Contentsquare vs. Medallia: which is best for your team?

Here's the thing about customer experience: what customers say and what they actually do is often completely different.

Medallia is great at telling you what customers say. It’s an incredible platform for conducting surveys and gathering feedback across physical and digital touchpoints.

But Medallia doesn’t show you what customers actually do on your website and app. Contentsquare does. Our platform captures every digital interaction—clicks, scrolls, hesitations, rage clicks—and connects these behaviors directly to your bottom line. 

And, yes: our platform also lets you set up surveys, and collect feedback, and tie that feedback to behavior so you can see exactly what led to customers leaving comments.

Many successful companies use both Medallia and Contentsquare. But if you're choosing just one, keep reading to see exactly how Medallia and Contentsquare compare so you can make the right call for your team.

Key takeaways

Contentsquare strengths:

• Behavior analytics focus: capture what users do on your site and app, uncovering digital behaviors and interactions that feedback alone misses

• 1-click revenue attribution: see the revenue impact of any error or user behavior, allowing you to prioritize fixes effectively

• Quick time-to-value: simple setup with automatic data capture and retroactive access to all interaction data

• Advanced journey visualization: cross-session, cross-device journey analysis with side-by-side comparisons

• AI analytics: ask any questions about your data and get instant answers and visualizations, with no specialist technical skills required

• Visual tools for all teams: access heatmaps, session replays, and intuitive interfaces that product, marketing, and UX teams can use as a single source of truth

• Free forever plan: for teams just starting out, and pay-as-you-grow plans all the way up to enterprise level

Medallia strengths:

• Multi-channel feedback collection: captures feedback from digital, physical, and contact center interactions

• Employee experience management: tools for measuring and improving employee satisfaction

• Contact center optimization: conversation intelligence and agent performance monitoring

• Market research capabilities: competitor benchmarking, focus groups, and specialized research design

• Text and speech analytics: AI analysis across text, speech, video, and other unstructured data

Which platform is best?

• Choose Contentsquare for understanding what users say and do, optimizing digital experiences with direct revenue impact metrics, and faster time-to-value

• Choose Medallia for comprehensive feedback collection across physical and digital touchpoints

• Consider integrating both platforms to connect what customers say with what they actually do

What are the main differences between Contentsquare and Medallia?

Instead of comparing feature lists, let's focus on what actually matters: which platform best solves your specific business challenges. 

Here's how Contentsquare and Medallia stack up against the key use cases you're likely facing.

Features shared by Contentsquare and Medallia 

Both Contentsquare and Medallia offer tools for websites and mobile apps, but they're built with different approaches and priorities. Here's where the platforms overlap and how the approaches differ.

Voice of Customer (VoC)

Hearing directly from your users helps you identify issues you might never spot in your analytics, validate your product decisions, and understand the impact of user experiences. Done right, Voice of Customer programs lead directly to higher conversion rates, improved retention, and greater lifetime value.

Both Contentsquare and Medallia provide Voice of Customer tools to collect and make sense of feedback, including

• Surveys with customizable templates and question types—and targeted surveys based on specific user behaviors

• In-the-moment feedback widgets

• AI-powered analysis of customer sentiment and feedback themes

• 1-click access to session replays of users who’ve provided feedback, showing exactly what led to their comments

Notably, Contentsquare also has user testing capabilities you won’t find in Medallia. You can use these to recruit for, run, and analyze user interviews and unmoderated tests to get feedback on prototypes and assess reactions to new features or designs. 

Run user interviews and unmoderated tests in Contentsquare

Why it matters

Medallia has been helping online businesses collect feedback for +20 years, so it’s a strong choice if you’re only looking for a VoC platform. But remember: most of your visitors won’t leave feedback, but every customer will leave behavior insights. 

Surfacing those insights, and tying them to feedback,is where Contentsquare excels. By tying feedback to behavior, you can make targeted improvements that actually solve real user problems. 

Which brings us to…

Digital Experience Analytics 

Digital Experience Analytics reveals exactly how users interact with your website and app, helping you identify friction points, optimize conversions, and create experiences that keep customers coming back. 

Following Medallia's acquisition of Decibel Insight (aka Decibel) in 2021, Medallia (like Contentsquare) now offers comprehensive digital experience analytics tools. 

Let's explore where Medallia and Contentsquare’s digital experience analytics capabilities overlap and differ.

Both platforms offer robust session replay capabilities:

• Medallia's Session Replay includes a timeline visualization showing page focus/unfocus, error detection, and a detailed event stream with filters. This works for mobile and web sessions, and includes features for tagging and commenting

• Contentsquare's Session Replay provides similar core functionality but adds AI-powered session prioritization via Frustration Score and 1-click quantification of any behavior's revenue impact

Both platforms visualize customer journeys:

• Medallia's Discover Journeys uses a sunburst chart visualization where center rings represent first stages and outer rings show progression. You can analyze journeys by page/screen and filter by specific steps or paths

• Contentsquare's Journey Analysis uses a similar sunburst visualization but integrates journey data more deeply with revenue metrics and provides more advanced side-by-side journey comparison capabilities

Analyzing user journeys in Contentsquare

Both offer heatmap capabilities:

• Medallia's Heatmaps show user interactions with color-coded markers on live pages or historic snapshots. They provide various heatmap types and filtering options, with a browser extension for enhanced functionality

• Contentsquare's Zone-Based Heatmaps go beyond Medallia’s by directly attributing revenue and conversion impact to each page element—so you can see what drives revenue, not just clicks

Both platforms provide form analytics:

• Medallia's Form Analysis tracks abandonment rates and shows where users struggle with forms

• Contentsquare's Form Analysis offers similar tracking, but offers more granular metrics such as drop-off rate, refill rate, and blank field analysis—all connected to revenue impact

Both platforms offer funnel visualization:

• Medallia's Funnel Analysis visualizes user flow, showing the percentage progressing versus dropping off at each step

• Contentsquare's Funnel Analysis provides similar visualization but with more emphasis on revenue impact at each step and AI-powered detection of hidden friction points

Analyzing conversion funnels in Contentsquare

Both have browser extensions:

• Medallia's DXA Browser extension enables heatmap and session replay functionality, with a real-time DXS widget

• Contentsquare's CS Live Chrome extension shows UX metrics directly on your website as you browse

Both platforms connect experience to business outcomes (more on this below):

• Medallia's Revenue Impact calculates revenue potential based on actual order value, page importance for conversion, and the impact of experience issues. It identifies the most important non-converted pages and their potential revenue value

• Contentsquare's Impact Quantification provides more immediate, 1-click quantification of any user behavior or issue's effect on conversion and revenue than Medallia

Why it matters 

While Medallia DXA provides solid digital experience analysis capabilities within its broader experience management platform, Contentsquare was built from the ground up to transform digital behavior data into revenue growth. 

This fundamental difference in focus means Contentsquare connects every interaction more directly to business metrics, enabling faster identification of high-impact optimization opportunities and more precise measurement of the ROI of UX improvements.

Impact quantification

Understanding exactly how experience issues affect business outcomes is critical for prioritizing improvements that deliver real ROI. Both Contentsquare and Medallia offer tools to quantify the revenue impact of digital experiences, but take different approaches.

Both Medallia and Contentsquare can

• Identify pages with revenue potential based on statistical analysis

• Show which pages influence conversion rates

• Link to session replays to visualize issues

• Help prioritize which pages to optimize first

Only Contentsquare goes beyond this with element-level and 1-click quantification that lets you visualize and pinpoint exactly what to fix or test to drive revenue. You’ll get

• Element-level revenue attribution: unlike Medallia's page-level analysis, Contentsquare ties revenue directly to individual elements (buttons, forms, content blocks), showing exactly which components drive or hurt conversion

• Revenue overlay on heatmaps: uniquely visualizes revenue impact directly on your site with a color-coded overlay showing which elements generate the most value

Visualize which elements lead to revenue with Contentsquare’s zone-based heatmaps

• Instant quantification: provides immediate, 1-click revenue impact analysis for any user behavior or experience issue

Click to quantify the impact of any issue or behavior you find in Contentsquare

• Segment comparison: allows you to compare revenue impact across different user segments to identify which customers are most affected by issues

• Behavior-based attribution: goes beyond page views to quantify how specific user behaviors (rage clicks, form struggles, scrolling patterns) directly impact revenue

Real world results 📈

European airline easyJet used Contentsquare Impact Quantification to discover that optimizing their mobile shortlist feature would increase average cart spend by +3.6% and conversions by +82.5%, boosting revenue by +7.3%.

Underwear retailer Modibodi used Contentsquare Impact Quantification to discover their high-converting ‘Size’ filter was buried as the fourth filter option. 

Moving this filter up the page doubled revenue per click from $5.80 to $11.90 and generated an additional $13.6K per month.

Why it matters 

While Medallia can tell you which pages matter, Contentsquare shows you precisely which elements on those pages drive revenue—down to individual buttons, form fields, and content areas. 

This granular insight transforms optimization from educated guesswork into precise, data-driven decisions with measurable ROI. You can focus limited resources on making specific improvements guaranteed to deliver the highest business impact, not just on fixing what looks broken.

AI and automations

Both Contentsquare and Medallia bring AI-powered intelligence to experience data, but they use it to achieve different things. 

Both platforms offer these core AI capabilities:

• Automated insight discovery: Medallia's Digital Experience Score (DXS®) measures the digital experience quality across five pillars: Navigation, Engagement, Frustration, Technical, and Form Experience. Contentsquare's Frustration Score similarly quantifies experience quality—but with a stronger focus on how issues impact revenue

Find UX issues quickly with Contentsquare Frustration Scoring

• Text analysis for feedback: Medallia's text analytics leverages AI for emotion, sentiment, and intent detection across feedback channels, while Contentsquare's AI analyzes survey responses with automated tagging and sentiment analysis

• Smart alerts: Medallia provides AI-powered alerts for emerging issues and opportunities, while Contentsquare sends notifications about significant metric changes and how your metrics are benchmarking against industry peers

Medallia’s unique AI features focus on feedback analysis, including

• GenAI for experience management: human workflows with generative AI capabilities

• Omnichannel feedback analysis: AI processes diverse types of customer input from physical, digital, and voice channels

However, Contentsquare exceeds Medallia in terms of using AI to help everyone save time, make data accessible across the org, and tie insights to revenue impact. With Contentsquare, you get

• Chat with Sense: natural language interface that lets you ask questions about your data (like "How many mobile users viewed the blog this week?") and get instant answers with supporting visualizations

Generate instant analytics in plain language using Contentsquare Chat with Sense

• 1-click revenue impact calculation: AI that connects user behaviors directly to business outcomes

• AI-powered survey tools: generate surveys in seconds and automatically summarize responses

Why it matters 

The right AI approach depends on your team's focus. 

Medallia excels at analyzing feedback across multiple channels with its language AI capabilities. Contentsquare offers more immediate, visual insights into digital behavior with direct connections to revenue metrics—ideal for digital teams looking to quickly spot and fix experience issues.

What Medallia does best

Medallia really shines in areas that extend beyond digital experience analytics. 

Here's where Medallia excels:

1. Multi-channel feedback collection

• Captures feedback from virtually all customer touchpoints, both digital and physical

• Processes call recordings, transcripts, and other contact center interactions

• Integrates social media and in-store feedback into a unified view

2. Employee experience management

• Offers tools for measuring and improving employee satisfaction

• Provides feedback loops between employee and customer experiences

• Delivers coaching and performance insights for frontline teams

3. Contact center optimization

• Analyzes call and interaction data to improve service quality

• Monitors agent performance with conversation intelligence

• Provides quality management tools specific to service teams

4. Market research capabilities

• Delivers competitor benchmarking and brand tracking

• Facilitates online focus groups and custom research panels

• Offers specialized research design and analytics services

While these features might not be essential for teams solely focused on optimizing websites and apps, they provide significant value to HR and customer-facing roles. 

For enterprises needing both in-depth digital behavior analytics and comprehensive voice of customer programs, you can integrate Medallia with Contentsquare to connect what customers say on every platform with what they actually do on your website and app.

Where Contentsquare goes beyond Medallia

While Medallia excels at feedback, Contentsquare delivers the complete package—a unified platform where all teams get the insights they need in minutes, not months. 

Here's how Contentsquare makes experience optimization faster, simpler, and more impactful.

Complete experience intelligence vs. feedback-first 

At its core, Medallia is a feedback platform. By contrast, Contentsquare is an all-in-one experience intelligence platform that captures every user interaction and connects it directly to business outcomes. 

With Contentsquare, you’ll know not just what happens on your digital properties but why it matters to your bottom line. Our platform gives you

Product Analytics that reveals the complete customer lifecycle

• Track how users engage with features across multiple sessions and devices

• Identify which experiences drive long-term retention, not just immediate clicks

• See patterns in user behavior that predict churn or loyalty

• Pinpoint exactly which product enhancements will generate the highest ROI

Create custom analytics dashboards for any use case in Contentsquare

Experience Analytics with direct revenue attribution

• Connect every user interaction directly to conversion metrics and revenue impact

• Follow customers across their entire journey, not just isolated sessions or feedback points

• Compare behavior patterns across different segments to uncover hidden optimization opportunities

• Visualize customer paths with intuitive journey mapping that reveals unexpected insights

Technical monitoring with instant impact assessment

• See immediately how much revenue technical errors are costing your business

• Identify performance issues that slow conversions before they impact your bottom line

• Prioritize technical fixes based on business impact, not just error frequency

• Connect developer efforts directly to revenue outcomes

Find and quantify site errors in Contentsquare

Voice of Customer with behavioral context

• View session replays of customers who left feedback to understand what triggered their comments

• Generate targeted surveys using AI that asks the right questions at the right moments

• Bridge the gap between what customers say and what they actually do on your site

• Get insights from the silent majority who never fill out surveys

Why it matters 

While Medallia excels at collecting what customers say, Contentsquare captures what they actually do—which often tells a completely different story. 

This unified approach eliminates the blind spots of feedback-only platforms that miss the 99% of customers who never complete a survey. 

With all experience data in one place, product, marketing, UX, and technical teams can work from a single source of truth, with clear revenue metrics connecting every decision to business outcomes.

Ease of use and time to value

Getting value from an experience platform depends on how quickly your team can implement it and start making improvements. 

Here's how Contentsquare and Medallia compare on

Implementation

• Medallia requires a more complex implementation process.  Cross-channel measurement with Medallia needs careful planning, often requiring support

• Contentsquare automatically captures all digital interactions—no planning required

Retroactive data access

• Medallia only collects feedback after you've set up specific tracking parameters. If you want to analyze something new, you'll need to implement new tracking and wait for data

• Contentsquare captures everything from day one, allowing you to analyze any interaction retroactively—even if you didn't know you'd need that data when implementing. Changed your mind about which metrics matter? No problem: the data is already there!

Team adoption

• Medallia works best with dedicated CX specialists who can interpret the data for others

• Contentsquare provides visual, intuitive interfaces that product, marketing, UX, and development teams can use independently

Time to first insights

• Medallia delivers value after sufficient feedback collection and dashboard configuration

• Contentsquare provides actionable insights immediately after implementation

Why this matters 

Your team can't afford to wait months for value from analytics tools. 

Our autocapture approach means you’ll identify and fix revenue-impacting issues within days of implementation. While competitors are still deciding what to track with other platforms, Contentsquare users are already testing solutions based on actual user behavior data.

Don’t just take our word for it: according to Forrester's Total Economic Impact study, companies using Contentsquare see a 602% ROI and recover $3.2 million in revenue by reducing friction in the customer journey.

Contentsquare vs. Medallia: which is right for you?

Pick the platform—or platforms—that aligns with your biggest digital experience challenges)

Choose Medallia if you need

• Multi-channel customer feedback collection across digital and physical touchpoints

• Employee experience management tools to improve internal satisfaction

• Contact center optimization and conversation intelligence

• Market research capabilities like focus groups

• A platform primarily focused on collecting and analyzing what customers say

Choose Contentsquare if you need

• An all-in-one platform that combines experience analytics, technical monitoring, and voice of customer insights in one place

• One-click revenue impact quantification that shows exactly which elements drive or hurt conversion

• AI-powered insights that automatically detect and surface friction points and recommend improvements

• Visual tools like heatmaps, session replays, and journey analysis and plain language AI that any team member can use

• Fast implementation with automatic data capture and retroactive access to all interaction data

• Free forever plan with affordable growth options as your needs expand

Integrate both if you need

• Comprehensive Voice of Customer collection and deep digital experience analytics

• To connect customer feedback with the exact behaviors that caused it

• A holistic view of customer experience across all channels and touchpoints

For digital-focused teams looking to drive conversion, engagement, and revenue growth through exceptional digital experiences, Contentsquare offers the most direct path to actionable insights. 

Our revenue-focused approach means you'll know exactly which improvements will deliver the highest ROI, allowing you to prioritize with confidence and measure the precise business impact of every optimization.

And if you’re just starting out, our free forever plan offers a no-risk way to get started compared to Medallia’s enterprise-only pricing. 

FAQs about Contentsquare vs. Medallia