Introducing: Optimizely Connect Platform (OCP) and External Content

Optimizely Connect Platform and External Content: Powering the future of connected content and data

Every modern marketer knows the pain of silos. Data trapped in different systems. Teams working from outdated insights. Developers buried in integration tickets instead of innovation. Urgency around efficient data connectivity is increasing as organizations who unify data to their AI stack are seeing up to 2x increases in conversion lift.

Data enrichment and unification is a familiar problem — and it’s the reason Optimizely built Optimizely Connect Platform (OCP): a single, unified data orchestration layer that powers connectivity across the Optimizely ecosystem. Even more, connecting your data enables you to launch key agentic workflows in Optimizely Opal that are context-aware and built to engage customers.



OCP connects all of your product and customer data from you CRM, CDP, PIM, ERP, analytics, and content systems to every Optimizely product — from Opal and CMS to Commerce and Experimentation. It’s how brands turn disconnected tools into a connected, intelligent ecosystem.

Now, let’s dive deeper into the value Optimizely Connect Platform delivers to marketers and developers.

One Foundation for Data, Apps, and AI Tools

At its core, Optimizely Connect Platform gives every team one foundation to build, sync, and automate data across their stack. 

With OCP, you can:

• Install and configure pre-built integrations in minutes from our App Directory — no code required.
• Create data syncs to move data automatically between systems like Salesforce, Shopify, or Google Analytics to Optimizely — so customer profiles and product catalogs always stay current.
• You can even build private apps directly on OCP that allow developers to extend workflows with secure, custom logic for use cases like loyalty rules, order allocation, or B2B pricing flows. 

With OCP, data no longer needs to be manually exported, imported, or maintained. Connect a source once, automate indefinitely.

This is the foundation for agentic AI within Optimizely: a connected, real-time data fabric that fuels smarter decisions, context-aware automation, and the next generation of AI agents built on Opal.

Powering the Agentic Future of Marketing

Agentic AI thrives on context — and context comes from connected data.

According to McKinsey, companies that integrate AI with connected data platforms are seeing 20–30% higher marketing ROI and faster personalization cycles than their peers. The reason is simple: when your systems talk to each other, AI can understand not just who your customers are, but what they want in real time.

That’s what OCP enables. It’s the connective tissue between your operational data (CRM, ERP), your marketing systems (CMS, CMP, ODP), and your AI intelligence layer (Opal).

When these systems share context, Optimizely Opal can:

• Generate on-brand content from live product data.
• Recommend experiences based on real-time customer signals.
• Surface insights that help marketers test, target, and launch faster.

In short, OCP is what turns Optimizely from a collection of tools into a truly intelligent platform — one where every app, agent, and dataset works together to make marketing effortless. 

Let’s not get too ahead of ourselves, an AI vision is great, and it’s where the market is headed, but how do you connect data to existing systems now? Cue: External Content.

Introducing External Content: Freedom to connect CMS data from anywhere.

For marketers building on Optimizely’s SaaS CMS, External Content is the first visible proof point of OCP in action. 

It gives teams the freedom to pull assets, data, and content from any source — whether that’s a DAM, PIM, or external database — directly into Optimizely CMS. No more downloading files, switching tabs, or losing track of the “latest version.”

• Pull live data straight into pages: Sync product details or pricing directly from your PIM.
• Browse and drop assets instantly: Access all your DAM assets right inside the CMS.
• Keep content always fresh: When source data changes, updates flow through automatically.

Developers save hours of manual integration work. Marketers get to focus on storytelling — not syncing. It’s a faster, smarter way to publish. 

With External Content, you trade managing content, for increasing positive customer outcomes.

Why data orchestration matters now more than ever

The marketing stack has evolved from monolithic suites to composable ecosystems. That shift demands orchestration — not more tools. 

OCP sits at the center of that orchestration layer. It’s how teams can unify customer and product data without relying on engineering bandwidth. It’s how AI tools like Opal can access a full picture of your business. And it’s how Optimizely customers can finally launch faster without compromise.

Because in the agentic era, speed and context are everything.

Get Started: Explore the Optimizely Connect Platform. 

The best way to experience OCP is to use it. 

Access our Optimizely Connect Platform documentation to:

• Explore prebuilt apps you can use today
• Learn how to connect your CRM, PIM, or analytics tools in minutes with Data Syncs
• For CMS users, start experimenting with External content to simplify how your teams publish content.

With Optimizely Connect Platform, connecting your data is where the magic begins.