Your team wants to A/B test a new headline on the pricing page, backed by data that suggests it would improve conversions. The test never runs because it requires developer time that isn’t available. As a consequence, a clear opportunity to improve performance goes unexplored.
This outcome is common in organizations running enterprise CMS platforms, where marketing autonomy is constrained by developer-controlled systems. Despite paying hundreds of thousands of dollars a year for an enterprise CMS, marketing teams still rely on developers to update pages, launch landing experiences, or run basic tests.
When an opportunity arises, marketing slows to the pace of the development queue. These are frustrating moments, when teams are forced to wait for development updates while competitors move first and capitalize on sudden opportunities.
Operating at this speed is often a consequence of the enterprise CMS, and not part of a winning growth strategy. At Mole Street, we’ve seen this pattern repeatedly across clients, which is why this blog takes a closer look at the real consequences of operating within an enterprise CMS environment.
We’ll explore how enterprise CMS platforms limit marketing autonomy, how that limitation slows progress and weakens competitive advantage, and what modern teams are doing to regain control without sacrificing governance.
Enterprise CMS platforms like Adobe Experience Manager (AEM) are designed for complex, highly governed environments, not the day-to-day needs of marketing teams. Their flexibility lives in code rather than the user interface, which means even small changes often require developer involvement.
This dependency is a result of how the platform is built.
Page layouts are defined in code, and content is broken into rigid components. Marketing teams can update text inside predefined fields, such as changing a headline in an existing text box. But the moment they need to add a new section, adjust a layout from three columns to four, or create a new landing page template, the request leaves the CMS interface entirely.
At that point, a developer has to write code, test the change, and deploy it. What starts as a simple marketing request turns into a multi-day development cycle, not because the change is complex, but because the system was designed to work that way.
In contrast, modern CMS’ like HubSpot are designed to put structural control in the hands of marketing teams. Layouts, sections, and components are configurable directly in the interface, allowing teams to build, adjust, and publish pages without relying on developers.
This is the true cost of an enterprise CMS.
For a deeper look at how these costs show up in financial and operational terms, see The True Cost of Enterprise CMS: What Your CFO Doesn’t See.