Forrester Validates Major ROI from Optimizely One

Pressure to do more with less - it’s the mantra of every digital leader right now. 

Budgets are tighter, expectations are higher, and there’s no room for vanity projects dressed up as “innovation.” So when Forrester Consulting drops hard data showing that Optimizely One delivers a 446% return on investment in under six months, that’s worth paying attention to. 

What the study found

Commissioned by Optimizely and carried out independently by Forrester, the Total Economic Impact™ (TEI) of Optimizely One report is designed to help organisations make confident, financially sound technology decisions. It looks at real-world results from enterprise users across multiple sectors and sizes, then calculates the total business impact - including ROI, payback period, and net present value.

Here’s the headline:

• 446% ROI over three years
• $7.1 million in total benefits
• Payback in under six months
• Productivity gains up to 40% for developers and 35% for marketers
• 8% increase in digital conversions and 5% growth in sessions

In plain terms, that’s one platform replacing a tangle of disconnected tools - and proving its worth almost immediately.

One platform, real efficiency

Optimizely One brings together everything required for high-performing digital experience: content management, marketing orchestration, experimentation, commerce, and personalisation - all driven by an AI-powered workflow.

Forrester’s research found that organisations moving from legacy or “best-of-breed” stacks saw significant savings in both cost and complexity. Instead of multiple systems fighting for attention (and budget), Optimizely One delivers a unified layer of intelligence across the customer journey.

The human ROI: productivity and collaboration

While the financial metrics are impressive, what’s arguably more valuable is the cultural shift that comes with simplifying digital delivery.

Teams in the study reported:

• A 40% boost in developer productivity, thanks to more flexible CMS templates and faster experimentation cycles.
• A 35% jump in marketer efficiency, driven by better visibility of content workflows and the ability to self-serve changes without developer bottlenecks.
• Positive employee sentiment - less waiting, more autonomy, and fewer late nights wrestling with outdated tools.

One insurance leader said it best:

“We’ve vastly expanded the capabilities of content authors to do work on their own. Engineers can now focus on more strategic work instead of small enhancements.”

When your teams stop wasting time maintaining old systems and start improving customer experiences, the returns multiply - both financially and operationally.

Smarter decisions, faster

Data analysis is another standout win. With Optimizely Analytics, teams gained a single, unified view of digital performance. Analysts reported a 30% increase in value generated from insights by Year 3, because they could act faster and with greater confidence.

As one product analytics leader explained:

“Without a tool like Optimizely Analytics, we’d be waiting on data scientists. Now, teams can build dashboards and make informed decisions on the fly.”

That kind of agility turns experimentation into a habit, not a project - and that’s where competitive advantage lives.

The AI Advantage

Optimizely’s built-in AI assistant, Opal, adds even more efficiency. Forrester’s interviews showed that teams are already using AI to:

• Queue and summarise test results
• Recommend next experiments
• Automate repetitive reporting

This frees up humans to focus on strategy and creative direction, not admin. 

What this means for digital leaders

The study makes one thing clear: the days of managing digital experiences across five or six siloed tools are numbered. Forrester’s financial model - backed by risk-adjusted, three-year data - shows that consolidation into a single, AI-enabled DXP isn’t just operationally cleaner, it’s commercially smarter.

For CMOs, Heads of Digital, and IT leaders making investment cases, this report arms you with third-party evidence that Optimizely One delivers measurable returns, not marketing promises.

Could Optimizely help you accelerate performance?

At Mando Group, we’ve seen this first-hand. The clients achieving the biggest digital wins aren’t necessarily spending more - they’re spending smarter. They’re integrating data, content, and experimentation into a single operating rhythm that powers measurable growth.

Optimizely One offers a blueprint for the way high-performing organisations will operate in the next five years - integrated, intelligent, and insight-led.

For those still weighing up platforms or battling to justify replatforming spend to the board, Forrester’s numbers make a compelling case: Cut complexity. Prove impact. Accelerate performance.