Recently, the news broke that Optimizely acquired Netspring, a warehouse-native analytics platform.

I’ll admit, I hadn’t heard of Netspring before, but after taking a closer look at their website and capabilities, it became clear why Optimizely made this strategic move.

Simplifying Omnichannel Analytics for Real Digital Impact

Netspring is not just another analytics platform. It is focused on making warehouse-native analytics accessible to organizations of all sizes. As businesses gather more data than ever before from multiple sources – CRM, ERP, commerce, marketing automation, offline/retail – managing and analyzing that data in a cohesive way is a major challenge. Netspring simplifies this by enabling businesses to conduct meaningful analytics directly from their data warehouse, eliminating data duplication and ensuring a single source of truth.

By bringing Netspring into the fold, Optimizely has future-proofed its ability to leverage big data for experimentation, personalization, and analytics reporting across the entire Optimizely One platform.

Why Optimizely Acquired Netspring

Netspring brings significant capabilities that make it a best-in-class tool for warehouse-native analytics.

With Netspring, businesses can:

• Run Product Analytics: Understand how users engage with specific products.
• Analyze Customer Journeys: Dive deep into the entire customer journey, across all touchpoints.
• Access Business Intelligence: Easily query key business metrics without needing advanced technical expertise or risking data inconsistency.

This acquisition means that data teams can now query and analyze information directly in the data warehouse, ensuring there’s no need for data duplication or exporting data to third-party platforms. This is especially valuable for large organizations that require data consistency and accuracy.

Ready to capitalize on these new features? Contact Perficient for a complimentary assessment!

The Growing Importance of Omnichannel Analytics

It’s no secret that businesses today are moving away from single analytics platforms. Instead, they are combining data from a wide range of sources to get a holistic view of their performance. It’s not uncommon to see businesses using a combination of tools like Snowflake, Google BigQuery, Salesforce, Microsoft Dynamics, Qualtrics, Google Analytics, and Adobe Analytics.
How?

These tools allow organizations to consolidate and analyze performance metrics across their entire omnichannel ecosystem. The need to clearly measure customer journeys, marketing campaigns, and sales outcomes across both online and offline channels has never been greater. This is where warehouse-native analytics, like Netspring, come into play.

Why You Need an Omnichannel Approach to Analytics & Reporting

Today’s businesses are increasingly reliant on omnichannel analytics to drive insights. Some common tools and approaches include:

• Customer Data Platforms (CDPs): These platforms collect and unify customer data from multiple sources, providing businesses with a comprehensive view of customer interactions across all touchpoints.
• Marketing Analytics Tools: These tools help companies measure the effectiveness of their marketing campaigns across digital, social, and offline channels. They ensure you have a real-time view of campaign performance, enabling better decision-making.
• ETL Tools (Extract, Transform, Load): ETL tools are critical for moving data from various systems into a data warehouse, where it can be analyzed as a single, cohesive dataset.

The combination of these tools allows businesses to pull all relevant data into a central location, giving marketing and data teams a 360-degree view of customer behavior. This not only maximizes the return on investment (ROI) of marketing efforts but also provides greater insights for decision-making.

Navigating the Challenges of Omnichannel Analytics

While access to vast amounts of data is a powerful asset, it can be overwhelming. Too much data can lead to confusion, inconsistency, and difficulties in deriving actionable insights. This is where Netspring shines – its ability to work within an organization’s existing data warehouse provides a clear, simplified way for teams to view and analyze data in one place, without needing to be data experts. By centralizing data, businesses can more easily comply with data governance policies, security standards, and privacy regulations, ensuring they meet internal and external data handling requirements.

AI’s Role in Omnichannel Analytics

Artificial intelligence (AI) plays a pivotal role in this vision. AI can help uncover trends, patterns, and customer segmentation opportunities that might otherwise go unnoticed. By understanding omnichannel analytics across websites, mobile apps, sales teams, customer service interactions, and even offline retail stores, AI offers deeper insights into customer behavior and preferences.

This level of advanced reporting enables organizations to accurately measure the impact of their marketing, sales, and product development efforts without relying on complex SQL queries or data teams. It simplifies the process, making data-driven decisions more accessible.

Additionally, we’re looking forward to learning how Optimizely plans to leverage Opal, their smart AI assistant, in conjunction with the Netspring integration. With Opal’s capabilities, there’s potential to further enhance data analysis, providing even more powerful insights across the entire Optimizely platform.

What’s Next for Netspring and Optimizely?

Right now, Netspring’s analytics and reporting capabilities are primarily available for Optimizely’s experimentation and personalization tools. However, it’s easy to envision these features expanding to include content analytics, commerce insights, and deeper customer segmentation capabilities. As these tools evolve, companies will have even more ways to leverage the power of big data.

A Very Smart Move by Optimizely

Incorporating Netspring into the Optimizely One platform is a clear signal that Optimizely is committed to building a future-proof analytics and optimization platform. With this acquisition, they are well-positioned to help companies leverage omnichannel analytics to drive business results.

At Perficient, an Optimizely Premier Platinum Partner, we’re already working with many organizations to develop these types of advanced analytics strategies. We specialize in big data analytics, data science, business intelligence, and artificial intelligence (AI), and we see firsthand the value that comprehensive data solutions provide. Netspring’s capabilities align perfectly with the needs of organizations looking to drive growth and gain deeper insights through a single source of truth.

Ready to leverage omnichannel analytics with Optimizely?

Start with a complimentary assessment to receive tailored insights from our experienced professionals.

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As we dive into the amazing capabilities of Optimizely One, let’s shine a spotlight on the Optimizely Data Platform (ODP). This simple tool unifies all your customer data in one place, making segmentation and personalization a breeze for your marketing team. With ODP, you’ll gain a complete view of your customers’ interactions and behaviors, empowering you to create personalized experiences, optimize your email marketing campaigns, and make smarter, data-driven decisions. Imagine effortlessly understanding your customers, delivering tailored experiences, and boosting your campaign performance – all while simplifying your data management. That’s the magic of ODP within Optimizely One!

Keep reading to discover how personalization with the Optimizely Data Platform (ODP) can enable simple and effective using real-time segmentation and AI generated customer insights.

Why Is A Customer Data Platform Important To Your Digital Business?

Imagine you’re remodeling your home. You might dream of a grand overhaul, but wisdom (and budget) suggests starting with one room to learn what works. This method is not only useful but also smart because it lets you meet the needs of your family and change things as needed without having to commit to a full renovation right away. This is the philosophy you can apply to personalizing digital experiences with customer data platforms (CDP).

There’s a lot of talk about CDPs and how valuable they are for personalization. You know it’s time to act because your customers want experiences that are tailored just for them. But diving into a full-scale CDP can feel like gutting your entire house when all you need is to repaint the living room. This is where the Optimizely Data Platform (ODP) comes into play, like a trusty set of tools that helps you piece together the customer data puzzle, one segment at a time.

With ODP, you’re laying down the hardwood floors of your digital strategy, creating a solid foundation for personalization and real-time segmentation. It’s about understanding each customer’s needs and behaviors before knocking down walls. By integrating ODP capabilities in tandem with other CDP solutions, you’re not just repainting; you’re reimagining spaces with the customer at the heart.

In this article, we’ll guide you through the flexibility of ODP, showing you how its versatility can help create customer journeys as unique as a custom-built home. You’ll see how segment by segment, ODP can enrich customer engagement, enable personalized experiences, and ultimately make sure your investment in data-driven marketing pays off, just like those home improvements that boost your property’s value.

So, let’s roll up our sleeves and walk through the considerations for using ODP. You’ll learn how to use it effectively, gain quick wins, and build towards a full-scale personalization that feels just like home.

Need Expert Help?  Contact Perficient for a complimentary assessment today!

Let’s untangle the web of questions and turn your data into actionable insights.

• Can I use ODP with other CDPs?
• How can we make the most of ODP?
• What are some example use cases that will show an ROI?

What’s ODP and CDP Got to Do With It?

As customers continue to demand more tailored experiences, businesses need to find ways to not only meet these expectations but also surpass them. Optimizely Data Platform (ODP) is a powerful tool that enables companies to achieve maximum personalization and real-time segmentation. ODP is a customer data platform (CDP) that enables businesses to collect, store, and manage customer data from multiple sources. This data can then be used to personalize customer experiences, allowing businesses to segment customers into precise cohorts.

Can I use ODP with other CDPs?

The short answer is Yes! Using Optimizely’s Data Platform (ODP) with other Customer Data Platforms (CDPs) can give businesses a comprehensive view of their customers. This data provides marketers with valuable insights, allowing them to create effective campaigns and more effectively target their audience. It also enables companies to track the performance of individual campaigns in real time, which gives them the opportunity to make necessary improvements or adjustments quickly.

ODP Plays Well With Others

Concerned about how ODP stacks up with other CDPs? Or you are unsure if you can also leverage your CRM, commerce or marketing automation tools. Rest easy. ODP is engineered to integrate seamlessly with powerhouse CDPs like Salesforce, Tealium, mParticle, and Segment. So, you can orchestrate your data with a robust CDP and then feed it into the ODP for refined segmentation and reporting. There are many out of the box integrations and if there is not a connector already built, Optimizely offers the ability to do custom integrations leveraging their framework of APIs.

Integrating ODP with another data sources like additional CRMs or marketing automation technology is very common for any business looking to maximize their marketing efforts and achieve maximum personalization. Doing so will give them access to a unified view of customer data from multiple sources, helping them capture complete customer profiles that are better tailored and more effective at engaging customers.

Example of AI-Generated Customer Insights within ODP 

How can we make the most of ODP?

Optimizely’s Data Platform (ODP) is a powerful tool that can help businesses personalize experiences, maximize performance, and gain valuable insights into customer behavior. Integrating ODP into the customer journey and CDP strategy allows businesses to collect as much data as possible, which can then be used to create tailored content in real time. Additionally, leveraging predictive analytics enables companies to anticipate potential customer actions and develop more targeted campaigns in the future. With all these capabilities, ODP has the potential to revolutionize how companies interact with their customers on a daily basis.

To truly capitalize on ODP, you need to see beyond the tech. It’s not just about deploying a tool; it’s about strategically aligning it with your growth roadmap.

What are some example use cases that will show a ROI?

Looking for tangible examples? Consider personalized landing pages that alter content based on visitor demographics or past behavior. Or, imagine a real-time segmentation model that instantly categorizes a user as a “DIY home repair enthusiast” based on their browsing history, offering them personalized product suggestions on the fly.

Optimizely’s Data Platform (ODP) can be a powerful tool to help businesses increase customer engagement and loyalty. By leveraging predictive analytics and real-time data, ODP allows companies to create tailored campaigns that are more likely to reach their intended audiences. Additionally, ODP enables companies to engage customers through targeted emails that offer incentives or discounts for completing purchases.

A/B testing is another way that businesses can utilize ODP to gain valuable insights into which versions of content perform best with different audiences or at different points in time. Finally, integrating ODP with popular analytics tools such as Google Analytics and Adobe Analytics gives companies the ability to quickly identify trends, measure performance against KPIs, and improve ROI from campaigns.

Let’s walk through some example tactics for personalization with Optimizely Data Platform (ODP):

Personalization with ODP from Advertising Campaigns

Creating digital marketing campaigns that are personalized based on the referring advertisement involves understanding your audience and strategies that help you tailor the user experience based on the information you have.

Here’s how you can do it:

1. Audience Segmentation – Start by dividing your audience into different segments based on their behaviors, demographics, interests, and source of referrals. This helps you understand the needs and preferences of different groups within your audience.

2. Personalized Calls-to-Action (CTAs) and Dynamic Content – Use dynamic content on your apps, website and landing pages. This allows the content to change based on the characteristics of the visitor, such as their source of referral. For instance, visitors coming from a social media ad for a particular product could land on a page where that product is highlighted. Create CTAs that are relevant to the referring advertisement. If your ad is about a specific offer, the CTA on your landing page could be “Save 20% On (This Offer) Now!”

3. Use UTM Parameters – UTM parameters in your ad URLs can track where your traffic is coming from and what campaign it’s associated with. You can then use this information to personalize the user journey.

By adopting these strategies, you can create a personalized user experience that aligns with the referring advertisement, thereby increasing the likelihood of achieving your campaign goals.

Creating Dedicated, Personalized Landing Pages

Personalized landing pages are specific web pages designed to deliver content that is tailored to the preferences, behaviors, and needs of individual visitors. Rather than presenting the same page to every visitor, a personalized landing page will dynamically adjust its content based on known data about the visitor.

This data can include:

1. Demographics and Geolocation – such as age, gender, location, and more.

2. Behavioral data – Info about the visitor’s past behavior, such as previous purchases, page visits, clicks, etc.

3. Referral source – Where the visitor came from, like a specific social media platform, search engine, or email campaign.

Personalized landing pages aim to increase engagement, relevance, and conversions because they offer a more directly relevant experience to the visitor. For example, if a visitor arrives at your site from an email campaign promoting a specific product, they might land on a page that offers more information specifically about that product rather than a generic homepage or overwhelming category page.

By catering to specific user needs and preferences, personalized landing pages can significantly improve conversion rates and reduce the average cost per action (CPA) for your advertising spend.

Real-Time Segmentation:

Real-time segmentation is a process that involves dynamically sorting customers into distinct groups or segments as they interact with your business in real time. It leverages live data and machine learning algorithms to identify patterns and behaviors, allowing businesses to personalize the customer experience instantaneously.

Here’s how real-time segmentation with ODP can make personalized experiences better:

1. Instant Personalization: Real-time segmentation allows you to provide personalized content, recommendations, or services to your customers immediately based on their current actions. For instance, if a customer is browsing DIY home improvement tools on your e-commerce site, real-time segmentation could categorize them into a “DIY enthusiast in Florida” segment, prompting the website to display more related products or home improvement tips.

2. Improved Customer Engagement: By understanding a customer’s needs and interests at the moment, you can engage them with relevant content and offers, thereby increasing their engagement and likelihood of making a purchase.

3. Timely and Relevant Interactions: Real-time segmentation allows businesses to send the right message at the right time. For example, a customer who abandons their shopping cart could be immediately targeted with a personalized reminder or offer to encourage them to complete their purchase.

In a world where customers expect personalized experiences, real-time segmentation is an invaluable tool. It not only enables businesses to meet these expectations but also helps them forge stronger connections with their customers, which can lead to increased customer retention and revenue.

Implementing ODP for maximum personalization and real-time segmentation

As our digital world continues to expand, so too does the complexity of marketing data. Embracing these tools can result in a significant increase in engagement, relevance, and conversions. But remember, the successful use of a CDP or ODP is contingent upon understanding its capabilities and using them to the fullest. Don’t let your data sit idle; let it work for you and transform your business.

Audiences Created in ODP Can Be Used Across Optimizely One Products

In order to maximize the potential of ODP for personalized campaigns and real-time segmentation, businesses must first identify the data sources they plan to apply. This includes collecting customer information from various sources such as web analytics tools, CRM systems, marketing automation platforms and commerce tools. Once all necessary data has been unified, companies can begin building targeted audiences based on specific characteristics or behaviors. If there is not a built-in integration for your CRM or data source, a custom integration can be created to meet your needs.

The next step is determining a strategy for creating custom campaigns with ODP that will reach customers in an engaging way. This entails deciding which channels are most effective (e.g., email, SMS or push notifications), setting up A/B tests for different versions of content and messaging, and scheduling initiatives ahead of time for maximum impact. Additionally, it is essential to understand customer preferences to deliver tailored content and messaging suited perfectly for each audience segment.

Personalization with Optimizely Data Platform (ODP) Can Be Simple and Effective

Organizations that are looking to maximize personalization and real-time segmentation should begin with a complimentary assessment for personalization. By scheduling a free consultation, businesses can gain tailored advice from experienced professionals.

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As an Optimizely expert, I eagerly anticipate this time of year due to the exciting Optimizely events happening worldwide. These include Opticon, the main conference for customers, the Optimizely OMVP Summit, a developer meetup, and the Optimizely Hackathon. During these events, we learn about new product releases and discover innovative ways to drive success for our customers. This year, I’m particularly excited about how far we’ve advanced with Optimizely One in collaboration with Perficient, which is described as an operating system for marketing teams.

Will you be at Opticon 2024? Perficient will see you there!

In this article, we’ll explore why organizations should consider moving to a single platform for their marketing efforts to achieve success using Optimizely One with Perficient, and discuss the challenges they face when using too many tools across various teams, leading to ineffective outcomes.

In large organizations, teams often work in silos, focusing only on their specific areas of websites and apps. This can lead to several issues. For one, it creates communication barriers, making it hard for teams to collaborate effectively. This lack of collaboration can result in duplicated efforts, inefficiencies, and a fragmented customer experience. Additionally, using different systems and tools across teams complicates data and process integration. This fragmentation makes it challenging to create a seamless omnichannel experience, as unifying customer interactions across various touchpoints becomes difficult.

As a result, driving accelerated growth is tough when teams and systems aren’t aligned, preventing the organization from reaching its full potential and delivering a cohesive, high-quality customer experience.

When teams work in isolation, several problems can arise, significantly impacting customer experience and hindering growth:

1. Communication Barriers: Teams struggle to share information effectively, leading to inconsistent messaging and a fragmented customer experience.
2. Fragmented Customer Data: Different systems make it hard to integrate customer data, resulting in an incomplete view of customer interactions and preventing personalized, seamless experiences.
3. Reduced Collaboration: Siloed teams miss out on synergies and collaborative opportunities, stifling innovation and limiting the organization’s potential.
4. Inconsistent Customer Experience: Independent management of customer journey aspects can lead to delays, confusion, or inconsistent service, eroding trust and loyalty.
5. Barriers to Growth: Misalignment of teams and systems around common goals hinders the organization’s ability to scale and adapt quickly, slowing decision-making and response to market changes.

Many organizations are shifting away from piecing together various products to build their marketing technology systems. Instead, they are consolidating into a digital experience platform that simplifies collaboration and enhances success across the entire organization. These technologies become the marketing operating system, empowering your organization by integrating all tools needed to boost your brand’s growth.

What is a Marketing Operating System?

A marketing operating system is a comprehensive platform that integrates all the tools and processes needed to plan, execute, and analyze marketing activities. It combines various aspects of marketing operations, such as data management, campaign planning, content development, experimentation/personalization, and AI capabilities, into a single, cohesive system. This operating system helps streamline workflows, improve efficiency, and provide a unified view of cross team collaboration, enabling better decision-making and more effective marketing strategies.

Introduced last year, Optimizely One is an industry-first operating system for marketing teams.

To learn how to gain the most value from Optimizely One with Perficient, contact us today.

Products Aligned With The Marketing Lifecycle in Optimizely One

How Does Optimizely One Streamline Your Organization’s Marketing Success?

Organizations seek a comprehensive marketing operating system for several key reasons:

• Efficiency and Cost Savings:

  By integrating all marketing functions into one platform, organizations can reduce overhead costs and improve operational efficiency. Optimizely One helps you drive real business outcomes such as:

  • Boost Revenue: Generate more income with captivating content and personalized commerce experiences that resonate with customers and provide measurable results for marketers.
  • Lower Customer Acquisition Costs (CAC): Cut down on the expenses of gaining new customers by implementing tests that reliably boost conversion rates.
  • Reduce Total Cost of Ownership (TCO): Minimize expenses by utilizing a single, comprehensive platform.

• Unified Workflow and Collaboration:

  A single platform streamlines the entire marketing process, from planning to execution and analysis, reducing the complexity and inefficiencies of managing multiple tools. Optimizely One includes the Content Marketing Platform (CMP) which enables organizations to collaborate using:

• • Campaign Planning: Using a single marketing system enhances workflows and collaboration across organizations of any size by streamlining processes, ensuring consistent communication, and integrating efforts seamlessly across all teams and channels.
  • Intelligent Workflows: The content marketing platform leverages a content orchestration process and automation to optimize tasks like content creation, tagging, and distribution, making processes more efficient and reducing manual effort. By adopting a unified marketing system, organizations of any size can streamline workflows and enhance collaboration, ensuring consistent communication and integrated efforts across all teams and channels. This approach not only boosts productivity but also drives better outcomes, supporting the overall goal of delivering a cohesive and high-quality customer experience.
  • Omnichannel Publishing: Effortlessly share your content across multiple content channel. Optimizely CMP connects with popular platforms like CMS and social media tools, making it easy to publish content across multiple channels and track their performance analytics.

• Data Integration Across CRM, Content, Commerce and Marketing Automation:

  Consolidating data from various sources into one system provides a holistic view of customer interactions, enabling more accurate insights and personalized marketing efforts. Optimizely One solves this with the Optimizely Data Platform (ODP) by leveraging:

  • Integrations for All Data Systems: The Optimizely Data Platform integrates data from all your tools into a single, unified customer profile, enabling segmentation and customer insights that can be leveraged for personalized marketing campaigns. There are many out of the box integrations but custom integrations can also be created using Optimizely’s API framework.
  • Advanced Audience Targeting and Reporting: Know beforehand the population of the targeted audience to better understand the reach and impact of your experiments. This enables experimentation and personalization to target audiences and measure the outcomes of your marketing campaigns.
  • Predictive Personalization Insights: Predict the individual customer’s intent with machine learning and launch omnichannel personalization for content, products, or email marketing. This can automate the next best step at every interaction and generate real-time relevance, at the point of email open or page load.

• Improved Customer Experience:

  With a comprehensive view of customer data and interactions, organizations can deliver more relevant and engaging experiences across all content, commerce and email marketing campaigns. To help with this Optimizely One includes the CMS, Commerce and Personalization tools working together in a simple platform.

  • Content Management (CMS): To improve speed-to-market, generate and publish new content using a tried-and-true CMS without requiring any development work. Leverages real-time, on-page editing, which includes web layout, eliminates guesswork and previews. Includes content governance process to ensure products, content and layout are approved by using workflows to manage publishing approval.
  • B2B and B2C Commerce: Optimizely Commerce has adaptable checkout procedures to improve conversions and personalize the checkout experience for your customers. This combined shipping, fulfillment, and payment choices to raise conversion rates and boost client happiness.
  • Personalize with Unified Customer Profiles: Progressive profiles are established by the Optimizely Data Platform (ODP) by gradually collecting customer information over multiple interactions, rather than asking for all details at once. By leveraging these detailed profiles with external data systems, marketers can tailor email and website content to individual preferences and behaviors, delivering highly personalized and relevant messages that enhance engagement and conversion rates.

• AI and Automation To Future Proof Your System:

  Leveraging AI-driven insights, workflows and automation helps marketers optimize content creation, delivery, and performance analysis, leading to more effective and timely campaigns.

  • Opal is the AI system within Optimizely One and empowers the following capabilities:
    • Content intelligence: AI-driven content insights provide real-time recommendations on the types of content that will convert and generate revenue, helping you fine-tune your content strategy for optimal results.
    • Content recommendations: Automatically delivering more relevant content that is personalized using natural language processing and machine learning analyze each visitor’s real-time interests on your site.
    • AI content generator: Generative AI is seamlessly integrated into existing content creation workflows to assist marketers in creating various types of content, from text like headlines and white papers to images. Customers also have the flexibility to use their preferred AI models or providers.
    • AI Tagging: Machine-learning algorithms automatically tag uploaded images, simplifying the process of filtering, discovering, and reusing assets. For example, if you upload a photo of a beach, the system might tag it with “beach,” “ocean,” and “sunset,” making it easy to find and use in future projects. This feature streamlines asset management and enhances productivity within the Digital Asset Management (DAM) platform.
    • Stats Accelerator: In the experimentation tool, machine learning helps quickly identify important differences by smartly directing traffic on your site. This means you can see meaningful results, whether good or bad, up to three times faster.
    • Multi-Armed Bandits: This type of experimentation uses a smart algorithm to find the best-performing variations and automatically directs more visitors to them every hour, helping you increase conversions.
    • Product recommendations: For online stores, AI-driven product recommendations focus on specific groups of shoppers, like those who have abandoned their carts. For example, if a customer leaves items in their cart, the system might send them a personalized discount to encourage them to complete their purchase. This approach helps boost engagement, increase the average order value, and drive more conversions.

New and Upcoming AI Capabilities in Optimizely One

You don’t need more tools, you need better outcomes.

These benefits collectively help organizations enhance their marketing effectiveness and drive better business outcomes.

In conclusion, the shift from siloed operations to a unified digital experience platform is essential for large organizations aiming to enhance collaboration, streamline processes, and deliver a seamless omnichannel customer experience. By integrating all marketing functions into a single platform, organizations can overcome communication barriers, reduce inefficiencies, and create a cohesive strategy that drives accelerated growth. Optimizely One with Perficient exemplifies this approach, offering a comprehensive marketing operating system that empowers teams, integrates data, and leverages AI and automation to optimize marketing efforts. Embracing such a platform not only improves operational efficiency but also enhances customer engagement and satisfaction, ultimately driving better business outcomes.

In future posts, we’ll share exciting new product enhancements and announcements that will be unveiled at the upcoming Optimizely Conference, Opticon. Stay tuned!

Accelerate your success with the operating system for marketing, Optimizely One with Perficient…

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Fresh from the latest experimentation and personalization conferences, it’s evident that while artificial intelligence (AI) is the top trend, personalization remains a pivotal factor in your website and native mobile app. Surprisingly, many companies still underutilize this powerful tool. They may experiment with geo-targeting and content tweaks but struggle to see the direct impact on their personalization results. But here’s where the game-changer lies—it’s called feature personalization.

Think about your favorite mobile apps—banking, shopping, or social media. They seem to know you inside out, offering features and value-added products that resonate with your profile. This is the magic of feature personalization, and it’s what we’ve come to expect from the likes of Amazon’s personalized shopping recommendations and Netflix’s content suggestions based on our viewing history.

Feature Personalization is a Game-Changer

It’s a vital tool that the fastest-growing companies are leveraging to scale their KPIs and enhance the customer experience.

Elevate your growth through personalization, making sure it becomes the driving force behind your digital success. Connect with Perficient today to get a complimentary assessment of your feature personalization program!

At its core, feature personalization revolves around tailoring the features and content of your website or application to individual users. This process takes into account various factors, including user preferences, behavior, and data. It’s a versatile approach with numerous applications, each specific to the industry your business operates in. Here are a few industry-specific examples:

How Uber Eats Uses Feature Personalization in their Native App

• Personalized notifications: Send push notifications based on user behavior and preferences, such as alerts for upcoming discounts or new features.
• Contextual search: Use context, such as location or time of day, to provide more relevant restaurant search results.
• Personalized in-app guidance: Provide tailored guidance based on user progress or milestones, such as services, to save time or money.
• Customized UI elements: Use user data to show relevant UI elements, such as a savings tracker or a food preferences view.

When it comes to financial services, here are some examples of personalized features:

• Upsells for additional services, such as showing different credit card offers based on spending habits and credit scores.
• Personalized portfolios for stock trading apps, providing different charts, news, and analyses to investors based on their portfolio and risk tolerance.
• Financial planning apps recommend budgeting strategies and financial products based on income, expenses, and financial goals.

Some examples of feature personalization on a commerce website and apps are:

• Quick checkout personalization for repeat B2B customers.
• Tailored offers and discounts are based on a user’s previous purchases, location, and demographics.
• Personalized shipping options consider a user’s location, past shipping choices, and order history.
• Personalized push notifications based on user interests and purchase history.

What’s The Point Using Feature Personalization?

The goal of feature personalization is clear: to enhance user engagement, improve conversion rates, and ultimately drive better results in digital marketing efforts. It’s a powerful strategy that aligns with your expertise in digital transformation consulting.

The fastest-growing companies have mastered the art of feature personalization because they understand its impact on KPIs and the overall customer experience. By tailoring their digital products and marketing efforts to meet the unique needs and preferences of individual users, these companies have managed to scale their businesses and create more satisfied and loyal customers.

What kind of outcomes can you anticipate from embracing feature personalization?

1. Increased Engagement and Retention: Personalized experiences lead to higher user engagement and increased loyalty to your brand.
2. Improved Customer Experience: Personalized features facilitate the achievement of customer goals, resulting in higher satisfaction and loyalty.
3. Precision in Marketing and Promotions: Personalized data enables companies to target marketing and promotions more effectively, leading to higher conversion rates.
4. Revenue Growth: All of the above factors ultimately contribute to increased revenue and profitability for product or service companies.

While the exact impact of personalization can vary, research indicates its significant potential. Personalized recommendations can increase conversion rates by up to 30%, personalized push notifications can boost engagement by up to 50%, and 72% of app developers report increased revenue after implementing personalization.

Taking it a step further, feature personalization aligns perfectly with the concept of continuous improvement. To accelerate your results, consider techniques like progressive delivery and continuous deployment. These approaches allow you to introduce small changes to your product in near-real-time, gather feedback, and make improvements rapidly. The goal is to establish a culture of experimentation and data-driven decision-making where constant refinement and optimization based on user feedback become the norm.

AI plays a pivotal role in powering feature personalization.

Here are some ways AI can be harnessed:

• Natural Language Processing (NLP): Analyzing customer feedback and support tickets to identify common issues and suggest personalized solutions.
• Machine Learning Algorithms: Analyzing customer data and usage patterns to identify behavior patterns and predict actions, informing personalized feature recommendations.
• Reinforcement Learning: Optimizing personalization over time by experimenting with different feature recommendations and adjusting based on customer responses.
• Image Recognition and Computer Vision: Analyzing images or videos to provide personalized recommendations or search results.
• Recommender Systems: Analyzing extensive data to identify user behavior and preferences and offering personalized recommendations for products, content, or services.

Feature flags and feature personalization complement each other effectively:

• Feature flags allow you to activate or deactivate features for different user segments, a crucial aspect of feature personalization.
• Gradual feature rollout using feature flags is instrumental in testing the impact of personalization on various user groups.
• Feature flags can enable or disable personalization logic for specific users or groups, facilitating the testing of different personalization strategies and their measurement.

Concerned about collecting Personally Identifiable Information (PII)?

Implementing effective feature personalization without compromising user privacy is achievable. Here are some strategies:

• Collect only essential data for personalization, such as user preferences, usage patterns, and demographic information, while avoiding PII like names and addresses.
• Anonymize or aggregate data before using it for personalization, removing any elements that could identify individuals.
• Deploy privacy-preserving technologies like opt-in cookies, differential privacy, and secure multi-party computation to enable data analysis and machine learning while preserving user privacy.

Accelerate Your Feature Personalization Results

In the ever-evolving realm of digital marketing technology, staying ahead of the curve can bring numerous benefits to your company. Embracing cutting-edge tools and strategies, such as feature personalization, can enhance your retention, create better relationships for your customers, and improve your overall brand presence. Feature personalization can be a game-changer for your business.

If you’re new to feature personalization or seeking expert insights on how to accelerate your success, don’t hesitate to contact Perficient for a complimentary assessment.

The upcoming Google Optimize sunset has made it crucial for businesses to find reliable replacements. In today’s data-driven environment, the functionality of data experimentation tools is paramount. Relying on A/B testing tools for measuring and enhancing website optimization is key to increasing user satisfaction and conversion rates. By September 30, 2023, with Google Optimize’s discontinuation, businesses using this tool need to transition swiftly to ensure uninterrupted metric tracking, efficient advertising CPA, and better website metrics.

Watch our Video Guide on the Google Optimize Sunset Replacement and Transitioning Tips:

This video presents a structured strategy for businesses transitioning from Google Optimize to more robust tools. Among the alternatives, Optimizely stands out for its capabilities in experimentation, user experience personalization, and seamless integration with Google Analytics 4.

1. Preserving your Google Optimize History:

A thorough understanding of what works and doesn’t work for your audience can be gained by tracking the effectiveness of various strategies and elements over time and keeping track of the history of your website experiment results. This data-driven methodology aids in the optimization of your website’s overall performance and future experiments.

Document all actions taken in Google Optimize. A data-driven approach, backed by consistent analysis of past experimentation results, provides insights into what resonates with your audience. From color choices to layout designs, understanding these data trends can guide future decisions and cultivate a culture centered on continuous improvement.

Documentation Checklist should include:

1. A/B testing results
2. Personalization campaigns
3. Goals and Metrics setup
4. Google Analytics audience setup
5. Development workflows and troubleshooting documentation

2. Choosing a Google Optimize Sunset Replacement:

As Google Optimize phases out, finding a replacement becomes vital. Your next tool should not only mirror Google Optimize’s capabilities but also cater to your evolving needs, whether that’s in terms of functionality, cost, or compatibility with existing systems.

• Factors to consider:
  1. Price
  2. Capabilities and features
  3. Access level collaborators
  4. Easy of use and flexibility:
  5. Easy to understand analytics and data
  6. Compatibility with Google Analytics 4
  7. Future proof

Start with a basic package from a tool like Optimizely Web Experimentation and grow as needed. Here are several reasons why Optimizely is an excellent upgrade from Google Optimize.

Remember, the best tool for you depends on your specific needs and context. It’s a good idea to take advantage of free trials when they’re available to ensure the tool is a good fit before making a commitment.

3. Implementation of the A/B testing and personalization tools

Transitioning to a new tool, such as Optimizely, should be straightforward—often as simple as integrating a JavaScript line into your website’s header.

• Optimizely is easier to set up than Optimize
• Experimentation will validate your website improvement performance
• Ability to plan and execute personalization campaigns with advance audiences

4. Recreating System for Accelerated Experimentation:

Accelerated experimentation is a process that allows businesses to rapidly test, iterate, and implement changes to their products, services, or processes based on real-time data. This approach leverages advanced technology, data analytics, and a culture of continuous learning to facilitate quick decision-making and improve business outcomes.

1. Improved workflow
2. A collaborative team working together in experimentation workflow
3. Introduction of GA4 audiences, events and integrations
4. Post analysis directly in tool and GA4 analysis

By improving these areas, companies can speed up their experimentation processes, allowing them to quickly identify what works and what doesn’t, and implement changes that drive better business outcomes.

5. Experimentation System Established

For a company to enhance its experimentation maturity and amplify results using an experimentation system, it needs to instill a culture where decisions are grounded in data, permeating every level of the organization. This involves adopting advanced experimentation and analytics tools capable of supporting growth and facilitating intricate experiments while producing actionable insights. Success should be articulated through clear KPIs, tailored to business objectives, with an established systematic experimentation process encompassing everything from hypothesis generation to results application. To manage the complexity, multiple teams should leverage the same system, driving organized projects, while isolating testing tracks for mutually exclusive experiments. Integration with external systems like Snowflake, Customer Data Platforms (CDPs), and real-time segments becomes imperative.

Furthermore, fostering cross-functional collaboration and sharing of insights, along with cross-project events and comprehensive website optimization, empowers the experimentation process. Finally, a cycle of incessant iteration and optimization based on experiment outcomes can lead to informed decisions, minimized risk, continuous enhancement, and innovation, yielding improved offerings, efficient marketing strategies, and increased revenue.

• Multiple teams leveraging the same system with organized projects
• Isolated testing tracks for mutually exclusive experiments
• Integration of external systems like Snowflake, CDP and real time segments
• Cross project events and full website optimization

Smooth Transition into out Data-Driven Era

In conclusion, as businesses in our data-driven era pivot to new tools for optimization and experimentation due to the termination of Google Optimize, it becomes vital to make a smooth transition. This guide aimed to equip you with an understanding of the importance of documenting your website experimentation results in history, assessing new A/B testing tools, and streamlining the implementation of a new tool like Optimizely. As your business scales, so should your experimentation maturity. The integration of multiple teams, adoption of isolated testing tracks for mutually exclusive experiments, and integration with external systems like Snowflake and CDP are keys to a more sophisticated experimentation system.

Furthermore, the continual iteration and optimization based on experiment outcomes allow for data-driven decision-making, risk reduction, and innovation. Ultimately, this culture of continuous improvement can lead to improved offerings, more efficient marketing strategies, and, most importantly, increased revenue and growth. As Google Optimize sunsets, it’s not the end but a new opportunity to further streamline your data experimentation efforts and drive growth.

Please get in touch with us if you have questions or want to learn more about how we can help you build a world-class strategy to keep your platforms up-to-date and grow the results of your current platforms.

In today’s digital landscape, having a solid digital strategy and embracing cutting-edge technology are key factors for business success. However, many enterprise organizations face challenges when it comes to coordinating the rollout of new marketing technology products and achieving scalable growth.

Without a Digital Strategy, your Business may Fail.

It’s simple: change is tough for large corporations for a variety of reasons.

• Financial and risk aversion may be obstacles to cutting-edge technology.
• Organizational inertia and reluctance to change may stunt accelerated growth.
• Lack of insight on how to maximize the return on their investments in new technologies, minimize risk, and ensure that their new products will truly contribute to their success.

Overcoming Hurdles and Driving Results

In this series of articles, we will explore how Optimizely tools can help businesses overcome these hurdles and drive results. Whether you’re focused on growth marketing like experimentation / personalization, scaling your e-commerce revenue, or migrating to a new content management system, we’ll provide insights and recommendations for leveraging Optimizely’s product suite. While Optimizely is used as an example, the concepts discussed can apply to other digital experience tools as well.

Optimizely Products Are Organized Into These Categories:

1. Orchestrate – Content Management System and Content Marketing Platform
2. Experiment – Web and Feature Experimentation
3. Monetize – Commerce for B2B and B2C

For each of these types of businesses, we’ve created a resource to explain why they might need to change their processes and suggest ways to introduce marketing technology tools to your technology stack. Please note that this doesn’t take into consideration other third-party software, including analytics (Google Analytics, Adobe Analytics), email marketing applications (Marketo, Klaviyo, Pardot), CRM databases (Salesforce, HubSpot), or more advanced CDPs (Tealium, Segment, or mParticle).

We’ve identified why each sort of company should upgrade, add, or replace marketing technology and system products. While the results may vary, the following are consistent for each business: Based on the primary solution for their business, choose a product to get recommendations and considerations when embarking on your digital transformation journey:

• Content Management System
• Experimentation
• Commerce B2B and B2C

Most businesses would be concerned about how these new changes will affect the following factors:

1. Integration and Flexibility: To run their businesses, online businesses use a lot of different methods and tools. Companies can make it easier to connect systems, simplify processes, and learn from data-driven decision-making if they keep up with changes in technology and platforms. Systems that are flexible and work well together make it easier to run a team and improve the general success of a business.
2. Future-proofing: For marketing and content processes to be safe for the future, they must be able to adapt to changes in technology. Companies can set themselves up for future growth and innovation by adopting new technologies like AI, virtual reality, voice commerce, and blockchain. Businesses can stay relevant and take advantage of new possibilities if they can predict and use future industry standards.
3. Ongoing support and technical help: Lastly, customer service and help from the company is likely one of the most important things to think about when making a big change to your systems and tools. Let’s be honest: getting these processes to work right is hard, and you’re going to have a lot of questions. Your business needs to be happy with how quickly the vendor responds, how often they tell you about changes, and how great their help desk support is.

By prioritizing staying ahead of technology and platform changes, enterprise companies can gain a competitive advantage, meet customer expectations, deliver exceptional user experiences, ensure scalability and performance, address security and compliance requirements, enable integration and flexibility, and future-proof their businesses in the rapidly evolving digital landscape.

Please get in touch with us if you have questions or want to learn more about how we can help you build a world-class strategy to keep your platforms up-to-date and grow the results of your current platforms.

Unlocking Growth

Adopting an experimental culture for websites and apps is the shortest path to corporate success. It’s all about learning from experiences, avoiding costly mistakes, and reaching your target audience effectively. Making data-driven decisions is crucial for website design, content creation, and digital marketing campaigns. A/B testing serves as a digital microscope, providing insights for website evaluations.

Get in touch with an experimentation expert right away if you have any questions or need to accelerate your optimization program. Speak with an A/B testing and personalization specialist right away.

To Stay Ahead and Increase ROI, Experimentation Teams should Focus on the Following Strategies:

1. Continuous Learning and Experimentation: Stay updated on industry trends, emerging technologies, and marketing tools. Attend conferences, webinars, and workshops, and participate in online communities. Allocate resources for experimentation to test new technologies and strategies, discovering innovative approaches that drive higher ROI.
2. Data-Driven Decision Making: Establish robust data collection and analysis processes. Use analytics tools to gain insights into customer behavior, campaign performance, and market trends. Let data guide decision-making, optimizing marketing efforts, and allocating resources to the most effective channels and strategies.
3. Embrace automation and AI: Explore automation tools for tasks like email marketing, social media scheduling, lead nurturing, and campaign management. Leverage AI-powered solutions for personalization, predictive analytics, and intelligent targeting, enhancing engagement and conversion rates. Optimize resource allocation, reduce manual efforts, and increase ROI by harnessing these technologies.

By adopting a proactive mindset, leveraging data and technology, and fostering a culture of continuous learning and experimentation, growth marketing teams can stay ahead of technological changes and achieve a higher ROI.

When it Comes to Implementing Optimizely DXP Products for Experimentation and Personalization, Follow this Sequence:

1. Optimizely Web Experimentation – Mitigate risks by testing new ideas on a small scale before fully implementing them. Foster innovation, reduce errors and increase the chances of a successful, user-friendly redesign aligned with business goals.
2. Optimizely Data Platform – Collect, organize, and unify data from multiple sources to gain a comprehensive view of each customer. Use this data to deliver targeted, real-time segments for A/B testing and personalized customer experiences.
3. Optimizely Web Personalization – Enable user-based website personalization, customizing content and targeted promotions to increase client engagement.
4. Content Marketing Platform – Plan, create, distribute, and evaluate content to engage and expand your audience. Simplify content marketing, ensure consistent messaging, and analyze performance for improved planning and increased lead generation, customer engagement, and ROI.
5. Content Recommendations – Provide related article suggestions or blog ideas to keep users engaged. Test different algorithms, user interfaces, and placements using Optimizely experimentation.
6. Product Recommendations – Improve the buying experience by recommending products based on browsing history, cart contents, and popularity. Leverage complex algorithms and data analysis to increase sales on your e-commerce site.
7. Optimizely Feature Experimentation – This tool, which used to be called Full Stack, lets businesses do iterative progressive delivery on development features and run experiments in any application, including web, mobile, over-the-top (OTT), and server-side apps.

Be Receptive to Experimenting

To unlock growth, it’s important to be receptive to experimenting and utilizing data to inform decisions. Marketing teams that focus on growth can improve their ROI by continuously learning, experimenting with new strategies, and utilizing automation and technology. Large businesses can enhance their online presence and provide tailored experiences to their clients through the use of tools such as website testing, customer information management systems, website customization, and content recommendations. Businesses can explore different ways of utilizing digital tools to prepare for future growth and success. Be open to experimenting, leverage data, and allow creativity to lead you towards achieving your business objectives in the digital realm.

Unlock your digital potential today and transform your business with Optimizely DXP’s innovative solutions for experimentation and personalization.

Do you need to speed up your optimization program or have any questions? Get in touch with an experimentation expert right away. Contact an expert in A/B testing and personalization right away.

Succeeding with Your CMS Upgrade or Replatform

Performing a CMS upgrade is like embarking on an adventurous journey. Rapid growth and technological advancements are essential, but without a clear digital strategy, businesses may drift aimlessly. Financial constraints and an aversion to risk can impede the adoption of cutting-edge technology and innovative marketing approaches. Organizational resistance to change and inefficient processes can create obstacles. To navigate this journey successfully, businesses need to prioritize digital transformation, foster a culture of creativity, train their teams, and seek guidance from experts. By doing so, they can fully utilize modern technologies and make significant progress.

Get in touch with a CMS transformation expert right away if you have any questions or need specific guidance about replatforming or upgrading your content management system. Speak with a CMS specialist right away.

In this article, we’ll explore the reasons why businesses should upgrade their CMS and offer recommendations for a successful rollout. We’ll then provide a sequence for rolling out products (like Optimizely DXP) specifically tailored to CMS upgrade or improvement strategies. From the CMS itself to digital asset management, content marketing platforms, and more, each tool plays a vital role in optimizing your CMS upgrade.

Why Businesses need to Upgrade or Replatform their CMS

1. Outdated or Inflexible System: Outdated or unchangeable system: If a company’s CMS is outdated, lacks features, or can’t be altered to match business demands, it may migrate to a more modern and flexible CMS. An old CMS may not be customizable, mobile-friendly, or interoperable. This may hinder the company’s user experience.
2. Improved Content Creation and Management: To improve content production and administration, a corporation may switch its entire backend CMS. A user-friendly interface, easy content-editing tools, collaborative workflows, version control, and the capacity to manage diverse kinds of content (text, photos, videos, etc.) are examples. A powerful CMS may streamline content writing and administration, empowering content creators.
3. Integration with Third-Party Systems: Companies often need their CMS to integrate seamlessly with other systems, such as customer relationship management (CRM), marketing automation, e-commerce platforms, analytics tools, or social media platforms. If the current CMS lacks the necessary integration capabilities or requires complex workarounds, it may be more practical to move to a CMS that offers native integrations or a flexible API infrastructure. This includes vendor marketplaces and partner ecosystem support.

Remember, experimenting and analyzing baselines are essential before committing to a platform migration or redesign. This helps identify areas for improvement and understand user behavior. By following our recommendations and leveraging Optimizely’s tools, you can ensure a smooth and successful CMS transformation.

Recommendations for the sequence to roll out Optimizely DXP products for CMS Businesses:

1. Optimizely Content Management System

• Whether you are considering an upgrade or a replatform This isn’t just about having the latest software; it’s also about updating the CMS’s functionalities to meet business needs. The first stage is a complete CMS audit to identify areas for improvement and dangers. Next, the organization should back up its data and work with experts to roll out a new CMS version and make sure it interacts with other enterprise systems and fulfills performance goals. The upgrade or replatform should also consider staff training for new features and tools.

2. Digital Asset Management

• The system at the center stores and manages various types of media such as photos, videos, and documents. Digital asset management systems (DAMs) make it easier to manage digital assets and provide secure access to authorized users.

3. Content Marketing Platform

• Plan, create, distribute, and evaluate content to engage and expand your audience. Simplify content marketing, ensure consistent messaging, and analyze performance for improved planning and increased lead generation, customer engagement, and ROI.

4. Content Recommendations

• Provide related article suggestions or blog ideas to keep users engaged. Test different algorithms, user interfaces, and placements using Optimizely experimentation.

5. Optimizely CMS A/B Testing and Personalization 

• Provides basic A/B testing of content blocks. In the CMS editor during page creation, customers can formulate and execute an A/B test and personalization experience of your new content vs. your existing content, setting primary goals for conversion to confirm the success of your new digital experiences.

6. Optimizely Data Platform 

• Consider organizing your data for targeting next. This tool collects, organizes, and unifies data from multiple sources, creating a single, comprehensive view of each customer. This 360-degree view enables businesses to deliver targeted, real-time segments for A/B testing and personalized customer experiences.

7. Optimizely Web Experimentation

• This helps mitigate risks by testing new ideas on a small scale before fully implementing a new website, fostering innovation, reducing costly errors, and increasing the chances of a successful, user-friendly redesign meeting business goals.

8. Optimizely Feature Experimentation

• This tool, which used to be called Full Stack, lets businesses do iterative progressive delivery on development features and run experiments in any application, including with the CMS along with web, mobile, over-the-top (OTT), and server-side apps.

Finally, a well-executed CMS upgrade or replatform strategy is critical to digital transformation success. Whether you have an aging system, need better content creation capabilities, or need integrations with third-party systems, Perficient can help you succeed. You can improve content management, improve user experiences, and drive growth by embracing contemporary technologies and taking a strategic approach.

Speak with one of our specialists to understand how we can assist you in completing a successful CMS upgrade.

Contact one of our CMS experts today.

Achieving Success with Your E-Commerce Upgrade or Replatform

Navigating e-commerce upgrades, whether for B2B or B2C businesses, can be compared to preparing a delicious feast in a busy kitchen. The secret ingredients for success are rapid growth and technological innovation. However, without a clear digital strategy, financial constraints, fear of risks, organizational resistance to change, and inefficient processes can hinder progress. To overcome these challenges, businesses need to prioritize their digital transformation, encourage innovation, train their teams, and seek guidance from industry experts. By doing so, they can fully leverage cutting-edge technology to drive growth and achieve success.

If you have any concerns or need specific advice about replatforming or upgrading your e-commerce system, get in touch with a B2B/B2B commerce expert today. Speak to an expert in e-commerce right away.

In this article, we’ll explore how businesses can scale their marketing technology stack and introduce tools (like Optimizely) to support their growth objectives. Whether you’re considering upgrading or replatforming, we’ll provide recommendations for a successful rollout. Staying ahead of technology and platform changes is essential for e-commerce companies to stay competitive and deliver exceptional user experiences. We’ll discuss the benefits of embracing new technologies, such as enhanced user experiences, scalability, security, and improved performance. By prioritizing technology updates, businesses can future-proof their operations, integrate systems effectively, and provide ongoing support for smooth operations.

Why E-Commerce Companies should Establish a Strategy and Prioritize Technology Changes:

1. Competitive Advantage: To stand out from competitors, e-commerce companies must adopt the latest technologies and platforms. By offering enhanced user experiences, secure transactions, and innovative features, businesses can gain a competitive edge and attract more customers.
2. Enhanced User Experience: Technology advancements significantly impact the user experience on e-commerce platforms. Faster loading times, intuitive navigation, personalized recommendations, visual product configurators, chatbots for customer support, and seamless checkout processes all contribute to a better user experience. Adopting these technologies helps businesses deliver convenience, engagement, and satisfaction, leading to higher conversions and customer retention. Advanced technologies enable seamless mobile experiences, personalized recommendations, multiple payment options, and fast shipping.
3. Scalability, security, and Performance: As e-commerce businesses grow, they need scalable technologies and platforms that can handle increased traffic and transactions. Outdated or inadequate systems may lead to slow performance, crashes, security vulnerabilities, or an inability to handle high volumes of orders. Staying ahead of technological changes ensures businesses have the necessary scalability, reliability, and performance to meet growing demands.

To maximize the impact of your results, we’ll highlight key products and their benefits using the Optimizely DXP tools. Here we’ll explain how each tool contributes to success. By following a strategic sequence for implementation and considering factors like integration, flexibility, future-proofing, and ongoing support, businesses can unlock the full potential of these tools.

1. Optimizely Commerce 

• Whether you are considering an upgrade or a replatform This isn’t just about having the latest software; it’s also about updating the CMS’s functionalities to meet business needs. The first stage is a complete CMS audit to identify areas for improvement and dangers. Next, the organization should back up its data and work with experts to roll out a new CMS version and make sure it interacts with other enterprise systems and fulfills performance goals. The upgrade should also consider staff training for new features and tools.

2. Product Recommendations 

• Improve the buying experience by recommending products based on browsing history, cart contents, and popularity. Leverage complex algorithms and data analysis to increase sales on your e-commerce site.

3. Optimizely Web Experimentation

• This helps mitigate risks by testing new ideas on a small scale before full implementation of a new CMS, fostering innovation, reducing costly errors, and increasing the chances of a successful, user-friendly redesign that meets business goals.

4. Digital Asset Management 

• The system at the center stores and manages various types of media, such as photos, videos, and documents. Digital asset management systems (DAMs) make it easier to manage digital assets and provide secure access to authorized users.

5. Content Marketing Platform 

• This will help your business to plan, create, distribute, and evaluate content in order to engage and expand their audiences. This simplifies content marketing, ensures a consistent message across channels, and analyzes performance to improve planning. The program streamlines, controls, and enhances teamwork. Using a CMP to create relevant, high-quality content increases lead generation, customer engagement, and ROI. A content marketing platform centralizes and simplifies content marketing, provides data-driven insights, and assists firms in competing online.

6. Optimizely Data Platform

• This tool collects, organizes, and unifies data from multiple sources, creating a single, comprehensive view of each customer. This 360-degree view enables businesses to deliver targeted, real time segments for A/B testing and personalized customer experiences.

7. Optimizely Web Personalization

• Enable user-based website personalization to customized content and targeted promotions to increase client engagement using the Optimizely Web tool.

8. Content Recommendations

• Provide related article suggestions or blog ideas to keep users engaged. Test different algorithms, user interfaces, and placements using Optimizely experimentation.

9. Optimizely Feature Experimentation 

• Enable iterative progressive delivery and run experiments in various applications, including web, mobile, over-the-top (OTT), and server-side apps.

In summary, staying ahead of technology and platform changes in the e-commerce industry is crucial for maintaining a competitive advantage, meeting evolving customer expectations, improving the user experience, ensuring scalability and performance, addressing security and compliance requirements, enabling integration and flexibility, and future-proofing the business. It allows e-commerce companies to stay relevant, deliver exceptional experiences, and drive sustainable growth in the dynamic digital marketplace.

Are you prepared to significantly expand your online store?

Get in touch with our digital commerce specialists right away to find out how to take advantage of innovative tools and fine-tune your digital transformation strategy. Get in touch with us today for a free commerce assessment!

Tools for A/B testing are getting better, so you can get more out of your experiments.

Readers, buckle up! Let’s launch through the evolution of the A/B testing tool. You might be thinking, “Really, that’s exciting?” However, this journey is a wild one that has accelerated thanks to technological advancements and a growing understanding of the value of making decisions based on data. If you’re looking for a new tool or trying to grow your experimentation program, this is for you.

In a 2019 Nasdaq interview about Optimizely, I talked about how the industry was already changing because of the growing amount of data and better ways to integrate it. There are always new mergers and software retirements in the world of marketing and data tools. Google Optimize will stop working completely in September; Dynamic Yield was bought by Mastercard; and Oracle Maxymiser will stop working on May 31, 2024, according to a recent email to its customer base. These are recent examples of how the industry of website and mobile app experimentation is changing. Many A/B testing tools are adding new features, while others are trying to keep up with the competitive landscape. When these old systems are taken off the market, it opens the door for new technologies to come in and fill the gap. Many companies are also choosing a new A/B testing tool at this time.

Let Our Experts Transition You Off Google Optimize

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It’s a great time for tools that let you explore and customize, and there’s a lot to think about when you’re looking for A/B testing tools. Some of the most important parts of popular experimentation software are as follows:

1. Easy to use and adaptable:

   There was a time when using A/B testing tools was like trying to figure out a strange language. Today’s A/B testing software is as easy to use as it gets and is eager to help you improve your website. You don’t need a degree in tech magic! You should also think about how flexible the tool is for making your tests. For example, do the a/b testing tools work well with single-page apps, mobile apps, or complicated website frameworks?

2. Use data to your advantage:

   Modern A/B testing tools are all about integrating and creating experiences with everything from web analytics (Google, Adobe) to CRM systems (Salesforce, Hubspot). This means that you can test on different systems and get more information than ever before. This also takes into account the fact that A/B testing tools have become more secure as privacy laws like GDPR and CCPA have become more common. They make sure that all user data is handled safely and with care, just like a reliable friend.

3. Real-Time Insights:

   A/B testing tools now have integrations for real-time data and segmentation, so personalization is more targeted. They let your digital marketing team customize their content, style, and strategy, which increases engagement, improves conversion rates, and makes the user experience more enjoyable. This, along with AI and machine learning, makes it possible to automatically make decisions based on data and predict what will happen. You can even change the way traffic is split to automatically drive more traffic to your best-performing personalization campaign.

In conclusion, A/B testing tools have come a long way from their simple start to where they are now: data-hungry, user-friendly powerhouses. These improvements are making it possible to create experiences that are smarter and better. So, the next time you consider an A/B testing tool, check to see if it has the most recent features and functions. As technology moves more toward AI and automation, it will keep getting better and better. You need to choose software that is the best in its class and will change as business needs change.

Do you need help from a professional to choose the right A/B testing tool or grow your experimentation program?

Talk to an expert now,  get your free evaluation today.

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Optimizely’s annual conference, Opticon, has come to an end. These three days were an incredible time to meet fellow Optimizers, customers, and digital transformation experts. Approximately 1,000 attendees from around the world came together to learn about the future of digital content creation, commerce, experimentation, and customer data intelligence.

Having worked with Optimizely for over 10 years, my colleagues and I were excited to learn how the “new” Optimizely would come together as one large digital experience platform (DXP) after acquiring five various companies. While these acquisitions happened over a year ago, this was the first Optimizely conference in over three years due to Covid-19. With that being said, it was perfect timing for this amazing conference in San Diego.

At Opticon, Optimizely demonstrated how they are turning the chaos of managing marketing, content, and commerce workflows into an orchestration of collaborative teamwork, improving time to market and driving proven ROI strategies. It was impressive to see how they are laser-focused on streamlining the complexity of delivering exceptional digital experiences across many teams, in any size business. These new solutions apply to every step of your organization including product, content creation, and development teams.

Optimizely’s chief executive officer, Alex Atzberger, outlined the complexities holding brands back from achieving higher outcomes. Here, he introduced Boundless Digital Invention – a new way for digital leaders to improve outcomes such as increased revenue, the lower total cost of ownership, and decreased customer acquisition costs.

“At Optimizely, we unleash brand potential as the world’s only DXP designed to help reinvent how marketing works. With Boundless Digital Invention, marketers can orchestrate, monetize, and experiment at every point,” Atzberger said during the session. “By removing complexities and barriers, brands can drive business success with boundless possibilities and infinite outcomes.”

What does this mean for Optimizely customers and partners?

Having acquired several different companies, Optimizely’s customers likely had questions. It’s understandable to be confused about the function of each solution and which products will stick after numerous changes in the industry. To address this, Optimizely announced that they will position their products into three solutions: Orchestrate, Monetize and Experiment. This unified positioning is a great step in the right direction to clear up any confusion and also outlines how the products will all work together. This strategic direction provides a great way for enterprises to adapt to their specific industries. Some businesses may start by platforming their CMS or commerce systems while other organizations may be looking to add experimentation to their existing tech stack to accelerate the growth of their KPIs.

These include:

1. Orchestrate
   Transforms the way your team plans, creates, and publishes content, and accelerates time-to-market. The products under this solution set include:
   1. Content Management (CMS)
      • You need to expedite content delivery in the face of changing needs and limited resources. Whether you want to easily stand up and reuse content on any channel or use one platform to store and manage it all.
   2. Content Marketing (CMP) – previously called Welcome
      • Content Marketing brings teams together on a single platform to share plans, collaborate on assets and flawlessly execute campaigns.
   3. Digital Asset Management (DAM)
      • Save time, eliminate waste and govern your brand with Library—a digital asset management tool built for marketing content.
2. Monetize
   Deliver modern, relevant, commerce experiences your customers will love, and maximize revenue growth. The product under this solution set includes:
   1. B2B Commerce
      • This was built for businesses so you can easily provide a buying experience your customers will love. Personalize experiences with data-driven recommendations and give your team the tools they need to drive revenue with built-in workflows.
   2. B2C Commerce
      • This is a complete suite for digital commerce and content management that uses artificial intelligence to deliver personalized experiences, individualized search rankings, and product recommendations.
3. Experiment
   Empower your team to test and gather insights that optimize experiences, reduce risk, and drive business results. The products under this solution set include:
   1. Web Experimentation (and Personalization)
      • Let customer sentiment drive your decision-making and eliminate the need to guess what will convert.
   2. Feature Experimentation – previously called Full Stack
      • Innovate your whole product lifecycle with higher-quality releases, safer tests, and faster feature validations.

Real-Time Segmentation

Optimizely describes Real-Time Segmentation to integrate across all Optimizely products and leverages “fresh data” to reflect the true state of an audience. This approach eliminates data refresh intervals that often result in delayed customer insight. Using a streaming and on-demand approach that enables extremely low data latency, customer data is guaranteed to be of the moment. The Optimizely Data Platform (ODP) will connect the solutions together and deploy Real-Time Segmentation.

What else was announced?

The announcements did not stop there. In fact, several sessions covered the upcoming roadmaps for each of the different products and solutions. We will cover more sneak previews of what else Optimizely is working on in future blog posts.

One thing was clear, Optimizely clearly continues to listen to its customers and adapt its solutions to real customer needs and business problems to be solved. It’s wonderful to see this company come together with great employees and we are always happy to partner with them.

In fact, Perficient was honored with the award for Solution Partner of the Year. The annual awards program celebrates and highlights the partners who make huge strides to go above and beyond in accelerating digital transformation for customers. The Solution Partner of the Year award honors Perficient as a top-performing partner that has demonstrated outstanding business performance and excellence in both sales and delivery of Optimizely solutions.

If you have questions or want to learn how your organization can utilize Optimizely, get in touch with Perficient today.

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Delivering effective customer experiences requires an omnichannel mindset. Customers want brands to understand their needs and help them on their journey, no matter what part of the organization they are interacting with.

Your website or mobile app visitors do not think in terms of channels, product lines, or business units, they just think about their relationship with a brand. However, many organizations struggle to piece all these properties together, and as a result, they are unable to meet their customers’ expectations. Here at Perficient, we use a priority framework called Journey Science to transform the customer experience using data.

Journey Science is a cross-functional discipline that combines research-based insights with data-driven evidence to understand, predict and optimize the customer journey at every touchpoint.

Does your organization find it challenging to create an effective personalized user journey?

Some common challenges that enterprise organizations experience include:

1. Lack of Data – Customer understanding is developed based on assumptions and opinions instead of data.
2. Forgotten Artifacts – Research-based insights are often “put on the shelf” and/or forgotten within an organization.
3. Vanity Metrics – Metrics may look good on the surface, but they do not translate into meaningful business insights.
4. Siloed Views – Business teams only focus on their view of the world without considering the full customer journey.
5. Limited Analysis – Data is collected but not sufficiently analyzed and modeled to predict customer behavior.

Journey Science is the next frontier in Data-Driven Customer Experience

You have heard the saying “data is the new oil” … Yes, you usually have too much data and are not utilizing it to your advantage in the most efficient way. Data is a key asset to creating an exceptional, personalized experience. In most cases, data is not used holistically across marketing, product, and IT teams. Too many enterprise organizations still work in multiple silos that lack communication and collaboration to provide the best solutions for their customers. Since the data is not effectively used, many questions are solved by assuming the key stakeholders know the best answers to their key personas.

Journey Science can help answer the following questions:

• Who are our customers?
• What are their actual experiences with our website/app?
• How does that differ from their expectations and other experiences they have?
• What should the optimal customer experience be?
• How can we influence the customer experience?
• How will we prioritize improvements?
• How can we best measure the impact?

Three parts of Journey Science

Journey Science includes three parts that fulfill several core competencies:

1. Data-Driven Evidence
   • An Omnichannel, business-focused approach to CX (Customer Experience) that provides the empirical, unbiased evidence needed to make predictive recommendations on the experience.
2. Research-Based Insights
   • Our comprehensive approach combines qualitative and quantitative research with data and analytics to understand, track and measure actual customer behavior.
3. Continuous Optimization
   • To be successful there needs to be an ongoing repeatable system in place to feed the evidence and insight into new outcomes and learnings.

The core competencies include:

1. Research – Gather insights that will inform your strategy
2. Data & Analytics – Capture data and activity across multiple channels
3. Segmentation – Identify and empathize with your customers
4. Journey Design – Examine the experience across interactions
5. Predictive Modeling – Analyze patterns to predict future outcomes
6. Experimentation – Validate predictions and optimize experiences

Research

Research provides a foundation for understanding your customer. A holistic research approach includes multi-layered insights that are continuously collected and analyzed.

• Qualitative – Used to understand opinions, influences, and motivations. We use insights to understand the context and illuminate nuances in the quantitative data that may otherwise go unseen or without understanding.
• Quantitative – Used to identify statistically relevant trends and patterns about a given audience segment versus others, to glean insights into their defining characteristics and behaviors.
• Competitive – This analyses analysis helps identify strengths and weaknesses compared to top competitors for features, user experience, and branding.
• Immersive – Enables researchers to gain empathy for users by walking in their shoes.

Data & Analytics

Customer data and analytics enable an organization to track and measure performance across multiple channels, interactions, and touchpoints that support the customer journey.

• Data Analysis – Provides insights based on customer attributes, traits, and competencies.
  • This is accomplished by completing a deep dive analysis using website and mobile app analytics tools like Google Analytics or Adobe Analytics.
• Path Analysis – Examines how visitors are moving through the journey and areas of struggle.
  • This type of process is done using a combination of user testing, user recording tools, heuristic evaluation, and completing a competitive analysis.
• Heatmapping – Demonstrates how customers interact within a specific environment.
  • Heat maps and scroll maps are created by adding behavioral analytics software to monitor your site’s digital experience.
• Sentiment Scoring – Measures customer sentiment across various parts of the journey.
  • This scoring system is customized based on different industries and the main KPIs the digital experience is targeting. It includes task analysis, user surveys, and interviews with the ideal user personas.

Segmentation

Segmentation enables organizations to develop more meaningful insights about their customers. Data-driven personas enable empathy and understanding around specific audience types, while marketing segmentation enables the activation of optimized campaigns and personalization. Some examples of segmentation include:

• Rules-Based – Assign specific if this, then that logic to target users on a series of conditions.
• Automated – AI and machine learning determine the best experience based on primary metrics.
• Real-Time – Ability to switch to different audiences based on events that happen in real-time.

Journey Design

Exploring the customer journey through multi-dimensional models enables an organization to better understand the customer experience across multiple touchpoints and interactions. The artifacts produced during the journey design include:

1. Personas – Identify and understand your target audience segments.
   • Personas communicate a shared understanding of the real target audience segments in terms of their goals, capabilities, and context that can be used to drive personalization across multiple business processes.
2. Experience Maps – Examine the customer experience across the lifecycle.
   • Experience Maps are multi-dimensional models that enable an organization to better understand the customer experience across touchpoints and interactions.
3. Customer Journeys – Optimize outcomes across the customer lifecycle.
   • Tell the story of the customer’s experience from initial contact, through the process of engagement, and into a long-term relationship. Customer Journeys focus on specific customer outcomes and help to identify gaps – points in the experience that are disjointed or painful.

Some of the outcomes addressed in a customer journey map include:

• • Tasks: What is the user trying to achieve at this stage?
  • Questions: What does the user want to know at this stage?
  • Touchpoints: How does the user interact with the organization at this point?
  • Emotions: What is the user feeling at this stage in the process?
  • Weaknesses: How does the organization let the user down at this stage?

Predictive Modeling

• Pattern Exploration – Surface and validate data patterns with subject matter expertise.
• Model Development – Engineer features that demonstrate the necessary patterns for a model to learn from. Iterate and optimize the model hyperparameters.
• Machine Learning – Utilize artificial intelligence to analyze and predict based on previous behavior.
• Decisioning – Challenge and validate the prediction results to inform, recommend or automate the decision-making process.

Experimentation

Experimentation is the path to optimization. It enables organizations to test out their hypotheses and implement an evidence-based approach to reaching their goals.

• Split Testing – Compares unique concepts against baseline performance.
• Reinforcement Learning – One or more variables are tested within a live environment to provide a direct feedback loop into predictive models.
• Path Exploration – Evaluate multiple journey flows to evaluate the effectiveness of a given sequence of triggers, touchpoints, and events.
• Exploitation – Capitalize on experiment findings to optimize for success.

Supporting The Journey

Supporting the customer journey requires the coordination and integration of multiple channels, platforms, and business functions to deliver frictionless experiences. Journey Science enables organizations to continuously understand and predict the needs of customers to deploy frictionless and cohesive omnichannel brand experiences.

Establishing Outcomes and Opportunities for an Exceptional Omnichannel Experience

Following the Journey Science framework will provide your business with everything you need to determine the gaps for overall KPI improvement and enable accelerated growth through your organization. For example, some of the activities and outcomes include:

1. Clear OKRs (Objectives and Key Results)
   • Documents the objectives and key results that are driving the strategy.
2. Prioritization Scorecard of Opportunities
   • Documents the criteria used to score the individual modules within a capability.
3. Capabilities and Resource Gaps
   • Details the individual capabilities and modules needed to deliver the strategic vision.
4. Roadmap for Continuous Growth + ROI Model
   • Defines the prioritization and planning of the individual models based on ROI value.

If you have questions or want to learn how your organization can utilize Journey Science, get in touch with Perficient today.

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