Digital Marketing: 7 key points to consider when choosing a web optimization tool

The performance of a company’s digital channel can be monitored using two main factors. Traffic, given by the number of visitors to your site is certainly an important indicator because an effective conversion rate is often based on high traffic to your site. However, the growth and optimization of this conversion rate, which is the percentage of visitors who act on your site in a way you have foreseen, are at the core work of a digital marketing team.

To help them increase the conversion rate, two tactics have emerged in recent years : AB testing and personalization. To support either of these two tactics, digital marketers can today use two main solutions :

• SaaS solutions layered on top of existing websites,
• Integrated tools, such as Marketing Factory, provided within a digital experience platform - or DXP - used to build the website

Before you choose the personalization solution for your website, I encourage you to consider 7 criteria that will largely determine the success - or failure - of your online marketing policy.

1 - Content

When using Marketing Factory, all assets and content in Jahia DX are accessible. If the Jahia DX is connected to one or several Digital Asset Management - or DAM - systems, the stored assets are also available for any content personalization or AB test.
With 3rd party solutions, you’ll have to upload and manage your assets there as well.

2 - Workflows & audit trails

Companies sometimes define complex workflows to ensure that their website content is under control. 

Using 3rd party solutions requires setting up new permissions on a platform that is not fully controlled and that can conflict with the internal permission rules of the DXP. When using Marketing Factory, AB Tests and personalizations can be reviewed and published using the same set of rules applied to any new content.

3 - Preview

3rd party testing solutions come with their own preview feature. However, there are no guarantees that the tested content or layout  won’t be affected by future publication on the DXP.  An integrated tool such as Marketing Factory provides a consistent preview across new content, AB tests, and personalizations.  

4 - Implementation of winner variant

What happens when an A/B Test is finished? A 3rd party solution provides only results from a simulation and the proper content will need to be implemented on the actual DXP. With a tool such as Marketing Factory, the winning variant will be automatically set by default.

5 - Profile consolidation

Some 3rd party testing solutions are only session-based, meaning that they will only provide a conversion rate per session and won't consolidate visitors' profiles across sessions. With Marketing Factory, visitor profiles are consolidated across visitors' sessions, including post-login. Thanks to this consolidation, Marketing Factory makes it possible to see how an AB test is performing against visitors' properties and their context. This data will help you understand why a variant is the winner and create better content and design afterward.

6 - Data ownership

The use of 3rd party testing solutions implies that the test results are available as long as access to the platform is maintained by a subscription to the service. When the subscription is over or the service ends, all data may be lost or unusable. As an integrated tool to the DXP, Marketing Factory guarantees the sustainability of the collected customer data and tests results, thus building on this data to develop a strong marketing strategy over time.

7 - Style editing

A/B testing and personalization are now recognized strategies to improve the customer experience and get better conversion rates. But many marketers still don’t use it because it involves using a new solution and can degrade the overall authoring experience for a website. By using Marketing Factory, seamlessly integrated within DX, marketers can get the benefits of AB Tests and personalization without the associated hurdles.