API-first approach: Optimizing your DXP with third-party integrations

Highlights

You’ll learn:

How third-party integrations in an API-first composable DXP help optimize your business through:

• Seamless integration: Integrate third-party services with your DXP to extend its functions

• Enhanced agility: Adapt to rapid market changes to meet enterprise requirements

• Scalability: Scale your digital platform by adding or updating services and features

• Leverage API connectivity: Integrate selected services into your DXP via secure APIs
• Monitor and optimize: Track the systems’ performance to ensure it is optimum

Step up your digital strategy by integrating third-party services. Request a free demo to see how it works.

Keep reading to learn more!

More than ever, customers are seeking more tailored content and solutions. So, businesses must take a cue and adapt. An API-first composable DXP helps them to combine multiple solutions to meet customers' needs, and third-party integrations help them extend its function. 

But what is an API-first composable DXP, and why does it matter to businesses?

Overview of API-first composable DXP

When the API-first and composable principles combine, it births a scalable, flexible and innovative platform that powers third-party integrations. API-first ensures that users can access the functions of the DXPs via well-defined APIs.

An API-first composable digital experience platform (DXP) houses all your third-party tools under one roof. The best-of-breed approach of a composable system allows you to build bespoke solutions from the ground up by combining several features from various vendors, such as email marketing, CRM, commerce, DAM, Etc. 

Importance of integrating third-party services in API-first DXPs

Third-party services add more functions to digital experience platforms, equipping them with extra features to adapt to customers' needs. They also promote cost-efficiency since building and maintaining multiple in-house solutions is quite costly. 

Third-party integrations are also scalable and secure. They enable you to focus on your core business while delivering more value with the extended features of your DXP.

The API-first approach: A gateway to enhanced digital experiences

APIs facilitate the integration of third-party services with a digital experience platform. But what is API-first? It is an approach that focuses on building APIs as the first step when building digital solutions.

The API-first approach prioritizes the creation of flexible, consistent and scalable APIs, ensuring that third-party services can interact and share data. Adopting an API-first strategy leads to many benefits, as follows:

• Integrates mobile apps: An API-first approach supports mobile app integration. It decouples the user interface from the back end, making it possible for back-end services to power any front-end mobile interface, be it iOS or Android.
• Improves developer experience: With an API-first approach, developers work in parallel on different parts of the system. It simplifies and speeds up work. The development process is also easier to document as each team can create the documentation based on their function. 
• Faster time-to-market: With APIs, different development teams can work in parallel and share data to complete work faster. The API-first approach also supports content reuse, leading to faster development, product releases and updates.

Third-party integration in composable DXP: Opportunities and challenges

Integrating third-party services into a composable DXP amplifies its capabilities so businesses can leverage best-of-breed solutions. However, it also comes with some challenges.

Opportunities

• Enhanced functionality: Third-party integration with a composable DXP gives it extra superpowers, allowing you to add new and advanced features, such as analytics, payment solutions, and even AI-driven services, without committing extra resources to build new ones.
• Innovation and competitive edge: Third-party integration in composable DXP gives businesses access to cutting-edge business tech that enables them to innovate and deliver extra value to their customers. This is valuable in the technology sector, where it is essential to stay ahead of the trend.
• Flexibility and scalability: Compared to monolithic DXPs with locked-in services, third-party integration turns a composable DXP into a flexible and scalable machine. It enables businesses to adapt quickly to new changes in market demands. It also ensures that they can grow without limitations.
• Customer data usage: Most third-party services capture vast amounts of data. Digital marketers can pull such data to create tailored content in the DXP for delivery to multiple channels via a headless CMS.

Challenges

• Integration issues: Third-party services and tools may not be compatible with the composable DXP and vice-versa, and that could create issues. These issues could be in the form of data formats, communication protocols, and even APIs. 
• Data silos: It is not out of place for different systems to use different data models, which could lead to data silos or fragmented data. In such cases, it could be challenging to unify data across all the integrated systems.
• Security and compliance: Third-party integrations may add a layer of complexity to how you maintain security. Each integration point opens up possible vulnerabilities. Also, securing API access and complying with regulations like SO 27001 and GDPR could become tricky as you onboard more third-party solutions. 

Building flexible systems with composable DXP

The first step when building flexible systems is to consider your strategic goal. Think about your business priorities and what you would like to achieve based on your current and future business needs. 

You want a platform that allows you to customize user experience and expand and pick any vendor of your choice. Composable systems help you avoid vendor lock-in issues, and they reduce your reliance on some IT systems.

Next, the API-first principle kicks in as you create an API-first design. A composable DXP is modular and supports the integration of third-party services. So, APIs play a crucial role, as expected. Once you have your secure APIs in place, you want to pick a reliable headless CMS to deliver content to multiple digital channels.

A headless CMS is an essential part of the composable system. It houses data about your business, such as products and services, locations, blogs, and other digital content.

Take your time to find one that supports your overall vision. However, in true composable fashion, you can always replace a headless CMS without disrupting the entire system.

Finally, you want to deploy cloud-native tools to enable you to build and leverage cloud computing resources. Doing so allows you to scale up or down based on your needs, and it adds a layer of consistency as it ensures your system is always on.

Best practices for integrating third-party services with API-first composable DXP

• Define API contracts and governance: API contracts specify requests and responses, accepted data formats, protocols to handle errors, etc. It serves as a formal agreement between third-party services and the DXP, while API governance manages the API lifecycle, ensuring you can manage changes to APIs and reduce possible disruption.
• Focus on security and compliance: Use a secure means like OAuth 2.0 to authenticate the system and control access to the APIs. Ensure there are strict checks to protect data. Use tools like TLS to encrypt data in transit. Finally, carry out regular audits to ensure your security systems and policies align with ISO 27001, SOC 2 Type II, GDPR and other relevant compliances.
• Monitor system health and manage error handling: Use analytics tools to track the system's health and how it uses APIs and third-party services. Also, measures like retries and fallbacks should be enforced to handle errors and manage recovery should the system go down. 

Case studies

Emma

Emma's story is one of a modest startup that entered a high growth phase and struggled as they lacked the right digital system.

Contentstack's API-first composable DXP enabled them to integrate their stack to deliver omnichannel experiences. They also integrated third-party online stores and over 3,500 physical locations.

Hear from Andreas Westendörpf, "The beauty of headless commerce is that it not only delivers short-term results but also that it opens an elegant, logical long-term set of options for the future. This is what we have found with Contentstack and MACH-based technologies."

Read more about Emma's omnichannel success via an API-first DXP.

Waltz Health

Waltz needed an API-first DXP to enable them to create product data, pricing, and branded assets templates that could be merged into new web pages.

By opting for an API-first DXP with a headless CMS, they were able to create and localize sites on demand. It also enabled them to integrate with third-party services via robust APIs.

Hear from Sunil Kripalani, the Chief Technology Officer. "The flexibility that's baked into Contentstack isn't just enabling our staff to work more efficiently, it's a true business enabler that's helping us consider new service offerings. Using APIs, we can pull in new data streams and create unique experiences for our provider partners, as well as within niche markets."

Read more about Waltz Health's integration success via an API-first DXP.

FAQ section

Can integrating third-party APIs improve customer experience? 

Yes. You can integrate third-party APIs and services that capture vast amounts of customer data, enabling you to customize your offers and content and respond better to the needs of customers.

How does an API-first approach promote digital transformation? 

An API-first approach allows developers to create consistent and reusable APIs. They can also work in parallel teams, resulting in faster updates and releases. It also leads to a more consistent, efficient, and scalable development cycle, all of which promotes digital transformation.

What is the difference between API-first and traditional approaches? 

The API-first approach focuses on building APIs at the start of the development process before a single line of code is written, while in the traditional approach, you develop APIs after the application is built.

How can businesses ensure seamless integration of third-party services? 

They must check to see that their current system is compatible, and they must follow best practices and adhere to API standards. They must also ensure that they test and choose secure and compatible third-party services and tools.

What role do microservices play in a composable DXP?

They promote the granular and modular approach that makes a DXP easy to manage and deploy, thus allowing for a flexible and scalable system that easily integrates with third-party services.

Learn more

Third-party integration via an API-first approach is like a superpower that enhances a composable DXP, gives it extra features and positions businesses to innovate and grow. 
A truly API-first DXP transforms your business, houses your third-party tools and enables you to scale and deliver omnichannel experience. Request a free demo to see its potential for your business.