Proving the ROI of an Optimizely investment to your Leadership Team

Why ROI Conversations Are Now Business Critical

As digital leaders, demonstrating that our tech investments are driving measurable outcomes is important. You’re investing in Optimizely but are you seeing the best return?

Whether you’re facing pressure to justify the spend, frustrated that your platform is not achieving what was promised, feel your partner support is reactive rather than proactive, or simply unsure if you're leveraging the platform’s potential, now is the time to sharpen your strategy and your story.

When the ticket price for investment is high you need to have a sound strategy and a clear handle on where your ROI will be delivered to justify the investment.

Here's a practical framework to help you prove the return on investment (ROI) of Optimizely across experimentation, content, commerce, AI, and personalisation. And help you identify what the business case is for future investment.  

Step 1: Translate Outcomes into Features   

Executive leadership doesn't want to hear about CMS features, or the number of tests conducted. Having the latest, secure and performant tech available is a reassurance. But more importantly, they are really looking for business impact.

DXP’s comes with a vast feature set. Your organisation will not get the same returns from them all.  

Be clear on the challenges facing your team. Is it the time it takes to get product to market? Or increase the engagement you have with your customers? Or convert better?  

The key is to align your digital initiatives to strategic objectives: 

Building a “before and after” narrative with baseline data and clear deltas. This is what elevates your conversation from technical to strategic. 

Be discerning about where you will focus your transformation efforts to ensure you are addressing the key challenges you face.  

Step 2: Understand where the value is in the platform, Not Just the CMS. 

Optimizely technology can delve deep into your marketing activities today is more than a content platform. As of June 2025, the full Optimizely One suite includes:

• Content Management (hybrid/headless)
• Content Marketing
• Commerce (B2B & B2C)
• Web and Feature Experimentation
• AI-Powered Recommendations & Authoring
• Customer Data Platform (CDP)
• Personalisation & Segmentation
• Decision Intelligence

Components add a particular value to specific stages of your operation. Identify the components that will create the most value.  

Do you have challenges unifying data to deliver insight or do you need to concentrate on content creation to drive business value? 
Make sure you are not missing out on significant value.
Our experience at Mando Group shows that deeper adoption correlates with faster time to value and stronger ROI reporting. 

Optimizely One invariably does not come in one hit. Work through your product roadmap to ensure you are bringing the right features to bear when they will bring you the best time to value. Build a prioritised roadmap so you can focus budgets on the most important platform extensions.  

Step 3: Quantify ROI with a Cost-to-Value Model  

To secure budget, expand use, or move partners, you need a commercial narrative. Here's a practical Optimizely-focused ROI formula: 

ROI = (Value Created - Cost of Ownership) / Cost of Ownership 

What to Include: 

Value Created: 

• Increased conversions from A/B/n testing
• Higher average order values via personalised commerce
• Reduced campaign cycle times via CMP
• Greater content production velocity
• Improved retention rates through customer experience optimisation

Cost of Ownership:

• Licensing, hosting and subscriptions
• Agency or implementation partner fees
• Internal resourcing
• Integration and maintenance overheads

Additional statistical support can help enhance the story with metrics such as:

• Time to value for new initiatives and campaigns
• Cost per experiment (pre- vs. post-automation)
• Attribution of revenue uplift to experimentation or personalisation

Optimizely's native analytics, CDP, and experimentation tools make this tracking achievable-when properly configured. 

Step 4: Anticipate Objections   

Your stake holders may still ask:

• What other investments will we need to realise these returns?
• How do we guarantee the success of the programme?  
• Is this a revenue-driver or a nice to have?
• What would happen if we switched partners?

Pre-empt these questions with:

• Clear accountability: Show what’s owned by the platform, the partner, and your team. Understand any gaps and what you will need from other teams.  
• Communicate the key advantages. Make sure you focus on the key benefit. Do not get caught up in areas that are not a focus within your business
• Benchmarked data: Industry-aligned performance comparisons
• Case study proof: Short, sharp examples of commercial impact

If your current partner isn't enabling this level of insight, it may be time to explore alternative support models. 

Step 5: Shift the Narrative - From Platform Use to Platform Value 

It’s not enough to say the website is live and works. A DXP is a significant investment in capability. But a raft of capability is only of value when the opportunity is realised. Frame your Optimizely platform for the a growth engine, and a value creator, not a cost centre.  

Structure your board update like this: 

• What we’ve tested, learned, and improved 
• Strategic initiatives supported by the team on Optimizely 
• ROI and TTV (time to value) snapshots 
• Underused features that represent “value left on the table” 
• What’s needed to optimise performance-be it skills, integrations, or a new partner 

This reframing changes the conversation from “Are we doing enough?” to “what do we need to do in order to extract more value?”