and digital agencies to help brands deliver on their most innovative digital initiatives. We also kicked off a comprehensive certification and credentialing program. Our Catalysts quickly embraced the ability to grow their corporate resume with their staff earning multifaceted credentials.“We partner strategically with like-minded companies representing modern and MACH-based architectures via our Contentstack Catalysts program. Over the last year. we have built alliances across complementary technology categories – including commerce, document asset management, marketing automation, personalization, analytics – and now partner with leading digital agencies and integrators all across the globe.” - Peter Fogelsanger, Head of Partnerships at ContentstackCare Without Compromise™ Contentstack understands the challenges of implementing new software. While we partner with prospects in the sales cycle, we stand by our commitment to customers to ensure a successful deployment and continue to partner with customers as their delivery of digital experiences evolves. This approach has resulted in best-in-class customer satisfaction and ratings.“Customer references liked the headless capabilities that allow them to deliver content to multiple channels, with one customer reference saying, “It’s been very easy to work with as a developer and very easy for our business users to use.” Contentstack is a good fit for tech-smart retail and financial services companies looking for a modern, headless-first CMS.” - [The Forrester Wave™: Agile Content Management Systems (CMSes), Q1 2021] Greg Luciano leads customer relations globally for Contentstack and we jokingly call him Mr. 100 because he strives to keep 100% of our customers happy and retained. He recently reported on “How We Achieved 99.999% Customer Retention During the Pandemic.” Greg and his team nurture Contentstack customer relationships by establishing deep-rooted trust through his integrity, dedication, and empathy – and by always putting the customer first.“With our professional services and cloud integration background, we’ve been intimately involved with the challenges customers face when deploying and connecting new digital experiences. Having been developers, content editors and implementers ourselves, we are able to help customers get ahead of their challenges and ensure that they are successful using Contentstack. Further, we proactively monitor customer environments through our unique ‘mission control’ capabilities to predict any roadblocks customers may encounter before they become an issue. This has led to a 97% NPS score setting the bar for customer care without compromise.” - Greg Luciano, Sr. Director of Global Customer SuccessThank YouTHANK YOU to our customers for trusting us with your mission-critical digital initiatives and channels.THANK YOU to our partners who are moving the industry forward via our Catalysts program and the MACH AllianceTHANK YOU to my Contentstack tribe for making our original dream a reality. #OneTeamOneDream is our company’s rallying cry and it’s never felt more appropriate.THANK YOU to Forrester for recognizing and memorializing this extraordinary moment. The CMS industry has a long, rich history, yet really the journey is only just beginning. On a personal level and, on behalf of all of Contentstack, this is an incredible milestone we will certainly never forget. Still, there’s no doubt in my mind that the best is yet to come.

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Feb 02, 2021

Unveiling Contentstack’s Reimagined CMS Experience

Let’s face it, almost no one likes their content management system (CMS). For the most part, it doesn’t matter what industry you’re in, what vendor you’ve chosen or how big your budgets are; if you have a serious business with a serious website, you have a CMS – and more likely than not, you (and most of the people that use it on a daily basis) hate it. When John, our Head of Product Management, first came to me to talk about an overhaul of the Contentstack user experience, I couldn’t have predicted that it would be one of the most consequential moments in the journey of our company. “Why would we focus on that right now?” I initially challenged. “Almost every customer chooses us – at least in part – because of our user interface.” It was true, Contentstack had bucked the prevailing trend of treating Headless CMS like a developer-first tool, where function mattered more than form and relatively little attention had been paid to the user experience. On the contrary, our firm belief was that developers and business users alike could and should benefit from this exciting new approach to content management. More than just equals, we viewed them as critical partners to each other and, keeping that in mind at all times, we had painstakingly designed Contentstack from the ground up to be appealing to hardcore developers and non-technical end users alike. As John began to fill up the whiteboard, I realized this was much more than just a UI refresh. He was asking for a significant investment – financially and in terms of our engineering resources – and I knew that the entire company would have to get behind this. “What are we going to call this thing?” I asked John, who didn’t hesitate. “Venus. Like the Roman goddess of beauty and love. It will be the visual expression of the love and care we have for our customers. In fact, it will be the reason even a non-developer falls in love with a headless CMS.” Ambitious? Yes. Cheesy? Perhaps a little. But, as it turns out, John was onto something big... “This is Your Apple Moment” Our first indication of just how big came when we shared Project Venus with one of the analyst firms we work with. After walking through a sneak preview of Venus, one of the all stars of the CMS industry (who once upon a time authored a Magic Quadrant for enterprise content management and now runs his own research company) looked up and said: “Do you realize how big this is going to be? This is your Apple moment.” His statement took me right back to my first “Apple moment”, which happened during the early 2000s when I was a Product Manager for a popular Unix operating system and, at the time, we were locked in a passionate battle with Microsoft, whose Windows operating system owned the lions’ share of the business and end user markets, powering nearly every PC and laptop in sight. Back then, our customers chose us because our operating system was technologically superior in almost every conceivable way. Better performance, better reliability, better scalability. IT departments the world over loved Unix! Rebooting a Unix computer? Forget it. The infamous “Blue Screen of Death” simply didn’t exist in our world. Even more, you could automate routine and otherwise complicated tasks using powerful scripting languages. Sure, the UI might have been a little uninspiring, but it was a geek’s dream come true – and I was a geek. Microsoft’s customers, by contrast, often chose Microsoft because things were relatively easy and uncomplicated. There were no obnoxious command lines, you didn’t have to download open source drivers and unzip software packages into a very specific folder. Even a non-technical person could install something with a double-click and there was a whole ecosystem built around Microsoft Windows, with a wealth of applications and easy integrations. You could skip reading the manual and, for the most part, navigate Windows without hassle and generally muddle through your daily tasks. As long as you didn’t divert from standard procedures and could live with the occasional, unexpected reboot (that might “eat” your 30-page report as well as its backup copy) – you were all set. And then along came Apple with its MacOS. MacOS has a rich history of its own but tl;dr Apple took a rock solid operating system core – made of Unix – and blended it with a rich and beautiful and intuitive user interface – made by design geniuses. When I bought my first Apple laptop, I knew I’d never go back. My machine didn’t crash anymore. There were plenty of equally beautiful apps for me to use. It was so elegant and pleasing that I actually looked forward to my interactions with it. Best of all, there was no steep learning curve and I never once had to pick up a manual. Apple had turned the chores of my Windows laptop into delightful productivity on my Mac. Never Settle To be fair, Apple has had many, many “Apple moments”: The iPod, the iPhone, the iPad, the Apple Watch, the App Store and even the Apple stores, to name but a few. What did they all have in common? Each time they set a new, higher standard, even in categories where Apple was already ahead and as a result they created products that people didn’t know they needed until they couldn’t live without them. They shattered beliefs of what a certain thing or experience should be or look like. And they were all marked by their elegance and beauty. In fact, when I think of Apple, I think of a company that doesn’t make me choose between form and function. I don’t have to settle. I can have it all. And that’s the whole point of Contentstack’s Project Venus. Headless CMS as a technology shift has been immensely exciting – initially for developers who could build superior experiences and build them faster using state-of-the-art tools and frameworks and languages. Then for forward-thinking businesses that were able to find and hire such developers. It’s time for everyone else to get inspired too. Just like developers don’t want to work with clunky, ugly, old technology, content managers and marketers don’t want to use outdated software or fill out ugly forms all day. In reality, that’s what using a CMS still looks like for most people today. Our belief is that people do their best work when you remove all the technology hurdles blocking them from doing what they truly want and need to do. By reimagining the CMS user experience, the ugly and burdensome part of content management simply melts away. What remains is an experience that is as effective and productive as it is pleasant to the senses. Now, everyone who wants to can participate in the content development life cycle – from creation, to management, to delivery. So burn the CMS manuals and take Contentstack’s new user experience for a spin. We hope you’ll love it as much as we do!

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Aug 28, 2020

Contentstack Partners with CS YOU to Expand Access to Customer Success Jobs

With the proliferation of new technologies and tools, there is a huge demand for customer success professionals. The role of the Customer Success Manager (CSM) has become one of the hottest careers in technology, but not all jobseekers are reaping the benefits. Only about eight percent of CSMs are Black or LatinX, reports customer success company Gainsight. That’s why Gainsight and SV Academy, the employer-driven online vocational school, recently launched CS YOU, a new program that offers training and placement in entry-level Customer Success Associate roles for members of groups underrepresented in the tech field. Contentstack is honored to be a Charter Partner in CS YOU. With our fanatical focus on customer success and interest in using technology to break down barriers, this training and development program is a perfect fit for Contentstack. Spanning 15 months, the CS YOU program includes training, a paid internship, and up to 12 months of coaching for customer success associates and their managers when they achieve full-time employment. The program provides access to the CS network, professional education, and mentorship, empowering associates to develop social capital and increase their wages. By supporting jobseekers with ongoing guidance and professional development, CS YOU will provide a pathway for long-term career success. ScaleUp investor Insight Partners helped drive the program’s sponsorship strategy, helping to bring 25 Charter Partners, who will fund the tuition and placement of CS YOU’s first group of jobseekers. Charter Partners including Contentstack, Hootsuite, and Udemy have committed more than $600,000 to the program. Contentstack’s long-term vision is to use technology to break down barriers for better human connection and greater equality. Along with being a Charter Partner in CS YOU, we’ve supported Black Girls Code and offered coding camps for kids. Recently, our co-founder and CEO Neha Sampat was chosen as one of the Best CEOs for Women and Best CEOs for Diversity by Comparably, an organizational culture and compensation evaluation platform. We strive not only to provide a best-in-class product, but to create a more inclusive and equitable tech sector. At Contentstack, we pride ourselves on providing outstanding support through our amazing customer success team. We know that having the right support in your corner is key to accomplishing your goals, whether they include launching a new product or launching a new career.

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Jul 24, 2020

Comparably Recognizes Contentstack for Leadership, Diversity, and Professional Development

Out of tens of thousands of companies, Contentstack was chosen for four different awards by Comparably, an organizational culture and compensation evaluation platform. Contentstack’s CEO and co-founder Neha Sampat was recognized as one of the best CEOs for women and for diversity, while the leadership team as a whole also made the Best Leadership Teams list, alongside companies such as Microsoft, Zoom, and Drift. Separating companies into two categories, large and small/medium, Comparably’s awards were based on employee ratings over the past year, including recent months as companies have faced the challenges of the pandemic. Best Leadership Teams In the smaller firms category (companies with fewer than 500 employees), Contentstack was 10th on the list of Best Leadership Teams. Although Comparably listed the top 50 for each category, the awards included ratings of 60,000 U.S. organizations. Best CEOs for Diversity With more and more firms recognizing the importance of a diverse and inclusive workforce, Comparably reviewed the ratings by employees who are people of color to identify CEOs who create an inclusive work culture. Contentstack’s Neha Sampat was honored as one of the top 25 CEOs of small and mid-size companies, one of only two female CEOs on the list. Best CEOs for Women Neha Sampat was also recognized as one of the Best CEOs for Women, based on the ratings of female employees. At number three, she was the highest-rated female CEO on the list. Noting the continued gender pay gap and scarcity of female CEOs, Comparably stated, “It’s more important than ever to know who women deem as the best leaders to work for that also inspire a positive workplace culture for all.” Best Companies for Professional Development Last but not least, Contentstack was chosen as one of the Best Companies for Professional Development. One employee said, “We are able to pursue the projects that we find personally interesting or important, and have our managers' support to experiment and freedom to fail." Whether promoting from within or developing interns into full-time employees, we strive to empower the people that make us who we are. From our executive leadership to our people team to the 180+ employees bringing their best every day, Contentstack is proud to be a leader in our industry and beyond. Our company has grown massively in the last couple of years, and awards like these tell us that our passion and positive culture have only grown with us.

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Jun 23, 2020

Why Integration Is No Longer a Dirty Word

An Interview with Matthew Baier, MACH Alliance Board Member  Matthew Baier wants to free enterprises from expensive mistakes.  As co-founder of Built.io, an integration-as-a-service company, he has experienced firsthand how enterprise technology has become impossibly complex and frustrating to buy and to deploy. As all-in-one suites offer more and more, tightly-coupled, functionality, they also lock businesses into a rigid status quo for years at a time. That’s why the team was inspired to re-imagine content management with Contentstack — a modern CMS that turns the concept and implications of traditional software suites on its head. Today, a new era has arrived, built on the promise of a new architecture and backed by an ecosystem of companies that share the belief that bringing together best-in-class technology results in superior business outcomes. The same revolution that is occurring in and around content management is simultaneously happening in other enterprise tech sectors — for instance, in digital commerce; in search; and with technology implementers and integrators. Today, fourteen of these companies have announced the launch of the MACH Alliance: a group of next-generation technology experts committed to liberating companies from all-in-one suites through education, universal standards, and the development of a truly open ecosystem rooted in the principles of “MACH” architecture: Microservices, API-First, Cloud-Native, and Headless. We sat down with Matthew, MACH Alliance board member and CMO of Contentstack, to discuss the launch — and why he’s excited to de-vilify the concept of integration. Contenstack: Since your start in the software industry, how have you seen the world change for enterprises? Matthew Baier: Everything has become unbelievably complex. There was once a world in which your digital audience was just in one place, on your website. Today, you have countless digital channels, social platforms, a myriad of devices. People are not paying attention in the same way or place they once were. The complexity of all these moving pieces is a challenge, but it also forces enterprises to rethink the equation of how they manage that complexity. And that presents an opportunity to think differently and find a better way. Everything is moving faster too. Enterprises have always been at risk from smaller, nimbler players who can outmaneuver them in certain areas. But now there’s technology that in some ways can level the playing field. It allows enterprises to keep up and gain agility, so that this pace doesn’t become frightening and overwhelming, but becomes a tool that they can infuse the business with. How has the relationship between enterprises and vendors changed? What’s really changed is that integration is a superpower that enterprises are beginning to unlock. For a long time, enterprises were at the mercy of large technology suites, where they were forced to choose between being efficient — solving as many problems as possible with one product — and being agile, continuing to innovate in the face of relentless change. These suite vendors have been telling enterprises: “we’re the best at everything, and if you try to mix other things in, it gets complex and scary.” But that’s just not the case anymore. The integration of different technologies from different vendors is no longer something that has to be a cumbersome, costly, lengthy process. It’s become simple, with a whole host of new-wave vendors who, like Contentstack, have built their products with APIs at the very core. So, let’s talk MACH. It seems like a lot of technical concepts tied together: “Microservices, API-first, Cloud-native, and Headless.” But it can also mean speed -- MACH speed. What are the most important things for a business to know when they ask, “What’s MACH?” It is crucial to understand the definitions of MACH, the key concepts that it represents. Here’s why: Remember when “Cloud” first became a thing? It was considered a new revolutionary idea that was a little bit scary and a little bit dangerous. But there was a tipping point when companies like Salesforce made Cloud fine for everyone, including banking, and now it’s generally considered as safe and much more efficient than the legacy, on-premises approach. As soon as that happened, every other vendor also said, “We’re Cloud!” whether or not it was true. It was like everyone had invented Cloud alongside the true pioneers, and that created a problem for enterprises, who were buying what they thought was Cloud, and still finding something they had to install on their servers. The same is happening now across many more dimensions. Like API-first: these days, everyone has an API. But there’s a huge difference between a product designed and built API-first versus slapping an API on ten years after the product was built. And it’s the same with headless. You shouldn’t have to go through the investment and deployment of a technology before you realize that you’ve bought the same thing as before. You should be able to catch it sooner.  The MACH Alliance is a group of companies that want to help organizations understand how to evaluate and test platforms to see if they will truly bring the benefits that they promise. This is a group of businesses that have built products or services aligned with these key concepts, and they don’t want to hog their knowledge — they want to share it and work together to give enterprises the ability to pick the best possible technologies in the category. Together, they will make it easy for enterprises to assemble, support, and never stop innovating in their respective domains. Tell me more about the freedom that is offered by “going MACH.” There are two big factors. First, amplifying the positives: you get faster time to market, more agility, and the ability to evolve and respond to changing environments constantly. You can select the very best products and put them together in a way that’s perfect for your business and unlock yourself from bulky suites. You can get a much lower total cost of ownership (TCO) for your entire technology stack and never again have to deal with costly, manual, disruptive upgrades. All of this results in exciting, new, net positive gains. The second is reducing the negatives: not just cost, but also risk. MACH is as revolutionary as the “undo” button. You can make decisions that don’t punish you for years to come. You can pick a piece of technology that you’re unsure about, and instead of committing to it for the next ten years, you can just test it out. If it works as expected, it’s already there and integrated. And if it doesn’t, you can remove it from the stack without everything falling apart. Why was it important for Contentstack to be a founding member of this alliance? For us at Contentstack, MACH is not just a trending topic. It is the fundamental belief upon which the company was built. Every essential business function has an internal system to manage it. Customer information, for instance, gets managed with CRM; products with supply chain management. But one essential function — the way that you reach your audience, the way that you bring your product and message to them — is content. Content is a trillion-dollar industry investment. And it’s the only area that didn’t have a modern system of record. Many businesses are still struggling with content technology that’s been around for 30 years and remains – at its core – unchanged, while every other area has reinvented itself. So we’ve done it. We rebuilt it, modernized it, and created a truly MACH content solution. And while we’re providing this radically new content approach, we don’t want our customers to be held back by suites in other parts of their business either. If you’re in commerce, you need a commerce engine. Where’s the modern equivalent to what we’re doing with commerce, which is its own huge space? Well, you’ve got wonderful players like commercetools who believe in the same thing. Now, we can make this incredibly powerful combination happen through integration. So is integration the key here? Not just integration itself but also the concept of composable, reusable, "integratable" technology components – that’s the main idea behind the “M” in MACH, microservices. We do everything through integrating microservices and we want our customers and partners to enjoy its benefits too — to feel like it’s easy. It should be as easy as a USB. It’s about more than just having an API — it’s allowing the data to flow between systems and gaining new insights and new efficiencies from that flow. It’s about bringing more power to the fingertips of users without forcing them to dramatically change their processes and behavior. Using Contentstack, you have always been able to connect to any system with an API. If you connect to another MACH system, you’ll find that the integrations are, in many cases, already pre-built, very easy to customize and use. You’ll find technology that’s compatible, well documented and offers rich tooling. And that’s just the developer level experience.  What do easy integrations mean for marketers? A typical content marketer’s experience today is pretty complex: they might have 15 windows open -- writing a blog post, consulting the SEO tool for metadata, translating to another system for publishing — all these pieces have to be stitched together. The person themself is forced to act as the “glue” between systems and manually bridging the “integrations” to make all of this work — how horrible is that? It would be more helpful to open your system of record and have everything at your fingertips. As you step through your day’s tasks, everything you need is served to you. Your blog is not matching your desired tone of voice - fix it right there. Want to publish to a different-language country site? Route it to the automatic translation workflow. Connect to your ecommerce product feed? Here’s the button for that. You can ask how it’s performing compared to last week’s blog and have the analytics right there. Everything is right in front of you. This is a game-changer for businesses. It sounds like a much different reality than content marketers are used to. It’s no surprise that people hate Content Management Systems (CMS) today, pretty much unilaterally, because it’s traditionally been a major contributor to corporate and personal headaches. We believe it should be the other way around: it should be the system that you want to live in day to day because it has the potential of being the most useful. It can make you better at what you do. And this is possible today? Yes. With the MACH Alliance ecosystem, it’s clear that we’re not the only ones who believe this. Many companies have this in deployment today, big and small, boxing in their competitors left, right, and center. We’re not waiting for some magical moment where this will be possible. We’re already there. Learn more about the MACH Alliance at machalliance.org. Read a practical guide to going MACH in the ebook Break the Replatform Cycle with MACH Architecture.

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May 22, 2020

Contentstack Wins Second Consecutive Gold Stevie Award for Best Content Management Platform

Contentstack was recognized by the 18th Annual American Business Awards®. Each year, the American Business Awards (also known as the Stevies) honor leading businesses and organizations for their excellence in a variety of industries. The winners are determined by the average scores of more than 230 professionals worldwide over a three-month judging process. For the second year running, Contentstack was chosen as a Gold Winner in the Content Management Solution category. Contentstack is the pioneering API-first enterprise SaaS platform at the intersection of content management and digital experiences. The first headless CMS to enable business and IT to easily collaborate, Contentstack removes silos between business units and enables organizations to provide unparalleled customer experiences. In the past year, Contentstack has tripled business and announced $31.5 million in Series A funding led by Insight Partners. The Stevies judges are executives from all over the United States, and they scored organizations on qualities such as innovation, integrity, effectiveness, creativity, and growth. Some of the judges’ comments on Contentstack were: “Delivers best in class integrations and easy access to business users to the key capabilities and drive content delivery across different channels and devices.” “A great option to provide more opportunities for business owners to spread their valuable messages in a more efficient and effective way.” “Delivering a unique digital content experience!” This second Golden Stevie award comes on the heels of Contentstack’s recognition as a G2 Crowd favorite. Contentstack’s founder and CEO Neha Sampat was also honored with a Tech Trailblazer Award. Although we at Contentstack are thrilled and humbled by these accolades, our greatest measure of success is how we empower customers, who trust us with their content management needs. Awards like these are meaningful because they are built on these relationships. Although Contentstack has grown by leaps and bounds over the past year, we have worked hard to provide outstanding service to customers new and old. Contentstack is also in the running for the People’s Choice Stevie® Awards for Favorite New Products. Voting is now open to the general public, and you can vote for Contentstack until July 15, 2020. About the Stevie Awards Stevie Awards are conferred in seven programs: the Asia-Pacific Stevie Awards, the German Stevie Awards, The American Business Awards®, The International Business Awards®, the Stevie Awards for Women in Business, the Stevie Awards for Great Employers, and the Stevie Awards for Sales & Customer Service. Stevie Awards competitions receive more than 12,000 entries each year from organizations in more than 70 nations. Honoring organizations of all types and sizes and the people behind them, the Stevies recognize outstanding performances in the workplace worldwide. Learn more about the Stevie Awards at www.StevieAwards.com.

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Mar 18, 2020

Forrester Recognizes Contentstack in Roundup of Agile CMS Providers

In their new report “Now Tech: Agile Content Management Systems,” leading research and advisory firm Forrester recognized Contentstack as a tool for companies to create more personalized, cohesive, and compelling customer experiences. Now that customers are engaging with brands across a variety of devices and channels, companies can’t afford to be slowed down by siloed platforms and inefficient tools. According to Forrester, Agile CMS is the way forward. Forrester defines Agile CMS as “a solution for collaboratively curating, creating, and delivering content across channels and campaigns via iterative development and deployment processes.” Some of the benefits of adopting Agile CMS are faster asset creation, better use and reuse of content, and more personalized customer experiences. Contentstack achieves these benefits with APIs that enable omnichannel marketing as well as user-friendly interfaces for both business and tech users. Reaching customers is now a joint effort requiring marketing, IT, and other teams to bring diverse skills toward a common goal, Contentstack was designed for collaboration with that end in mind. To help application development and delivery (AD&D) professionals choose a system that fits their needs, Forrester presents leading tools alongside details about the industries and customers they serve. The report notes Contentstack’s expertise in diverse verticals such as retail and eCommerce, media and entertainment, and finance and insurance. Contentstack has proven to be a valuable partner for businesses in IT and data analysis, professional sports, and the nonprofit sector.  As Forrester states in their recent report, “Tools that are flexible, yet structured with intuitive workflows and built-in best practices and standards, will win the day.” Read the full report to gain more insights into what Agile CMS has to offer and the solutions available. You can purchase the new report from Forrester here. You can also access our free Ultimate Guide to CMS.

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Jan 23, 2020

Contentstack and commercetools Host Retail Industry MACH-tail Reception

Contentstack executives had a wonderful time sharing an evening with our commercetools partner, catching up with friends in the retail industry and making new ones. The event, Headless Over Hell’s Kitchen, featured MACH-tails and a wine tasting assembled by Contentstack’s own COO, and certified sommelier, Matthew Baier. MACH – Microservices, APIs, Cloud, and Headless – turned out to be a popular topic, and the penthouse suite overlooking New York City, was packed with industry experts, vendors, and brands considering or already embracing the new architecture, in this case for the retail industry. While the acronym, MACH, was new to some, the individual components – Microservices, APIs, Cloud, and Headless – were familiar terms and almost every visitor to the suite came with a point of view and some experience with the concepts. Many conversations quickly turned into a discussion on how to implement MACH successfully: what use cases are good candidates, what are the best practices, what are some industry examples and comparisons, what is the vendor and partner landscape like, what skill set is needed to embrace MACH, and so on. Since the event was co-sponsored and attended by multiple vendors there was a refreshing mix of expert opinions representing multiple industries and market segments, which created active debates between retail brands and their agencies, technology vendors, and implementation partners. All in all, it was an enjoyable evening, and a VIP alternative to other retail industry events happening in parallel, so thank you to everyone who joined us. And many thanks to our friends at commercetools for organizing the event and partnering with us to co-sponsor a wonderful and enlightening evening dedicated to the future of customer experience technology, MACH – Microservices, APIs, Cloud, and Headless. Here is some recommended reading, if you’re interested in learning more about the impact MACH can have on the retail industry.

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Dec 12, 2019

Contentstack Wins Best in Biz Awards Enterprise Product of the Year for Marketing Software

It is an honor to be recognized with a Silver award by Best in Biz Awards for Enterprise Product of the Year – Marketing Software. Receiving this recognition from Best in Biz Awards’ unbiased and talented panel of judges for marketing software product of the year is extremely gratifying. At Contentstack, we pride ourselves on delivering the best content management platform for our customers around the world. Using our integration-ready, API, and microservices approach, Contentstack’s headless CMS serves as the ideal content hub for corporations and enterprise organizations to deliver omnichannel, personalized digital experiences. About the Award Since 2011, Best in Biz Awards, Inc. is the only independent business awards program judged by independent panels of prominent writers and editors from top-tier publications. Past winners in Best in Biz Awards span the spectrum from blue-chip companies to some of the most innovative start-ups. Each year, winners in Best in Biz Awards are determined based on scoring from independent judging panels assembled from some of the most respected newspapers, TV and radio outlets, and business, consumer, technology and trade publications in North America. Combining top editors’ and reporters’ unparalleled expertise and experience with the objectivity inherent in the journalistic ethos and further enhanced by the breadth and variety of outlets represented on the panel, Best in Biz Awards is uniquely able to determine the best of the best from among the hundreds of entries. The 2019 judging panel included, among others, writers from Accounting Today, AdWeek, Associated Press, Barron’s, Consumer Affairs, eWeek, Healthcare Innovation News, Inc., Investment Advisor Magazine, USA Today, and Wired. For a full list of winners in Best in Biz Awards 2019, visit http://www.bestinbizawards.com/2019-winners. Contentstack, The Future of Content Management The Content Management industry is evolving quicker than ever, with new tools and techniques emerging at an unprecedented rate. Contentstack customers can rest assured that their business is prepared for the future of omnichannel marketing and digital experiences, no matter what new technologies emerge. But don’t take our word for it, besides our peers awarding us a Silver award by Best in Biz Awards for Enterprise Product of the Year – Marketing Software, we’ve also received validation from our customers with recognition as an April 2019 Gartner Peer Insights Customer’s Choice for Web Content Management (WCM). Learn more about your options when it comes to content management platforms, and specifically how a headless CMS transforms customer experiences in our “Ultimate Guide to CMS” ebook.

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Oct 08, 2019

Our Series A and the Future of Contentstack

Today, Contentstack announced a $31.5M Series A led by Insight Ventures,  marking an incredibly significant milestone for the company and our entire team. Two years ago, we recognized a seismic shift in how companies were managing content and digital experiences. To realize the full potential of this for the company and our customers, we made the decision to spin Contentstack out of my prior company, Built.io. Seven quarters in, I couldn’t be prouder of the product and the team. I’ve been fortunate to build a leadership team that embodies trust, respect and collaboration unlike any other company or team I’ve experienced. As a result, the #OneTeamOneDream culture permeates throughout the organization. It enables people to challenge themselves in a supportive environment to do the best work of their career, while simultaneously delivering an exceptional experience to our customers. We received the official news of the funding round closing while the 2018 Winner’s Circle team (aka Honeybadgers Club!) was celebrating together in Los Gaviotas, Mexico. It was an incredible moment to be able to share with the team that worked so hard to help us achieve this milestone! The funding comes during an incredible year for Contentstack, with sales for the first half of 2019 having grown more than 4X compared to the same period in 2018. By addressing growing market demand for modern content infrastructure, Contentstack has quickly slid into the leadership position for Content Experiences and has received the highest Customers’ Choice ratings in the entire content management category, as documented publicly on Gartner’s Peer Insights portal. Unfiltered and direct from customers, this recognition is a powerful testament to Contentstack’s commitment to customer success and continued innovation. There’s also a very detailed full report on how Contentstack is different from the many other CMS platforms out there – again, as judged by customers. While we were going through the fundraising process, we had incredible support from countless customers willing to speak with investors, partners and press about their positive experience with Contentstack. For every customer who took time out of their busy schedules to support us in this milestone, I send you my deepest appreciation. During this process, one our our most active customers told investors that Contentstack has the ability to dwarf the strategic importance of Slack and JIRA throughout their organization. It is not lost on me that such conviction has to be earned and I know that our entire team will continue to work tirelessly to be deserving of your trust each and every day. I’m also proud to state that this sizable early stage funding round helps improve, even if slightly, the statistics related to funding companies with women founders. While there is still more work to be done, this is a shout out to our amazing funding partners at Insight for moving the needle. Also, a special thank you to our seed investors Cindy Padnos from Illuminate Ventures and Linnea Roberts from Gingerbread Capital who believed in our vision from day one and are continuing their support by participating in this latest round of funding. Partnering with Insight was a deliberate move for many reasons. As a Silicon Valley company expanding to new markets, we were especially attracted to their global reach and strength in European markets. Insight’s knowledge across the marketing stack, previous experience in the content management space, and center of excellence model in supporting portfolio companies are all attractive traits. Further, we are looking forward to working closely with Teddie Wardi, who has joined Contentstack’s Board of Managers. “We believe that Contentstack is poised to revolutionize how companies engage their customers. Organizations can now turn their ideas into content, and content into revenue faster than ever. The seasoned team, the company’s growth trajectory and best-in-class technology is a rare trifecta for a Series A investment. Scores of prestigious global brands are entrusting Contentstack with their digital experiences and we are excited to add further fuel to this rocketship.” - Teddie Wardi, Managing Director @ Insight Partners With support from Insight, we will deliver the most powerful omnichannel digital experiences to global brands who want to inspire and delight their customers. For integrators and implementers and agencies looking for new revenue opportunities: This is it, this is the big shift in digital content that has been building up for decades. Let’s build the future together. If you are looking for new revenue opportunities, new ideas and real innovation, we look forward to hearing from you. And to our most tuned-in competitors, let the games begin!

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Jul 24, 2019

Contentstack Wins Most Effective Tech Platform at 2019 Masterclassing Awards

Contentstack is pleased to announce our 2019 Masterclassing Effective Digital Marketers Award win for the Most Effective Tech Platform. We were recognized as the “Most Effective Tech Platform” for our use case with the NBA’s Miami HEAT. The Miami HEAT leverage Contentstack’s best-in-class tech platform to provide in-arena offers and personalized experiences uniquely tailored to segments of the HEAT fan base. The Contenstack platform enables the delivery of content to any device via its API-first, headless CMS. Using our integration-ready, microservices approach, the HEAT's advanced personalization capabilities provide visibility into individual fans' preferences. The personalization of messages helps grow the HEAT's loyalty programs and deliver in-arena content to treat each individual like a VIP. Most importantly, the personalization of content resulted in significant revenue growth as well as increased fan loyalty and engagement. After reviewing the results of the Contentstack and Miami HEAT use case, the judges deemed the Contentstack and Miami HEAT partnership “a worthy winner” of “Most Effective Tech Platform.” About the Award The Masterclassing Effective Digital Marketing Awards is a global awards program that recognizes excellence in a variety of fields within the realm of digital marketing. The award contestants include brands and agencies from around the world. The Most Effective Tech Platform category aptly recognizes the most effective technology platform. The awards cover aspects of digital marketing, including, Demand Side Platforms, Supply Side Platforms, Data Management Platforms, Digital Asset Management Platforms, and Content Management Platforms. A global panel of leading brand marketers are the judges for the Masterclassing Marketing Awards. All of the judges assess campaigns on the following four criteria: strategy (20% weighting), innovation (20%), execution (20% weighting), and results (40% weighting). The judges look for evidence of effectiveness in terms of customer testimonials and examples of successful use cases.

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