How to deliver a CMS vision

Episerver has always been good at setting out a vision. At Ascend 2018, we saw how the CMS has evolved rapidly to deliver it.

When assessing CMS vendors, consultancies look for evidence of vision as well execution. Having acquired two service-based vendors in 2016 (Peerius for personalisation and Optivo for email marketing), Episerver clearly set a vision of CMS as a modular - yet integrated - ecosystem. At Ascend 2018, I saw this model reaching maturity, and the product setting the bar for integrated, personalised customer experiences.

At the head of everything is content relevance: according to a survey commissioned by Episerver, 95% of consumers fail to complete a journey due to bad content. Unlike commerce, where transactions clearly track what works, it is much harder to understand what content helps a user convert. Episerver solves this through Machine Learning algorithms with seamless support for multiple channels. 

Individualised Content

As a CMS specialist, the game changer is the introduction of autonomous content personalisation, hitherto only available for Commerce. Based on Machine Learning algorithms, it delivers a more personalised experience than the built-in Visitor Groups, as it creates recommendations based on individual behaviour rather than generic rules-based segments. Given that personalisation is a challenge for 83% of marketers, we see this simple-but-powerful solution as a real enabler for many organisations. 

Omni-channel reach

The product team has also been hard at work with syncing content across channels. In one notable demo, a few lines of code were enough to connect the Insight and Campaign products to deliver powerful cross-channel personalisation. In its simplest implementation, an email triggered by a form submission is continually customised after it has been received, based on further activity on the site. Once again, a powerful solution, implemented with minimum effort.

DXC Platform 

We are pretty enthusiastic about the Digital Experience Cloud so we are delighted to hear about 90% growth in cloud adoption. As the software model moves towards services - with even content itself delivered through the Headless API - it makes sense to deploy on Cloud infrastructure maintained by the vendor. As the ecosystem grows, DXC is the place where vision becomes tangible: security, extensibility, scalability delivered in a neat package. 

Better connected

The big bets that Episerver made a couple of years ago are paying off. The personalisation service delivers simple-yet-powerful access to AI-driven content recommendations, whereas the integration of Campaign onto the platform allows marketers to orchestrate messaging sequences across channels. Finally, the introduction of Headless API amplifies your channel reach to mobile apps, voice-driven devices and the IoT. 

Episerver's vision is to that content needs to dynamically optimise itself to match the needs of an individual, on any device they happen to be using at a particular time. As implementation partners, we are thrilled to see this vision delivered by a rapidly evolving product ecosystem. By combining clear vision with rapid execution, Episerver remains ahead of the pack.