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Varia Makagonova

<p></p><iframe src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/TEstYKiN5eY" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" width="66.5158%" height="300"></iframe><p></p><p>Personalization is a top priority for marketers. Us here at Contentstack included.&nbsp;</p><p>However, many struggle to deliver <a href="https://www.contentstack.com/platforms/personalize">personalized experiences</a> that engage customers and drive tangible results.&nbsp;</p><p>… Again, us included.</p><p>A few months ago, the marketing team met to set the strategy for our personalization efforts, which is our CMO’s top priority for the coming year.</p><p>The goal was to get our personalization efforts up and running quickly, so we needed to figure out who was responsible for what and how the work would get done.</p><p>These are the questions we asked ourselves.</p><h2><strong>1. Who owns personalization?</strong></h2><p>Effective personalization requires a dedicated team. This team should be championed by an executive sponsor (in our case, the CMO) and comprise a core strategy group (Product Marketing, Content, Lifecycle Marketing, and Operations).</p><p>Supporting this core team are working groups focused on execution, such as Web Development and Campaign Management. This structure ensures strategic alignment and efficient implementation of your personalization efforts.</p><h2><strong>2. What are your goals for personalization?</strong></h2><p>Before diving into tactics, it is important to define your objectives. For instance, are you looking to increase engagement, drive conversions or improve customer satisfaction? (Or, all of the above.)</p><p>Clear goals will guide your strategy and help you measure success. Some of our goals included faster conversions to demo requests and higher engagement with key pages such as <a href="https://www.contentstack.com/case-studies">case studies</a>.&nbsp;</p><h2><strong>3. What data do you have available?</strong></h2><p>Personalization relies on data. What data points do you currently collect, and how can they be used to personalize experiences?&nbsp;</p><p>Consider customer demographics, behaviors, interests and preferences. We decided to use behavioral data as a starting point since B2B customers typically interact with content that strongly indicates their product interest.</p><h2><strong>4. How will you unify your data?</strong></h2><p>Data silos hinder personalization efforts. Do you have a way to unify customer data from various sources into a single customer view?&nbsp;</p><p>A real-time Customer Data Platform (CDP) can help you break down silos and create a centralized data foundation. In our case, our recent acquisition of <a href="https://www.contentstack.com/lytics">Lytics, a Real-time CDP</a>, paves the way for data unification and activation for personalization.&nbsp;</p><h2><strong>5. How will you segment your audience?</strong></h2><p>Segmentation is crucial for delivering targeted experiences. What criteria will you use to segment your audience, and how will you ensure segments are dynamic and updated in real time?&nbsp;</p><p>AI-powered segmentation can help you create highly targeted segments based on customer behavior and predictive insights. In our case, prospects span more technical and business-focused audiences and customers from specific industries, so these were our focus areas for defining our first personalization projects.&nbsp;</p><h2><strong>6. What channels will you personalize?</strong></h2><p>Personalization should extend across all customer touchpoints to maximize effectiveness. Which channels are most important for your audience, and how can you orchestrate consistent, personalized experiences across web, email, mobile, ads and in-store?&nbsp;</p><p>It's normal for a first personalization project to start with a single channel before expanding further; for instance, we started with our website.&nbsp;</p><h2><strong>7. What content will you personalize?</strong></h2><p>Content is at the heart of personalization. What content can you tailor to individual preferences, and how will you ensure content is relevant and engaging?&nbsp;</p><p>We created a list of high-value pages with high engagement and high potential for personalization. These included our <a href="https://www.contentstack.com/">homepage</a>, <a href="https://www.contentstack.com/case-studies">case studies page</a>, and platform pages like <a href="https://www.contentstack.com/platforms/headless-cms">headless CMS</a>. Then we identified what we could personalize on those pages, and then the content creation could begin, supported by <a href="https://www.contentstack.com/platforms/ai">on-brand GenAI</a> to support production at scale.&nbsp;</p><h2><strong>8. What technology will you use to support personalization?</strong></h2><p>The right technology is essential for effective personalization. Do you have a CDP, personalization engine, or other tools in place to support your strategy?&nbsp;</p><p>Contentstack's powerful real-time CDP (Lytics) and <a href="https://www.contentstack.com/platforms/personalize">Personalize</a> provide a comprehensive solution for data unification, segmentation and content personalization.</p><h2><strong>9. How will you ensure compliance with privacy regulations?</strong></h2><p>Data privacy is paramount. How will you ensure compliance with GDPR, CCPA and other regulations?&nbsp;</p><p>Contentstack's real-time CDP offers built-in consent management and data residency controls to help you navigate privacy requirements. In our case, we also started small by working with behavioral data (clicks/interactions).&nbsp;</p><h2><strong>10. How will you start small, move quickly and set yourself up for success?</strong></h2><p>It’s easy to get overwhelmed by an enormous project like personalization. Our biggest lesson learned in setting our personalization strategy was to start with a manageable scope and select high-impact use cases that we could scale as we went.</p><p>Luckily, Contentstack provides world-class <a href="https://www.contentstack.com/academy">resources</a> and <a href="https://www.contentstack.com/customer-care">support</a> to help you stay ahead of the curve with personalization.</p><h2><strong>Activate your data and transform customer experiences</strong></h2><p>Personalization can be complex, but the rewards are worth the effort. You can lay the groundwork for a successful personalization strategy by asking yourself these ten key questions.&nbsp;</p><p><a href="https://www.contentstack.com/request-demo">Contentstack is here to help you every step of the way</a>.&nbsp;</p><p>Our real-time CDP and Personalize provide the tools you need to unify your data, segment your audience, personalize your content at scale and measure your results.&nbsp;</p><p>With Contentstack, you can deliver exceptional customer experiences that drive engagement, conversions and revenue.</p><p>When you’re ready to learn more, <a href="https://www.contentstack.com/request-demo"><strong>schedule a demo to see personalization in action</strong></a>.</p>

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<p><span style='color:rgb(27, 28, 29);font-size: 11pt;'><strong>We kicked off a project to implement personalization at Contentstack. Here’s what we’ve learned about what questions to ask when starting a personalization project.</strong></span></p>

10 key questions to set your personalization strategy

<p>Here’s a question with an obvious answer: What if you could only show your customers the content and offers that they were interested in, both on your owned channels and on paid, email and social? I’d say, sign me up.</p><p>Is there any customer who wants to see irrelevant information, either in B2B or B2C? Nope.</p><p>Digital Experience Platforms (DXPs) have been promising to make this possible for years. So why is it still so difficult for brands to do?&nbsp;</p><h2><strong>The promise and reality of traditional DXPs</strong></h2><p>We asked VPs at several global enterprise brands what trips them up about using traditional DXPs to their full potential. They told us:</p><ul><li>We’re built on traditional marketing and operations principles, so defining success in concepts like “personalization” is difficult.&nbsp;</li><li>Our technology ownership is fragmented, so there’s no clear owner of “the digital experience” and the tech that powers it.</li><li>We have so much data, but we can’t do anything with it. Our data ecosystem is fragmented and the data is not accessible to our marketing and customer-facing teams.</li><li>Our teams are not equipped with the right digital skillset.</li></ul><p><strong>Those are real, sticky problems.&nbsp;</strong></p><p>Yes, customer data is difficult to wrangle and overwhelming to use. Yes, technology usability and ownership are daily roadblocks for businesses. And yes, the definition of success in personalization, especially across channels, is nebulous at best.&nbsp;</p><p>And we were excited to hear our hypotheses confirmed.</p><p>Because that’s exactly what we believe about traditional, legacy DXPs: you can’t solve modern marketing challenges with outdated technology. In fact, you can’t solve these challenges with technology alone, at all. Or a project plan. Or even a team training.</p><p>We believe that the goal all enterprises should set for themselves in order to stay relevant in today’s market is this: <strong>adaptive digital experiences.</strong></p><p>The goal has to change. It’s not about finding the right tools to power each separate bit of the customer journey; it’s finding the solutions that tie the whole journey together.&nbsp;</p><h2><strong>The Adaptive Digital Experience Platform&nbsp;</strong></h2><p>Today, we’re excited to announce the launch of <strong>Contentstack EDGE, </strong>the Adaptive Digital Experience Platform built for the AI era<strong>. </strong>This solution breaks the mold by combining our headless CMS with the most powerful, user-friendly CDP on the market, coupled with AI and Automation.&nbsp;</p><p>The result? A unified foundation that seamlessly integrates intelligent content, real-time data activation and brand-aware AI to redefine how businesses craft impactful, personalized, omnichannel customer journeys that adapt to user behavior and preferences.</p><p>When you choose Contentstack EDGE, you’re not simply adopting a tool — you’re future-proofing your business against the limitations of outdated DXPs.</p><p><strong>Here’s what sets us apart.&nbsp;</strong></p><h3><em>1. Built for agility&nbsp;</em></h3><p>Unlike traditional digital experience platforms, Contentstack EDGE runs on <a href="https://www.contentstack.com/platforms/headless-cms"><strong>API-first architecture</strong></a>, enabling businesses to adapt quickly to new challenges. IT professionals will love how easy it is to integrate with existing tools. Marketers will love a UI built for usability, searchability, and <a href="https://www.contentstack.com/platforms/visual-building">visual building</a> of digital experiences.&nbsp;</p><h3><em>2. World-class customer support and education</em></h3><p>From our <a href="https://www.contentstack.com/customer-care"><strong>No-fail promise</strong></a> (which means exactly what it says: we will not let you fail), backed by the industry’s best customer success team, to our <a href="https://www.contentstack.com/customer-care#:~:text=Technical-,Solutions,-Organization"><strong>Technical Services Organization</strong></a> that can address every pain point teams may encounter in set up and implementation, to our learning portal <a href="https://www.contentstack.com/academy"><strong>Academy</strong></a> that provides role-based learning paths and more, our customers are wrapped in 360° care every step of the way.&nbsp;</p><h3><em>3. Proven ROI&nbsp;</em></h3><p>Today’s fastest-growing brands, including global leaders like <a href="https://www.contentstack.com/resources/case-study/mongodb-drives-digital-modernization-with-contentstack"><strong>MongoDB</strong></a> and <a href="https://www.contentstack.com/resources/case-study/land-olakes-boosts-conversion-rate-by-38-with-lytics-cdp-personalization"><strong>Land O’Lakes (Purina)</strong></a>, trust Contentstack to deliver results. From streamlining content workflows to boosting customer conversion rates, Contentstack EDGE delivers high-impact benefits across industries.&nbsp;</p><h2><strong>Take the next step with Contentstack EDGE&nbsp;</strong></h2><p>The era of rigid, one-size-fits-all digital experiences is over. Actually, it’s long gone already.&nbsp;</p><p>Contentstack EDGE allows forward-thinking businesses to lead with smarter data, adaptable content and real-time automation.&nbsp;</p><p>Whether you’re a digital marketer aiming to fine-tune personalization, an IT professional seeking tools that integrate seamlessly, or an executive pursuing scalable growth, Contentstack EDGE equips you with everything you need to succeed.&nbsp;</p><p><a href="https://www.contentstack.com/request-demo"><strong>Book a demo today</strong></a><strong> to see our platform in action.</strong></p>

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Ready to solve marketing in the AI era? Meet Contentstack EDGE, the adaptive DXP

<p><span style="color: rgb(31, 31, 31);font-size: 10.5pt;"></span>Marketing has changed.</p>
<p>A year ago, AI was a hypothetical concept for most marketers. Today, marketers’ <a href="https://www.salesforce.com/news/stories/marketing-trends-ai-data/">#1 priority</a> is harnessing AI to drive scale, efficiency, and innovation.&nbsp;</p>
<p>Five years ago, omnichannel was a buzzword. Today, marketers’ <a href="https://www.salesforce.com/news/stories/marketing-trends-ai-data/">top challenge</a> is achieving meaningful customer engagement across a cohesive customer journey.</p>
<p><span style="color: rgb(31, 31, 31);">And for how many years have we been talking about the need for personalization? </span>Year after year, research shows personalization is a <a href="https://www.forrester.com/blogs/the-5-top-initiatives-for-b2c-cmos-in-2025/">top priority</a> for B2B and B2C CMOs. Yet, <a href="https://www.forrester.com/blogs/the-5-top-initiatives-for-b2c-cmos-in-2025/">nearly 50%</a> of online consumers wish brands would do a better job of personalization.&nbsp;</p>
<p></p>
<p>Marketing has changed. But we’re all having trouble keeping up.&nbsp;</p>
<p>The challenge isn't a lack of skills or imagination—it's outdated technology, built for an outdated era of marketing. Even brands using modern, <a href="https://www.contentstack.com/academy/content/understanding-composable">composable</a> solutions haven't found the capabilities to fully realize their customer experience vision: creating hyper-personalized experiences that are built at scale yet feel human, adapting in real time across all channels.</p>
<p>The world’s best customer experiences have been few and far between, attainable only through painstaking work by huge teams and eye-popping creative budgets.&nbsp;</p>
<h4>Until today.</h4>
<p>Today, Contentstack <a href="https://www.contentstack.com/company/press/contentstack-acquires-lytics-the-leading-real-time-customer-data-platform-powering-hyper-personalization">announced</a> the acquisition of Lytics, the leading real-time Customer Data Platform (CDP). And this changes everything.&nbsp;</p>
<p>Contentstack has always been on a mission to enable the world's best digital experiences. Our journey began with decoupling content from front-end experiences through our enterprise-class headless CMS. We've since evolved into the only Composable DXP, adding automation, front-end hosting, AI authoring, and native personalization.</p>
<h4><span>The missing piece</span></h4>
<p></p>
<p>Personalization was finally where it belonged: inside the CMS. But while a personalization engine is essential, creating true hyper-personalization requires data and insights. More specifically, it requires access to first-party data and insights in real time.</p>
<p></p>
<p></p>
<h4>Enter Lytics</h4>
<p><a href="https://www.contentstack.com/lytics" target="_blank">Lytics</a> brings real-time analytics and audience profiling capabilities to Contentstack. By acquiring Lytics, we're unlocking first-party data, turbocharging digital experiences with hyper-personalization.</p>
<p>With Lytics, brands can:</p>
<ul>
  <li>Gain real-time engagement data and audience insights for both known and unknown visitors.</li>
  <li>Easily create audience profiles in real time, right out of the box.</li>
  <li>Unlock data in existing CDPs, data warehouses, and other sources through a powerful real-time data activation layer.</li>
</ul>
<h4>Why Contentstack + Lytics?</h4>
<p>The combination of Contentstack and Lytics is unmatched in the industry. We've solved the content side of the digital experience equation, and now with Lytics, we've solved the data side. Together, we're raising the bar on what it means to be the world's best and most modern composable DXP—and deliver the world's best digital experiences.</p>
<p>With Lytics, Contentstack delivers true personalization at scale. The magic lies in the marriage between AI-driven content and actionable first-party data. This creates a future-ready framework for building tighter feedback loops between content and data, making systems more dynamic, adaptive, and autonomous.</p>
<p>We’re excited to welcome the super-talented Lytics team on board who have created true innovation in the CDP industry. Together, we will continue to deliver on our Care without Compromise promise to customers across the full composable Digital Experience Platform.</p>
<h3>What this means for brands</h3>
<p>Brands using Contentstack and Lytics can rise above the noise by delivering authentic, personalized experiences at scale. The combination of scalable content management and actionable first-party data, operating in real time, empowers brands to create extraordinary digital experiences that drive results.</p>
<p>It’s time to create the world’s best digital experiences.</p>
<p>Welcome, Lytics!</p>
<p><a href="https://www.contentstack.com/lytics" target="_blank">Learn more about Lytics + Contentstack.</a></p>

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<p>Contentstack's acquisition of Lytics, a real-time Customer Data Platform (CDP), empowers brands to create hyper-personalized digital experiences. By combining Contentstack with Lytics' real-time data activation and audience management, brands can deliver personalized content at scale, adapting in real time across all channels. </p>

Contentstack acquires Lytics: Unlocking the power of real-time hyper-personalization

<p>If you’re like most of our customers, you’re probably in the midst of negotiations with your stakeholders about how to prioritize your technology investments in 2025.&nbsp;</p><p>We know, there are always more systems needing an update than there are dollars to go around, and it can be a circular conversation to decide where to start.&nbsp;</p><p>We’ve helped hundreds of enterprise companies escape clunky, out-of-date and frustrating customer experiences. Most of them started this transformation with their content management system (CMS).&nbsp;</p><p>In fact, <a href="https://machalliance.org/insights-hub/mach-global-research-2024">MACH Alliance research</a> shows that <strong>49% of organizations are taking over a month to develop a new service or meet a new business requirement</strong>. Slow development equals lost business. Which is why organizations adopting composable technology most commonly start their implementation with their operational and customer experience systems, such as CMS.&nbsp;</p><p>There’s a chance you should, too.&nbsp;</p><p>If your website, mobile app or other digital touchpoints are a significant part of your overall customer journey strategy, <strong>modernizing your CMS is the single most impactful digital investment you can make in 2025. </strong>&nbsp;</p><p>Keep reading to see why.</p><h2>1. The power of self-service for your marketing team</h2><p>It’s time to allow marketers and content creators to design, edit and publish without relying on developer support. Investing in self-service capabilities for marketing and digital teams is crucial for businesses to win in 2025.&nbsp;</p><p>A modern CMS should empower business users to manage content without requiring coding skills. <a href="https://www.contentstack.com/resources/case-study/dawn-foods-online-success-recipe">Dawn Foods</a> has a "no-coding rule," so business users can easily create and edit content without writing code.&nbsp;</p><p>This allows the business to get more value out of its CMS. Empowering content teams to actually manage content means businesses can reduce reliance on IT teams where it’s not needed, removing bottlenecks and leaving more room for technology teams to focus on big-picture projects.&nbsp;</p><p>A modern CMS will also give your editors tools like <a href="https://www.contentstack.com/platforms/visual-building">Visual Building</a>, allowing for preview and live editing of experiences instead of filling in content forms. This unlocks marketing to both move faster and be more creative in delivering new customer experiences.&nbsp;</p><blockquote style="padding-left: 15px;font-size: 20px;font-style: italic;">“With Contentstack, we can deliver our content so much faster,” Yana Simanova, Project Lead at FBS Markets Inc said. “We’ve changed our focus from relying on developers to delivering content via the content managers, who are now wholly responsible for content on the website. Before Contentstack, we could only close 26% of requests in a day, and now that percentage is 95%.”</blockquote><h2>2. Your customers deserve a better digital experience</h2><p>When asked what drove their decision to modernize their digital experience stack, starting with their CMS, Topgolf Callaway’s Earth Reiser <a href="https://www.contentstack.com/podcasts/people-changing-enterprises/customer-centric-composable-transformation-with-topgolf-callway-brands-earth-reiser">said</a>, “Our e-comm directors, our CMOs, everybody was shouting at the top of their lungs that we couldn't meet their customer as quickly as they needed us to meet them. We couldn't just deploy our front end whenever we wanted to because we had to deploy our back end at the same time. So, all those common things that I hear everywhere I've ever been, are challenges for e-commerce business managers. So that is really what started pushing us in this direction — <strong>how do we empower the leaders of our brands to better meet their consumers?</strong>”</p><p>It’s not feasible to deliver an up-to-date customer experience when your content management system creates roadblocks to updating your content across all channels.&nbsp;</p><p><strong>By modernizing their CMS, our customers have seen incredible CX results, like:&nbsp;</strong></p><ul><li><a href="https://www.contentstack.com/resources/case-study/mattel-reimagines-customer-experience-to-maximize-engagement-and-drive-higher-conversions">Mattel’s</a> 9.5x increase in mobile conversions</li><li><a href="https://www.contentstack.com/resources/case-study/ello-group-accelerates-growth-and-publishes-10x-faster-with-contentstack">Ello Group’s</a> 70% improvement in site performance, and&nbsp;</li><li><a href="https://www.contentstack.com/resources/case-study/air-france-klm-streamlines-content-operations-and-omnichannel-strategy-on-contentstack">Air France KLM’s</a> 20% decrease in service line calls.</li></ul><p>But don’t just take our word for it — <a href="https://machalliance.org/insights-hub/mach-global-research-2024"><strong>87% of IT enterprise leaders</strong></a> state that composable technology has been very or quite important in helping their organization meet customer expectations in recent years.</p><a href="https://www.contentstack.com/campaign/cms-modernization" target="_blank"><img asset_uid="bltb6dc776bed5e3129" alt="CMS_Modernization_-_iInline_blog_CTA.png" src="https://images.contentstack.io/v3/assets/blt7359e2a55efae483/bltb6dc776bed5e3129/6818f977a6dd3448122275f0/CMS_Modernization_-_iInline_blog_CTA.png" target="_blank"/></a><h2>3. Unlock innovation in your digital experience (or else)</h2><p>In a recent <a href="https://machalliance.org/insights-hub/mach-global-research-2024">MACH Alliance survey</a>, <strong>90% of global IT leaders</strong> said, “Organizations who do not innovate now will be left behind.”</p><p>Let’s face reality: <strong>Every brand is at risk of digital disruption.&nbsp;</strong></p><ul><li>20% of the world’s top brands <a href="https://www.kantar.com/campaigns/brandz/global">lost value</a> in 2023, and&nbsp;</li><li>Consumers <a href="https://meaningful-brands.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/Havas_Meaningful_Brands__MeConomy_Whitepaper_Jan2024.pdf">wouldn’t care</a> if 75% of brands disappeared</li></ul><p>You can be part of the brands that matter, but you need to be able to innovate quickly and at scale to meet customers’ demands for digital experiences that are truly differentiated.&nbsp;</p><p>So, how does a modern CMS unlock digital innovation? We’re glad you asked. A modern CMS decouples back-end content from front-end presentation and its API-first approach enables:</p><ul><li><strong>Omnichannel content delivery </strong>via a single source of truth for any digital platform, including new and unprecedented channels (mobile apps, messaging apps, IoT devices, etc.).</li><li><strong>Rapid prototyping and experimentation</strong> that can be easily pushed to production without overhauling the entire content infrastructure.</li><li><strong>Agile content operations</strong>&nbsp;so teams can react to customer and market dynamics without getting stuck in lengthy content updates and campaign launch cycles.</li></ul><p>And, depending on the solution, a modern CMS can provide much more than just content and presentation layer decoupling — think AI, automation, personalization and whatever else your marketing team may dream up next.</p><h2>4. Scale and efficiency with AI + automation&nbsp;</h2><p>AI is transforming the way businesses create and manage content. <strong>56% of </strong><a href="https://contentmarketinginstitute.com/articles/b2b-content-marketing-trends-research/"><strong>content marketers</strong></a><strong> indicate that AI-powered automation will be a high or medium priority in 2025.&nbsp;</strong></p><p>And that doesn’t mean creating mediocre, generic, genAI content that includes the word “evolving” in every sentence.&nbsp;</p><p>Our customers have been unlocking growth with AI in a variety of powerful ways:</p><ul><li><strong>AI-assisted content production:</strong> AI can speed up content production time by creating content briefs or first drafts for review. Our customer, Golfbreaks, has seen a <a href="https://explore.contentstack.com/create-ai-use-case-with-golfbreaks">78% increase in time to market</a> as a result of leveraging AI to create golf course descriptions, which humans then refine before teeing off (being published).</li><li><strong>AI and automation for publishing and migration:</strong> When AI combines with automation, you can speed up processes that would otherwise take hours of tedious work. In a recent <a href="https://www.contentstack.com/resources/webinar/ai-automation-content-migration-mongodb">webinar</a>, our customer MongoDB shared how leveraging AI plus automation to migrate data across stacks saved the team 2 hours per 25-page batch.</li><li><strong>AI can be more reliable than a human for repetitive tasks: </strong>AI can also assist with tasks like SEO tagging, brand guideline adherence and accessibility compliance. In many cases, AI will perform these tasks in a more reliable way than a human can and will free up humans to work on more strategic challenges.</li></ul><h2>5. Outpace the competition by eliminating vendor lock-in (and reduce costs)</h2><p>Eliminating vendor lock-in is critical for businesses aiming to thrive in 2025 and beyond. Traditional, monolithic CMS platforms often restrict flexibility, making it challenging to adopt best-fit solutions or pivot to new technologies.&nbsp;</p><p>By embracing composable architectures, companies unlock the freedom to innovate and reduce costs.&nbsp;</p><p><strong>Here’s how:</strong></p><ul><li><strong>By avoiding costly upgrades:</strong> Organizations with over <a href="https://machalliance.org/insights-hub/mach-global-research-2024">75% legacy systems spend 71% of their IT budgets on upgrades instead of innovation</a>.</li><li><strong>By breaking free from rigid ecosystems:</strong> Larger vendors, like Adobe, offer integrations only when their entire suite of products is used, limiting flexibility and making it costly to transition.</li><li><strong>By adopting best-fit solutions:</strong> Composable architectures allow companies to choose the technologies that best suit their needs and easily incorporate new tools as they emerge.</li></ul><p><strong>Composable CMS architectures also give businesses a competitive edge:</strong></p><p>By adopting composable technologies, companies can quickly integrate emerging tools, adapt to trends and lead in their industries.</p><ul><li><a href="https://machalliance.org/insights-hub/mach-global-research-2024">80% of companies</a> with composable front-end infrastructures believe they are ahead of their competitors.</li></ul><ul><li><a href="https://machalliance.org/insights-hub/mach-global-research-2024"><strong>83% of organizations</strong></a> implementing composable technology report clear ROI.</li></ul><p><a href="https://www.contentstack.com/resources/case-study/reckitt-scales-multi-brand-content-operations-across-200-markets">Reckitt</a> saved <strong>20% in build time</strong> and cut costs by over <strong>50%</strong> after transitioning to a global, headless CMS platform with Contentstack. This approach also enabled Reckitt to launch new websites faster and at scale, further enhancing cost efficiency.</p><h2>6. Unlock A/B testing and personalization</h2><blockquote style="padding-left: 15px;font-size: 20px;font-style: italic;">“Thanks to Contentstack’s Modular Blocks, we’ve really upped our game when it comes to personalization." — Richard Bilton, Director of Technology at Leesa Sleep&nbsp;</blockquote><p>Year after year, research shows personalization is a <a href="https://www.forrester.com/blogs/the-5-top-initiatives-for-b2c-cmos-in-2025/">top priority</a> for B2B and B2C CMOs. Yet, <a href="https://www.forrester.com/blogs/the-5-top-initiatives-for-b2c-cmos-in-2025/">nearly 50%</a> of online consumers wish brands would do a better job of personalization.&nbsp;</p><p>We believe the reason for this delta is that personalization is tied up by one or two technological pitfalls:&nbsp;</p><ol><li>It’s either too difficult to set up and use by marketing teams, requiring complex development cycles (this is often the case in legacy monolithic DXP suites), or&nbsp;</li><li>Brands are using a bolted-on solution bought separately from a CMS, and therefore not content-aware nor intuitive to use.&nbsp;</li></ol><p><a href="https://www.contentstack.com/platforms/personalize">Personalization</a> is, at its core, content, and a content management system is the best place for personalization to natively live.&nbsp;</p><p>A modern CMS will allow you to integrate a personalization solution fully. Or, even better, it can have personalization functionality natively built in, like Contentstack <a href="https://www.contentstack.com/platforms/personalize">Personalize</a>.&nbsp;</p><h2>It’s time to reimagine possible</h2><p>Reimagine what's possible for your brand in 2025 with a modern CMS that empowers teams, delights customers and drives innovation at scale.&nbsp;</p><p>From unlocking self-service and AI-driven efficiency to breaking free from vendor lock-in and delivering truly personalized experiences, the right CMS is your gateway to digital transformation.</p><p>Don’t let outdated systems hold you back. <a href="https://www.contentstack.com/request-demo"><strong>Request a demo today</strong></a> and see how you can outpace the competition and redefine customer experiences in the year ahead.&nbsp;</p><p>The future starts now — let’s make it remarkable.</p>

2025 headless CMS predictions.png

6 reasons to prioritize a CMS modernization project in 2025

<p>Personalization is tough. So tough, in fact, that Gartner predicts <a href="https://www.gartner.com/en/newsroom/press-releases/2019-12-02-gartner-predicts-80--of-marketers-will-abandon-person" target="_blank">80% of marketers will abandon their personalization efforts by 2025</a>. </p>
<p>That’s why we set out to prove there’s now a <a href="https://www.contentstack.com/blog/announcements/omnichannel-personalization-with-headless-content/" target="_blank">practical path to omnichannel personalization</a> that’s powered by best-in-class enterprise tools. To demonstrate what’s possible with this modern approach, Contentstack, Uniform, and EPAM teamed up to launch Project CUE, an agile personalization showcase. </p>
<p>In just 12 weeks, the Project CUE team created a personalized booking experience for guests of a fictional Las Vegas resort that offers entertainment and dining packages alongside a visitor’s stay. As part of the personalized experience for “Balbianello resort,” web and mobile content adapts to real-time visitor behavior, such as browsing events, clicking on marketing emails, or taking a quiz. When booking tickets or a table, the guest list can be added to recommend additional events that match party size, schedule, and available guest preferences, as well as to ensure everyone has access to a personal itinerary of bookings and travel information.  </p>
<p>With a modern approach to personalization, a lot can happen in three months.</p>
<p style="margin-top: auto;margin-right: auto;margin-bottom: auto;margin-left: auto;text-align: center;"><iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/CiZ6bvznCok?rel=0&controls=0" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" style="width: 560%; height: 315px;"></iframe></p><h2>How We Did It: Flexible Tools for Efficient Teams</h2>
<p>Using Contentstack’s <a href="https://www.contentstack.com/">headless content management</a>, Uniform’s <a href="https://uniform.dev/uniform-for-contentstack">personalization engine</a>, and EPAM’s <a href="https://www.epam.com/">design and development expertise</a>, the Project CUE team was able to show that empowering developers and businesses teams with easy-to-use tools offers a fast-track to personalization.</p><p style="margin-top: auto;margin-right: auto;margin-bottom: auto;margin-left: auto;text-align: center;"><img data-image="b0772ndaoujt" src="https://images.contentstack.io/v3/assets/bltc5a09bf374882538/blt3870cd98d1cb3a70/614cefe8564bf37c154f9a63/contentstack-personalization-ease-of-use_cue.png" data-sys-asset-uid="blt3870cd98d1cb3a70" alt="contentstack-personalization-ease-of-use_cue.png"></p><h3>MACH Architecture</h3>
<p>A MACH approach to digital architecture (microservice-based, API-first, cloud-native, headless) is key to modern personalization. MACH tools are designed to <a href="https://www.contentstack.com/blog/all-about-headless/ease-the-pains-of-legacy-tech-one-step-at-a-time/" target="_blank">support a composable enterprise</a> where every component is pluggable, scalable, replaceable, and can be continuously improved to meet evolving business needs. </p>
<p>The composability of Contentstack and Uniform allowed the team to leverage quick starts for both solutions and get a functioning website up and running in the first week of development sprints. This ease of integration, made possible by MACH architecture, lets companies create proof of concept projects with minimal resources that can be quickly iterated on and scaled up as value is proven. </p><h3>Parallel Work</h3>
<p>Project CUE relied on a team that spanned three companies and multiple time zones, so tools needed to be highly collaborative and ensure global team members could move at full speed. </p>
<p>The modularity of MACH technologies allows teams to build and manage different experience components in parallel, meaning projects are no longer held up by a waterfall of dependencies.</p>
<p>For Project CUE, this meant that content creators could map content personalization, designers could create wireframes, and developers could work on the frontend simultaneously and check in once a week to update everyone on progress.</p><p style="margin-top: auto;margin-right: auto;margin-bottom: auto;margin-left: auto;text-align: center;"><img data-image="5amrwzb2jiw9" src="https://images.contentstack.io/v3/assets/bltc5a09bf374882538/bltbc460b64207cc688/614cf000d4224e7daaed2ec8/contentstack-uniform-epam-project-timeline_cue.png" data-sys-asset-uid="bltbc460b64207cc688" alt="contentstack-uniform-epam-project-timeline_cue.png"></p>
<p>For a more in-depth look at the collaboration involved, check out the <a href="https://www.contentstack.com/blog/all-about-headless/developing-headless-content-personalization-project-cue/">development and architecture overview</a> or watch the full <a href="https://www.contentstack.com/resources/wr/agile-omnichannel-personalization-myth-or-reality-dx-summit/" target="_blank">Project CUE session presented at DX Summit</a>.</p><h3>Intuitive Personalization  </h3>
<p>For personalization to be practical, it shouldn't require a PhD in rules to work. Uniform and Contentstack integrate to let marketers create content and intuitively manage personalization from the same place. Simple metadata tags can be added to each piece of content to map it to visitor interests, with the ability to add and remove tags easily as the strategy evolves. </p>
<p>Instead of locking visitors into a single persona, Uniform’s personalization engine uses real-time behavior to identify the current intent a visitor has, such as “booking tickets to a show” or “finding gourmet dining”, and uses the metadata tags to surface the right pieces of content in the right context. </p><p style="margin-top: auto;margin-right: auto;margin-bottom: auto;margin-left: auto;text-align: center;"><img data-image="p6x2kta69yaq" src="https://images.contentstack.io/v3/assets/bltc5a09bf374882538/blt1946d6e2cc054ac6/614cf028d4224e7daaed2ecc/intent-driven-personalization_cue.png" data-sys-asset-uid="blt1946d6e2cc054ac6" alt="intent-driven-personalization_cue.png"></p><h2>What It Proves: High-performing Experience on Any Channel</h2>
<p>For personalization to drive results, speed is not only critical for time to market but also for content delivery. Both Contentstack and Uniform are built for enterprise scale and demands, ensuring a high performing experience across every touchpoint. </p><h3>Headless Content </h3>
<p>Contentstack decouples content from its presentation (i.e., its head) and stores content as modular blocks that can be created once and delivered to any channel via APIs. This API-first approach delivers content quickly, since it’s not weighed down by frontend code, and the ability to update individual blocks of content without having to reload the entire page enables highly efficient personalization. </p><h3>Edge-based Personalization </h3>
<p>Uniform uses a globally distributed content delivery network (CDN) to move personalization as close to the user as possible, as opposed to having to continuously call back to a central server. Personalization happens client-side, using data such as device characteristics, location, and visitor behavior to identify a visitor’s intent and adapt content in real-time. </p>
<p>Unlike third-party personalization tools that rely on render-blocking scripts to work, Uniform runs with minimal Javascript to cut content delivery time well below industry benchmarks such as Google’s Core Web Vitals. </p><p style="margin-top: auto;margin-right: auto;margin-bottom: auto;margin-left: auto;text-align: center;"><img data-image="mvoylu2t8y4x" src="https://images.contentstack.io/v3/assets/bltc5a09bf374882538/blt5d7c389be41d8627/614cf037f725af79f53fdf33/edge-based-personalization-lcp-score_cue.png" data-sys-asset-uid="blt5d7c389be41d8627" alt="edge-based-personalization-lcp-score_cue.png"></p><h3>Progressive Web App </h3>
<p>One way that Project CUE leverages the joint power of Contentstack and Uniform is with a PWA for the mobile experience. Visitors get the look and feel of an app from the convenience of a mobile browser, with content and personalization data seamlessly shared between web and mobile.</p><h2>Where to Start: A Practical Approach to Personalization</h2>
<p>The flexibility of MACH tools means that companies can start implementing personalization without needing to rip and replace their current technology landscape. Teams can start experimenting with personalization in one part of the experience, such as a microsite, a specific brand, or a certain stage of the customer journey and use those successes to gain momentum and scale personalization across the business. </p>
<p>To learn more about jumpstarting agile personalization in your organization, check out our recent solution brief for the <a href="https://info.contentstack.com/personalization-project-cue.html" target="_blank">3 new rules of personalization</a>.</p>

Personalization is tough. So tough, in fact, that Gartner predicts 

That’s why we set out to prove there’s now a 

 that’s powered by best-in-class enterprise tools. To demonstrate what’s possible with this modern approach, Contentstack, Uniform, and EPAM teamed up to launch Project CUE, an agile personalization showcase.

In just 12 weeks, the Project CUE team created a personalized booking experience for guests of a fictional Las Vegas resort that offers entertainment and dining packages alongside a visitor’s stay. As part of the personalized experience for “Balbianello resort,” web and mobile content adapts to real-time visitor behavior, such as browsing events, clicking on marketing emails, or taking a quiz. When booking tickets or a table, the guest list can be added to recommend additional events that match party size, schedule, and available guest preferences, as well as to ensure everyone has access to a personal itinerary of bookings and travel information.

With a modern approach to personalization, a lot can happen in three months.

How We Did It: Flexible Tools for Efficient Teams

, the Project CUE team was able to show that empowering developers and businesses teams with easy-to-use tools offers a fast-track to personalization.

A MACH approach to digital architecture (microservice-based, API-first, cloud-native, headless) is key to modern personalization. MACH tools are designed to 

 where every component is pluggable, scalable, replaceable, and can be continuously improved to meet evolving business needs.

The composability of Contentstack and Uniform allowed the team to leverage quick starts for both solutions and get a functioning website up and running in the first week of development sprints. This ease of integration, made possible by MACH architecture, lets companies create proof of concept projects with minimal resources that can be quickly iterated on and scaled up as value is proven.

Project CUE relied on a team that spanned three companies and multiple time zones, so tools needed to be highly collaborative and ensure global team members could move at full speed.

The modularity of MACH technologies allows teams to build and manage different experience components in parallel, meaning projects are no longer held up by a waterfall of dependencies.

For Project CUE, this meant that content creators could map content personalization, designers could create wireframes, and developers could work on the frontend simultaneously and check in once a week to update everyone on progress.

For a more in-depth look at the collaboration involved, check out the 

For personalization to be practical, it shouldn't require a PhD in rules to work. Uniform and Contentstack integrate to let marketers create content and intuitively manage personalization from the same place. Simple metadata tags can be added to each piece of content to map it to visitor interests, with the ability to add and remove tags easily as the strategy evolves.

Instead of locking visitors into a single persona, Uniform’s personalization engine uses real-time behavior to identify the current intent a visitor has, such as “booking tickets to a show” or “finding gourmet dining”, and uses the metadata tags to surface the right pieces of content in the right context.

What It Proves: High-performing Experience on Any Channel

For personalization to drive results, speed is not only critical for time to market but also for content delivery. Both Contentstack and Uniform are built for enterprise scale and demands, ensuring a high performing experience across every touchpoint.

Contentstack decouples content from its presentation (i.e., its head) and stores content as modular blocks that can be created once and delivered to any channel via APIs. This API-first approach delivers content quickly, since it’s not weighed down by frontend code, and the ability to update individual blocks of content without having to reload the entire page enables highly efficient personalization.

Uniform uses a globally distributed content delivery network (CDN) to move personalization as close to the user as possible, as opposed to having to continuously call back to a central server. Personalization happens client-side, using data such as device characteristics, location, and visitor behavior to identify a visitor’s intent and adapt content in real-time.

Unlike third-party personalization tools that rely on render-blocking scripts to work, Uniform runs with minimal Javascript to cut content delivery time well below industry benchmarks such as Google’s Core Web Vitals.

One way that Project CUE leverages the joint power of Contentstack and Uniform is with a PWA for the mobile experience. Visitors get the look and feel of an app from the convenience of a mobile browser, with content and personalization data seamlessly shared between web and mobile.

Where to Start: A Practical Approach to Personalization

The flexibility of MACH tools means that companies can start implementing personalization without needing to rip and replace their current technology landscape. Teams can start experimenting with personalization in one part of the experience, such as a microsite, a specific brand, or a certain stage of the customer journey and use those successes to gain momentum and scale personalization across the business.

To learn more about jumpstarting agile personalization in your organization, check out our recent solution brief for the 

project-cue-personalization-in-12-weeks_hero.png

Project CUE: Omnichannel Personalization in 12 Weeks

<p>In our post-pandemic world, consumer expectations for ecommerce are shifting rapidly. Customers are demanding a high level of access and digitization, and the majority believe <a href="https://www.salesforce.com/resources/articles/customer-expectations/" target="_blank">the experience a brand provides is just as important as the products they sell</a>.</p><p style="margin: auto; text-align: center;"><img data-image="l5lx4zizuj4c" src="https://images.contentstack.io/v3/assets/bltc5a09bf374882538/blt4776f4579b6d3ffb/610027f040219d481f077208/pandemic-pushes-consumer-expectations.png" data-sys-asset-uid="blt4776f4579b6d3ffb" alt="pandemic-pushes-consumer-expectations.png"></p>
<p>What does this mean? </p>
<p>That it’s not just enough for enterprise ecommerce organizations to pivot away from outdated digital experiences — they must also develop the omnichannel content management capabilities necessary to deliver accurate, personalized, and speedy interactions.</p>
<p>Creating a modern commerce strategy means brands need technology that caters to shoppers at every stage of their journey, not just the shopping cart. As a recent report from Gartner Research, <a href="https://www.gartner.com/en/documents/3986490/composable-commerce-must-be-adopted-for-the-future-of-ap" target="_blank">Composable Commerce Must Be Adopted for the Future of Applications</a>, puts it:  </p>
<p>“A growing reality for digitally mature organizations is that digital commerce does not stand alone and should no longer be a monolithic silo of engagement. This goes beyond consistency across channels to mean a unified end-to-end customer journey, including engagement and post sales relationships and support. The simplicity of the ‘e-commerce’ go-to-market is being challenged via requirements that go beyond the traditional core buying journey.”</p>
<p>If your brand is among the many that are eager to modernize the experience, but are hesitant about the time and cost of ecommerce transformation, starting with a <strong>headless content and search solution</strong> is a way to see immediate results without undertaking an exhausting replatforming project. </p><br><h2>The Problem: Your Traditional Ecommerce Solution Is Keeping You from Moving with the Market</h2>
<p>Your brand has likely already seen a shift in client expectations. </p>
<p>But despite cranking out more content, adding more products, and maybe even reducing prices — you just can’t seem to gain the traction you need. </p>
<p>Giving your customers more to choose from is great, but with unlimited choice at their fingertips, what online shoppers really need from your brand is help discovering the products and content that are perfect for them.  </p>
<p>Modern consumers want an immersive, omnichannel ecommerce experience that delivers the just-right content at the just-right time, whether they’re starting a transaction via smart speaker or completing it via smartphone. </p>
<p>The problem is, the monolithic ecommerce tools many brands work with simply cannot support these kinds of interactions. Traditional suites are inflexible and struggle to merge content marketing, merchandising, and product catalog information to deliver a modern shopping experience. And trying to force them to do so often requires an awfully expensive duct tape project — one that is likely to bust your budget and risk downtimes that could lose millions in sales. </p>
<p>Ecommerce teams don’t have the luxury of pausing business to revamp their technology, and they need a solution that provides the freedom to transform the experience without a major replatform.</p><br><h2>The Solution: Quickly Upgrade Your Shopping Experience with Headless Content and AI Search </h2>
<p>A recent movement among technology leaders is helping brands ramp up engaging commerce experiences without having to replace their core transactional engine. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.contentstack.com/blog/all-about-headless/mach-infographic/" target="_blank">That movement is MACH</a> — a term that describes technology that is <strong>m</strong>icroservice based, <strong>A</strong>PI-first, <strong>c</strong>loud-native, and <strong>h</strong>eadless. By layering a MACH-first headless content management system (CMS) and product discovery engine over your existing technology, you can quickly provide a modern, content-driven ecommerce experience that your customers will love. </p>
<p>Contentstack and Constructor, both certified vendors in the <a href="https://machalliance.org/" target="_blank">MACH Alliance</a>, are joining forces to showcase just how quickly brands can create value with a modern content and commerce experience. The collaborative proof-of-concept project combines <a href="https://www.contentstack.com/cms-guides/headless-cms/" target="_blank">Contentstack’s agile, headless CMS</a> with <a href="https://constructor.io/" target="_blank">Constructor’s AI-driven eCommerce search</a> to offer highly engaging, personalized product discovery.</p><p style="margin: auto; text-align: center;"><img data-image="ea2rmphi9j3v" src="https://images.contentstack.io/v3/assets/bltc5a09bf374882538/bltae2e5c5d7e5e0c2a/61002831ed7a525fcd55e335/contentstack-improves-performance-expectations.png" data-sys-asset-uid="bltae2e5c5d7e5e0c2a" alt="contentstack-improves-performance-expectations.png"></p>
<p>“When somebody searches for pants, your goal is not just to come back with a pair of pants. You want to show the pants that are most attractive to that particular person at that particular time,” says Eli Finkelshteyn, Founder and CEO of Constructor. “That’s more than basic relevance or keyword matching, it’s really understanding the user, the products, and the search context in a way that isn’t possible with the legacy platforms that were invented before AI really took off.” </p>
<p>Together, Contentstack and Constructor create content and ecommerce workflows that empower cross-functional teams to launch cohesive, personalized, and omnichannel campaigns that convert leads into life-long brand evangelists.&nbsp;</p>
<p>And the best part about this pairing is how easy it is to integrate it into your current ecommerce platform without breaking the bank or your developers’ backs.</p><p style="margin: auto; text-align: center;"><img data-image="0ip7e42ii68w" src="https://images.contentstack.io/v3/assets/bltc5a09bf374882538/bltb066ce2a033b852b/6100284740219d481f077212/constructor-delivers-search-results.png" data-sys-asset-uid="bltb066ce2a033b852b" alt="constructor-delivers-search-results.png"></p><h2>How to Update Your Content Architecture to Create Modern Ecommerce Experiences</h2>
<p>If you’re ready to inject more value into the shopping experience and start exploring new revenue channels today, this three-step approach can help you move off your outdated monolith and toward a flexible MACH experience:</p><h3>1. Integrate an Agile Headless CMS </h3>
<p>There’s no room for unplanned downtime in ecommerce. Which is why Contentstack — with the highest enterprise customer satisfaction ratings in the CMS industry — makes it easy to adopt a headless CMS in a matter of weeks, not months. </p>
<p>Integrating a headless CMS into your tech stack and migrating over your content marketing campaigns is the first step in <a href="https://www.contentstack.com/cms-guides/headless-cms/" target="_blank">decoupling functionality and frontend</a>, so you can immediately get started on new customer-facing experiences with no risk to critical backend systems.</p><h3>2. Get Started with “Search and Merch”</h3>
<p>Now that your modern content architecture is in place, you can easily integrate a MACH search and merchandising platform such as Constructor.</p>
<p>This combination allows you to create an experience that blends products and content together, uses AI-driven search to deliver the most attractive information on any channel, and guides shoppers through unlimited choice to the items that are perfect for them. </p>
<p>“When you look at the search experience of the new world it’s going to look much more like a magazine. You’ll have content embedded together with the product search results.” says Constructor’s Eli Finkelshteyn. Search can be liberated from the traditional grid style and blend results in different combinations, sizes, and formats. “It’s a much more visually pleasing array that also takes into account all of the different things that a company has to offer.”</p><h3>3. Create Your Rich Content </h3>
<p>Powering ecommerce with content marketing means teams will need to create a decent amount of high-quality, well-organized content. Developing rich content — which includes videos, infographics, and even other media like podcasts and webinars — gives your consumers more to engage with and your smart content delivery tools more resources with which to create customized experiences. </p>
<p>This is why it’s key for brands to choose tools that make it easy for merchandisers, editors, and developers to <a href="https://www.contentstack.com/blog/all-about-headless/create-content-faster-infographic/" target="_blank">quickly, and autonomously, create and manage content</a>.</p><h2>Build a Cutting-edge Ecommerce Experience with Constructor + Contentstack’s Omnichannel Content Management System  </h2>
<p>The <a href="https://www.gartner.com/en/documents/3986490/composable-commerce-must-be-adopted-for-the-future-of-ap" target="_blank">Gartner Research report on composable commerce</a> states, “Digital commerce platforms are experiencing ongoing modularization in a cloud-native, multi experience world. Application leaders responsible for digital commerce should prepare for a ‘composable’ approach using packaged business capabilities to move toward future-proof digital commerce experiences.”</p>
<p>You don’t have to go all-in on an expensive and time-consuming replatforming project to build a cutting-edge ecommerce experience — you can use flexible MACH tools to migrate to composable, omnichannel systems at your own pace. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.contentstack.com/request-demo/" target="_blank">Enjoy a free trial or demo of Contentstack today</a> to see how Contentstack makes this migration achievable and how you can integrate headless content with Constructor’s intelligent search to start building impactful, content-powered ecommerce experiences that will drive greater revenue for your company.</p>

In our post-pandemic world, consumer expectations for ecommerce are shifting rapidly. Customers are demanding a high level of access and digitization, and the majority believe 

That it’s not just enough for enterprise ecommerce organizations to pivot away from outdated digital experiences — they must also develop the omnichannel content management capabilities necessary to deliver accurate, personalized, and speedy interactions.

Creating a modern commerce strategy means brands need technology that caters to shoppers at every stage of their journey, not just the shopping cart. As a recent report from Gartner Research, 

“A growing reality for digitally mature organizations is that digital commerce does not stand alone and should no longer be a monolithic silo of engagement. This goes beyond consistency across channels to mean a unified end-to-end customer journey, including engagement and post sales relationships and support. The simplicity of the ‘e-commerce’ go-to-market is being challenged via requirements that go beyond the traditional core buying journey.”

If your brand is among the many that are eager to modernize the experience, but are hesitant about the time and cost of ecommerce transformation, starting with a 

 is a way to see immediate results without undertaking an exhausting replatforming project.

The Problem: Your Traditional Ecommerce Solution Is Keeping You from Moving with the Market

Your brand has likely already seen a shift in client expectations.

But despite cranking out more content, adding more products, and maybe even reducing prices — you just can’t seem to gain the traction you need.

Giving your customers more to choose from is great, but with unlimited choice at their fingertips, what online shoppers really need from your brand is help discovering the products and content that are perfect for them.

Modern consumers want an immersive, omnichannel ecommerce experience that delivers the just-right content at the just-right time, whether they’re starting a transaction via smart speaker or completing it via smartphone.

The problem is, the monolithic ecommerce tools many brands work with simply cannot support these kinds of interactions. Traditional suites are inflexible and struggle to merge content marketing, merchandising, and product catalog information to deliver a modern shopping experience. And trying to force them to do so often requires an awfully expensive duct tape project — one that is likely to bust your budget and risk downtimes that could lose millions in sales.

Ecommerce teams don’t have the luxury of pausing business to revamp their technology, and they need a solution that provides the freedom to transform the experience without a major replatform.

The Solution: Quickly Upgrade Your Shopping Experience with Headless Content and AI Search

A recent movement among technology leaders is helping brands ramp up engaging commerce experiences without having to replace their core transactional engine.

 — a term that describes technology that is 

eadless. By layering a MACH-first headless content management system (CMS) and product discovery engine over your existing technology, you can quickly provide a modern, content-driven ecommerce experience that your customers will love.

Contentstack and Constructor, both certified vendors in the 

, are joining forces to showcase just how quickly brands can create value with a modern content and commerce experience. The collaborative proof-of-concept project combines 

 to offer highly engaging, personalized product discovery.

“When somebody searches for pants, your goal is not just to come back with a pair of pants. You want to show the pants that are most attractive to that particular person at that particular time,” says Eli Finkelshteyn, Founder and CEO of Constructor. “That’s more than basic relevance or keyword matching, it’s really understanding the user, the products, and the search context in a way that isn’t possible with the legacy platforms that were invented before AI really took off.”

Together, Contentstack and Constructor create content and ecommerce workflows that empower cross-functional teams to launch cohesive, personalized, and omnichannel campaigns that convert leads into life-long brand evangelists. 

And the best part about this pairing is how easy it is to integrate it into your current ecommerce platform without breaking the bank or your developers’ backs.

How to Update Your Content Architecture to Create Modern Ecommerce Experiences

If you’re ready to inject more value into the shopping experience and start exploring new revenue channels today, this three-step approach can help you move off your outdated monolith and toward a flexible MACH experience:

There’s no room for unplanned downtime in ecommerce. Which is why Contentstack — with the highest enterprise customer satisfaction ratings in the CMS industry — makes it easy to adopt a headless CMS in a matter of weeks, not months.

Integrating a headless CMS into your tech stack and migrating over your content marketing campaigns is the first step in 

, so you can immediately get started on new customer-facing experiences with no risk to critical backend systems.

2. Get Started with “Search and Merch”

Now that your modern content architecture is in place, you can easily integrate a MACH search and merchandising platform such as Constructor.

This combination allows you to create an experience that blends products and content together, uses AI-driven search to deliver the most attractive information on any channel, and guides shoppers through unlimited choice to the items that are perfect for them.

“When you look at the search experience of the new world it’s going to look much more like a magazine. You’ll have content embedded together with the product search results.” says Constructor’s Eli Finkelshteyn. Search can be liberated from the traditional grid style and blend results in different combinations, sizes, and formats. “It’s a much more visually pleasing array that also takes into account all of the different things that a company has to offer.”

Powering ecommerce with content marketing means teams will need to create a decent amount of high-quality, well-organized content. Developing rich content — which includes videos, infographics, and even other media like podcasts and webinars — gives your consumers more to engage with and your smart content delivery tools more resources with which to create customized experiences.

This is why it’s key for brands to choose tools that make it easy for merchandisers, editors, and developers to 

Build a Cutting-edge Ecommerce Experience with Constructor + Contentstack’s Omnichannel Content Management System

 states, “Digital commerce platforms are experiencing ongoing modularization in a cloud-native, multi experience world. Application leaders responsible for digital commerce should prepare for a ‘composable’ approach using packaged business capabilities to move toward future-proof digital commerce experiences.”

You don’t have to go all-in on an expensive and time-consuming replatforming project to build a cutting-edge ecommerce experience — you can use flexible MACH tools to migrate to composable, omnichannel systems at your own pace.

 to see how Contentstack makes this migration achievable and how you can integrate headless content with Constructor’s intelligent search to start building impactful, content-powered ecommerce experiences that will drive greater revenue for your company.

modern-consumer-demands-ai-omnichannel_hero.png

Content + Commerce: Meet Modern Consumer Demands With AI Search and Omnichannel CMS

<p>Personalization has caused a headache for many development teams. Either it’s been approached as a massive project that takes months of work before results can even be tested, or it comes from a third party marketing add-on that slows down delivery and ruins site optimization. </p>
<p>To show there’s a better path to personalization for both IT and marketing teams, Contentstack, <a href="https://uniform.dev/" target="_blank">Uniform</a>, and <a href="https://www.epam.com/" target="_blank">EPAM</a> teamed up for <a href="https://www.contentstack.com/blog/announcements/omnichannel-personalization-with-headless-content/" target="_blank">Project CUE</a>, a proof-of-concept project that revolves around building a personalized itinerary of Las Vegas events. </p>
<p>Read below for a look at how a headless content management system (CMS) and Jamstack personalization combine for real-time relevance. Or see how to set up the solution for yourself in the <a href="https://www.contentstack.com/resources/wr/personalize-content-with-headless-cms-and-uniform/" target="_blank">developer workshop on content personalization with Contentstack and Uniform</a>. </p><h2>Project CUE: Inception to Delivery in Less than 12 Weeks</h2>
<p>With just two weeks of pre-work and four frontend sprints, the EPAM development team was able to launch a functional, personalized travel experience.</p>
<p>The Project CUE architecture included: </p><ul><li>Contentstack - headless content management </li><li>Uniform - API orchestration and personalization </li><li>Next.js - frontend framework </li><li>Google Firebase - development platform and authentication</li></ul><p style="margin: auto; text-align: center;"><img data-image="m2wkil7l7oum" src="https://images.contentstack.io/v3/assets/bltc5a09bf374882538/blt8b075258e3d166cc/60fa07dc41dfac59f6467ee1/project-cue-architecture.png" data-sys-asset-uid="blt8b075258e3d166cc" alt="project-cue-architecture.png"></p><h3><strong>Pre-development</strong></h3>
<p>In the weeks before frontend development kicked off, the overall user experience (UX) was decided on, wireframes for the homepage were created, web design began, and a foundational content model was mapped out. Agile development of UX, design, and content was continued in parallel to the frontend development sprints. </p>
<p>“When people say that you can do agile with a monolith, you can't, it's a true waterfall,” says  Tony Mamedbekov, Principal Sales Engineer at Uniform. “Whereas here we actually don't really care what components are being built. We can start setting up personalization intents and signals, we can start creating content modeling in Contentstack, we can create content on top of those content models and everybody can just check in once a week and say how it’s going.” </p><p style="margin: auto; text-align: center;"><img data-image="d39xc9fe8o1g" src="https://images.contentstack.io/v3/assets/bltc5a09bf374882538/blt999583c676c2facc/60fa07f7da6f75588bd914d5/project-cue-timeline.png" data-sys-asset-uid="blt999583c676c2facc" alt="project-cue-timeline.png"></p><h4>Sprint 1:</h4>
<p>A functioning website was up in a week, leveraging quick starts from Uniform and Contentstack, with the homepage and checkout in place. Personalization was added to some event pages to start testing how it worked. </p><h4>Sprint 2:</h4>
<p>We created a booking page that allows you to add multiple guests and shows related suggestions (e.g., a restaurant aligned with your taste that has a table available before the show you’re booking). Login functionality was created using Google Firebase for authentication.  </p><h4>Sprint 3:</h4>
<p>Set up personalized push notifications for the Progressive Web App (PWA), such as a newly listed event or restaurant promotion. A ticker countdown now appears on the homepage after you book an event. Content was fully tagged with relevant signals and intents. </p><h4>Sprint 4:</h4>
<p>Quality Assurance and User Acceptance Testing (QA/UAT).</p>
<p>This level of speed was possible thanks to MACH architecture, a modern approach to development that leverages microservice, API-first, cloud-native, headless tools. Both certified members of the <a href="https://machalliance.org/" target="_blank">MACH Alliance</a>, Contentstack’s highly flexible CMS and Uniform’s powerful personalization engine let teams quickly reap the rewards of relevant content and scale with ease. </p><h2>Headless Content Modeling </h2>
<p>Contentstack decouples content storage from presentation, exposing all content via APIs to make it easy to combine content with a personalization engine to deliver relevant content using your choice of frontend framework. </p>
<p>Here are some tips for setting up a headless content model for personalization. </p><h3>Craft Once, Use Everywhere</h3>
<p>Create data fields that store data as clean strings, without any HTML influencing the data that would make it web specific. </p>
<p>For instance, the goal of Project CUE was an experience where a visitor could discover and book relevant events around Las Vegas. Each event, such as a show or a restaurant, was stored once in the CMS in neutral JSON so a frontend framework could wrap it in the desired presentation for web and mobile while a voice application could simply read out the string.  </p><h3>Everything As a List</h3>
<p>Instead of the legacy approach of delivering version A, B, and C of a page you can create a repository list of content components and let a personalization engine choose the right component at the right time for each visitor. In Project CUE, lists included event descriptions, restaurant menu options, the best offers for the visitor, and dates available. </p>
<p>“Set your architecture up from the start to ‘render one of these components’ instead ‘render this component’, even if it’s just pointing to a list of 1. This makes it nice and easy from a development standpoint to add variants later,” suggests Nick Barron, Director of Partner Enablement at Contentstack. </p><h3>Global Fields</h3>
<p>A global field is a reusable field (or group of fields) that you can define once and reuse in any content type. For instance, a call to action (CTA) global field could include the description of a Las Vegas event, a picture, and the price. All frontends can use the same global field but each can decide which content to show. The web experience might show all 3 pieces of information, on mobile only the picture is delivered, and a voice assistant would just read out the description. </p>
<p>For personalization, having all variants use the same global fields makes maintenance easy (e.g., updating the CTA button color in the global field structure makes the change across every variant). </p><h2>Jamstack Personalization </h2>
<p>Uniform uses Jamstack, a development architecture based on client-side rendering, to deliver real time personalization at blazing-fast speeds. </p>
<p>When combined with a headless CMS, here’s how Uniform accelerates personalization for both marketing and development teams: </p><h3>API Orchestration</h3>
<p>Uniform enables you to bring multiple integrations into one place with a few clicks. With Uniform, native integration into the CMS allows marketers to manage personalization from within the UI of their existing content management system, like Contentstack. Uniform orchestrates the different data sources to drive personalization, using Jamstack architecture to decouple your different backend services from client-side personalization so you can add - or remove - a data source without having to rewire the whole setup. </p><p style="margin: auto; text-align: center;"><img data-image="mznrb1sgnxz5" src="https://images.contentstack.io/v3/assets/bltc5a09bf374882538/blt5920c104a3c9a6a0/60fa096161f38746a5778493/project-cue-create-your-jamstack.gif" data-sys-asset-uid="blt5920c104a3c9a6a0" alt="project-cue-create-your-jamstack.gif"></p><h3>Intent-Driven </h3>
<p>Personalization is done by mapping the real-time signals of visitor behavior with intent. Removing the need for rigid personas and complex rules in exchange for intuitive content tagging.</p>
<p>“I don’t have to create a rule and say if X then Y. I just say fine dining is an intent, and I map that to related content. When the visitor scores for the fine dining intent they see content related to fine dining throughout the site. You don’t have to set the rule on a certain page, just tag the content once and let it work,” says Uniform’s Tony Mamedbekov. </p><p style="margin: auto; text-align: center;"><img data-image="8wovreyqjllf" src="https://images.contentstack.io/v3/assets/bltc5a09bf374882538/blt7e4cc82c61e333d1/60fa0977e2de935fc7e36e42/project-cue-fine-dining-intent.gif" data-sys-asset-uid="blt7e4cc82c61e333d1" alt="project-cue-fine-dining-intent.gif"></p><h3>Edge-based</h3>
<p>With Uniform, personalization happens on a visitor’s device (the edge) without needing to call back to the original data source. This enables real-time personalization, runs without javascript, resulting in an excellent time to first byte (TTFB) and a high Lighthouse score. </p>
<p>It also allows for a <a href="https://uniform.dev/blogs/what-you-need-to-know-about-jamstack-personalization-and-privacy" target="_blank">higher degree of privacy</a>, as an experience can be personalized with information that never leaves the visitor’s own device. </p><h3>Create a Fast POC and Expand </h3>
<p>Project CUE was able to get up and running quickly with a development team that was new to both systems. </p>
<p>“It turns out that it's pretty simple to implement something based on Contentstack,” says Maksym Hordiienko, Software Engineer at EPAM. “We were able to take an example project as a starting ground and add our own functionality to it through highly functional features like webhooks.” </p>
<p>“I like the intents in the Uniform platform the most,” says Nataliia Shyriaieva, Frontend Engineer at EPAM. “It looks like magic and allows us to do really powerful things in a very simple way.” </p>
<p>With this combination of easy-to-use platforms, teams can start seeing the benefits of personalization quickly and use that momentum to roll it out across the experience.</p>“You can have that personalization up and running in a matter of weeks, not months or years, at a small level as a pilot or proof of concept and then you can keep iterating on top of that,” says Contentstack’s Nick Barron. “You can keep expanding your personalization scope as time goes on in a very agile approach.”

Personalization has caused a headache for many development teams. Either it’s been approached as a massive project that takes months of work before results can even be tested, or it comes from a third party marketing add-on that slows down delivery and ruins site optimization.

To show there’s a better path to personalization for both IT and marketing teams, Contentstack, 

, a proof-of-concept project that revolves around building a personalized itinerary of Las Vegas events.

Read below for a look at how a headless content management system (CMS) and Jamstack personalization combine for real-time relevance. Or see how to set up the solution for yourself in the 

Project CUE: Inception to Delivery in Less than 12 Weeks

With just two weeks of pre-work and four frontend sprints, the EPAM development team was able to launch a functional, personalized travel experience.

In the weeks before frontend development kicked off, the overall user experience (UX) was decided on, wireframes for the homepage were created, web design began, and a foundational content model was mapped out. Agile development of UX, design, and content was continued in parallel to the frontend development sprints.

“When people say that you can do agile with a monolith, you can't, it's a true waterfall,” says Tony Mamedbekov, Principal Sales Engineer at Uniform. “Whereas here we actually don't really care what components are being built. We can start setting up personalization intents and signals, we can start creating content modeling in Contentstack, we can create content on top of those content models and everybody can just check in once a week and say how it’s going.”

A functioning website was up in a week, leveraging quick starts from Uniform and Contentstack, with the homepage and checkout in place. Personalization was added to some event pages to start testing how it worked.

We created a booking page that allows you to add multiple guests and shows related suggestions (e.g., a restaurant aligned with your taste that has a table available before the show you’re booking). Login functionality was created using Google Firebase for authentication.

Set up personalized push notifications for the Progressive Web App (PWA), such as a newly listed event or restaurant promotion. A ticker countdown now appears on the homepage after you book an event. Content was fully tagged with relevant signals and intents.

Quality Assurance and User Acceptance Testing (QA/UAT).

This level of speed was possible thanks to MACH architecture, a modern approach to development that leverages microservice, API-first, cloud-native, headless tools. Both certified members of the 

, Contentstack’s highly flexible CMS and Uniform’s powerful personalization engine let teams quickly reap the rewards of relevant content and scale with ease.

Contentstack decouples content storage from presentation, exposing all content via APIs to make it easy to combine content with a personalization engine to deliver relevant content using your choice of frontend framework.

Here are some tips for setting up a headless content model for personalization.

Create data fields that store data as clean strings, without any HTML influencing the data that would make it web specific.

For instance, the goal of Project CUE was an experience where a visitor could discover and book relevant events around Las Vegas. Each event, such as a show or a restaurant, was stored once in the CMS in neutral JSON so a frontend framework could wrap it in the desired presentation for web and mobile while a voice application could simply read out the string.

Instead of the legacy approach of delivering version A, B, and C of a page you can create a repository list of content components and let a personalization engine choose the right component at the right time for each visitor. In Project CUE, lists included event descriptions, restaurant menu options, the best offers for the visitor, and dates available.

“Set your architecture up from the start to ‘render one of these components’ instead ‘render this component’, even if it’s just pointing to a list of 1. This makes it nice and easy from a development standpoint to add variants later,” suggests Nick Barron, Director of Partner Enablement at Contentstack.

A global field is a reusable field (or group of fields) that you can define once and reuse in any content type. For instance, a call to action (CTA) global field could include the description of a Las Vegas event, a picture, and the price. All frontends can use the same global field but each can decide which content to show. The web experience might show all 3 pieces of information, on mobile only the picture is delivered, and a voice assistant would just read out the description.

For personalization, having all variants use the same global fields makes maintenance easy (e.g., updating the CTA button color in the global field structure makes the change across every variant).

Uniform uses Jamstack, a development architecture based on client-side rendering, to deliver real time personalization at blazing-fast speeds.

When combined with a headless CMS, here’s how Uniform accelerates personalization for both marketing and development teams:

Uniform enables you to bring multiple integrations into one place with a few clicks. With Uniform, native integration into the CMS allows marketers to manage personalization from within the UI of their existing content management system, like Contentstack. Uniform orchestrates the different data sources to drive personalization, using Jamstack architecture to decouple your different backend services from client-side personalization so you can add - or remove - a data source without having to rewire the whole setup.

Personalization is done by mapping the real-time signals of visitor behavior with intent. Removing the need for rigid personas and complex rules in exchange for intuitive content tagging.

“I don’t have to create a rule and say if X then Y. I just say fine dining is an intent, and I map that to related content. When the visitor scores for the fine dining intent they see content related to fine dining throughout the site. You don’t have to set the rule on a certain page, just tag the content once and let it work,” says Uniform’s Tony Mamedbekov.

With Uniform, personalization happens on a visitor’s device (the edge) without needing to call back to the original data source. This enables real-time personalization, runs without javascript, resulting in an excellent time to first byte (TTFB) and a high Lighthouse score.

, as an experience can be personalized with information that never leaves the visitor’s own device.

Project CUE was able to get up and running quickly with a development team that was new to both systems.

“It turns out that it's pretty simple to implement something based on Contentstack,” says Maksym Hordiienko, Software Engineer at EPAM. “We were able to take an example project as a starting ground and add our own functionality to it through highly functional features like webhooks.”

“I like the intents in the Uniform platform the most,” says Nataliia Shyriaieva, Frontend Engineer at EPAM. “It looks like magic and allows us to do really powerful things in a very simple way.”

With this combination of easy-to-use platforms, teams can start seeing the benefits of personalization quickly and use that momentum to roll it out across the experience.

“You can have that personalization up and running in a matter of weeks, not months or years, at a small level as a pilot or proof of concept and then you can keep iterating on top of that,” says Contentstack’s Nick Barron. “You can keep expanding your personalization scope as time goes on in a very agile approach.”

dev-summary-personalization-in-4-sprints.png

Project CUE: Developing Headless Content Personalization in 4 Sprints

<p style="text-align: left;"><iframe width="100" height="180" frameborder="no" scrolling="no" src="https://share.transistor.fm/e/7e40ff87" style="width: 100%; height: 180px;"></iframe></p>
<p></p>
<p>In this podcast, Contentstack founder and CTO Nishant Patel talks to Uniform co-founder Lars Petersen about how even the largest organizations can adopt a modern approach to personalization and free themselves from the burden of third-party plugins and the complicated, expensive processes that come with monolithic suites.</p>
<p>They discuss how, despite the fact that the concept of personalization has existed in the business world for upward of 10 years, it’s just now gotten to the point where developers and content professionals can create personalization campaigns that consumers <em>actually</em> want to experience.</p>
<p>Why did it take so long to get here?</p>
<p>As Nishant and Lars explain, modern personalization is the result of cutting-edge MACH (Microservices, API-first, Cloud-native & Headless) architecture that empowers brands to kill the rules engine and instead act on individual behaviors to create truly unique experiences.</p><h2>More About Our Guest, Lars</h2>
<p>Lars Petersen is the co-founder of <a href="https://uniform.dev/" target="_blank">Uniform</a>, which is a member of the <a href="https://machalliance.org/" target="_blank">MACH Alliance</a> and a Jamstack-based technology platform. It makes personalization agile for even the largest organizations, without ever sacrificing site performance.</p>
<p>Connect with Lars, the self-proclaimed “Dane in San Francisco,” on <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/lars-birkholm-petersen/" target="_blank">LinkedIn</a> and <a href="https://twitter.com/larsbirkholm" target="_blank">Twitter</a>. You can also check out his writing in <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Connect-Experience-Marketing-Lifetime-Customers/dp/111896361X" target="_blank">Connect: How to Use Data and Experience Marketing to Create Lifetime Customers</a>.</p><h2>Top Takeaways from Today’s Episode</h2>
<p>While we certainly recommend catching the full episode, here are some of the highlights of Nishant and Lars’ discussion, from the driving force behind personalized experiences to why the rules engine must die.</p><h3>Slow Suite Systems vs. Modern MACH Stacks</h3>
<p>Lars: <em>“We see [that] third-party client-side personalization has been more in the lead for the last couple of years. That is definitely changing now that performance is becoming critical, because if you add in anything that is third-party that adds a load to your site, that will impact the Core Web Vitals.</em></p>
<p><em>“MACH is all focused on, as in its name, microservices, API, cloud, headless. It means that it's multiple headless technologies that are connecting together in a MACH architecture. So that means that the load from the suite approach is gone because you're working with smaller, best-of-breed technologies that [are] really, really good at the specific capabilities—like Contentstack for content management.”</em></p><h3>Why It’s Time to Kill the Rules Engine</h3>
<p>Lars: <em>“We wanted to kill the rule engine so badly because the rules engine, where someone is setting up ‘If you mix this and not that and this … and then show this content,’ that is way too complex for many organizations because the dynamics change all the time.</em></p>
<p><em>“You get new content, you do new a marketing campaign — it's always changing. If you have to update your rules and you have to update them on all the different pages where you have rules, then you basically end up using all your time on creating rules and updating rules. That's not a fun experience going to work every day. … We wanted to kill that.”</em></p><h3>Content is the Core of the Personalization “Love Story”</h3>
<p>Lars: <em>“What really makes personalization great is content. Content is the backbone of personalization. Personalization is just about delivering the right content based on different intents. If you really think about it, content is what makes your customers fall in love with your brand. We make that love story happen.”</em></p><h2>So How Do You Build It?</h2>
<p>Listen to the episode to hear Lars cover the architectural considerations for implementing a MACH-based personalization engine within a headless ecosystem, why the new personalization technologies are crucial for Core Web Vitals, and how removing roadblocks for both marketers and developers with new personalization tooling is the way to <em>actually</em> get personalization live.</p><h2>Build a Brand Love Story with Contentstack + Uniform</h2>
<p>As a new member of <a href="https://www.contentstack.com/partners/" target="_self">Contentstack's Catalysts program</a>, Uniform will enable Contentstack users to layer the MACH-first personalization platform on top of their content efforts to create more agile, more scalable, and more unique consumer experiences—all without the pain of re-platforming.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.contentstack.com/company/press/contentstack-partners-with-uniform-to-deliver-lightning-fast-personalized-sites/" target="_self">Learn more about our exciting partnership here</a> and learn more about how we set up a live personalization project in less than 12 weeks: <a href="https://www.contentstack.com/blog/announcements/omnichannel-personalization-with-headless-content/" target="_self">Introducing Project CUE</a>.</p>

In this podcast, Contentstack founder and CTO Nishant Patel talks to Uniform co-founder Lars Petersen about how even the largest organizations can adopt a modern approach to personalization and free themselves from the burden of third-party plugins and the complicated, expensive processes that come with monolithic suites.

They discuss how, despite the fact that the concept of personalization has existed in the business world for upward of 10 years, it’s just now gotten to the point where developers and content professionals can create personalization campaigns that consumers 

As Nishant and Lars explain, modern personalization is the result of cutting-edge MACH (Microservices, API-first, Cloud-native & Headless) architecture that empowers brands to kill the rules engine and instead act on individual behaviors to create truly unique experiences.

 and a Jamstack-based technology platform. It makes personalization agile for even the largest organizations, without ever sacrificing site performance.

Connect with Lars, the self-proclaimed “Dane in San Francisco,” on 

While we certainly recommend catching the full episode, here are some of the highlights of Nishant and Lars’ discussion, from the driving force behind personalized experiences to why the rules engine must die.

Slow Suite Systems vs. Modern MACH Stacks

“We see [that] third-party client-side personalization has been more in the lead for the last couple of years. That is definitely changing now that performance is becoming critical, because if you add in anything that is third-party that adds a load to your site, that will impact the Core Web Vitals.

“MACH is all focused on, as in its name, microservices, API, cloud, headless. It means that it's multiple headless technologies that are connecting together in a MACH architecture. So that means that the load from the suite approach is gone because you're working with smaller, best-of-breed technologies that [are] really, really good at the specific capabilities—like Contentstack for content management.”

“We wanted to kill the rule engine so badly because the rules engine, where someone is setting up ‘If you mix this and not that and this … and then show this content,’ that is way too complex for many organizations because the dynamics change all the time.

“You get new content, you do new a marketing campaign — it's always changing. If you have to update your rules and you have to update them on all the different pages where you have rules, then you basically end up using all your time on creating rules and updating rules. That's not a fun experience going to work every day. … We wanted to kill that.”

Content is the Core of the Personalization “Love Story”

“What really makes personalization great is content. Content is the backbone of personalization. Personalization is just about delivering the right content based on different intents. If you really think about it, content is what makes your customers fall in love with your brand. We make that love story happen.”

Listen to the episode to hear Lars cover the architectural considerations for implementing a MACH-based personalization engine within a headless ecosystem, why the new personalization technologies are crucial for Core Web Vitals, and how removing roadblocks for both marketers and developers with new personalization tooling is the way to 

Build a Brand Love Story with Contentstack + Uniform

, Uniform will enable Contentstack users to layer the MACH-first personalization platform on top of their content efforts to create more agile, more scalable, and more unique consumer experiences—all without the pain of re-platforming.

 and learn more about how we set up a live personalization project in less than 12 weeks: 

mach-personalization-podcast_hero.png

Podcast: Architecting MACH-Based Personalization (Microservices, API-first, Cloud-native & Headless)

<p><span>At the end of 2019, </span><a href="https://www.gartner.com/en/newsroom/press-releases/2019-12-02-gartner-predicts-80--of-marketers-will-abandon-person" target="_blank"><span></span>Gartner predicted,</a><span> “By 2025, 80% of marketers who have invested in personalization will abandon efforts due to lack of ROI, the perils of customer data management or both.”&nbsp;</span></p><p><span>Of course, since that prediction, a lot has happened. While traditional, rules-based personalization might very well be abandoned in a few years, the rise of intelligent personalization tools is opening the door for a new approach.&nbsp;</span></p><p><span>“We’re moving into a world where organizations have access to data that allows them to personalize not just the products you’re seeing, but the experience and the timing of conversations a business is having with you,” says Matt Bradbeer, MACH Business Lead at </span><a href="https://www.epam.com/?utm_source=contentstack&utm_medium=article&utm_campaign=mach&utm_term=project-cue" target="_blank"><span></span>EPAM Systems, Inc.</a><span> and Co-Founder of </span><a href="https://machalliance.org/" target="_blank"><span></span>The MACH Alliance</a><span>. “Personalization has moved from a very blunt approach of showing an ad or a product to having a constantly evolving conversation.”</span></p><p><span>Fortunately, the enterprise technology market is adapting quickly to suit the omnichannel customer and the busy teams that cater to them. To show just how fast companies can get content personalization up and running with </span><a href="https://www.contentstack.com/blog/all-about-headless/ease-the-pains-of-legacy-tech-one-step-at-a-time/" target="_blank"><span></span>modern MACH tools</a><span>, Contentstack is partnering up with </span><a href="https://uniform.dev/" target="_blank"><span></span>Uniform</a><span> and </span><a href="https://www.epam.com/" target="_blank"><span></span>EPAM</a><span> to launch Project CUE, taking personalization from idea to market in less than 12 weeks.&nbsp;</span><span></span></p><h2><span>Introducing Project CUE&nbsp;</span></h2><p><span>To showcase the possibilities of a MACH approach to content personalization, Contentstack, </span><span>Uniform</span><span>, and </span><span>EPAM</span><span> have teamed up for what we are calling “Project CUE”. In less than one business quarter, the team will identify a personalization use case, develop a content model in Contentstack, add personalization with Uniform, and debut the omnichannel experience at the </span><a href="https://www.dxsummit.com/" target="_blank"><span></span>CMSWire DX Summit</a><span> on July 29th.&nbsp;</span></p><p><span></span><span>“Most of the businesses I talk to are ready for personalization and many have tried it, but the question becomes how to do it successfully,” says Neal Prescott, Vice President of </span><a href="https://www.epam.com/services/engineer/unleash-speed-and-flexibility-with-mach?utm_source=contentstack&utm_medium=article&utm_campaign=mach&utm_term=project-cue" target="_self"><span></span>Digital Technology</a><span> at EPAM. “We don’t see many people wondering if personalization is the right choice, it’s just unclear how to take those first steps.”</span></p><p><span>This is the goal of the project. To show how - and how quickly - personalization can be implemented across the customer journey.&nbsp;</span></p><p><span>To kick off Project CUE, we spoke with the co-collaborators to understand the historical challenges to personalization, steps teams can take to overcome those barriers, and how a MACH approach (microservice-based, API-first, cloud-native, headless) is helping enterprises reimagine personalization in an omnichannel world.&nbsp;</span><span></span></p><h2><span>Shift to omnichannel thinking</span></h2><p><span>Getting on board with the idea that customer journeys are no longer linear means digital marketers have to let go of old ways of thinking about channels, pages, and content.</span></p><p><span>“One of the things that made personalization so difficult in the past was the traditional presentation or channel-centric approach to content.” explains Peter Fogelsanger, Global Head of Partnerships at Contentstack. “If there was content on one page that would be valuable for personalization on another it was a very cumbersome—and often manual—process to leverage that content elsewhere. Even within the same website.”</span></p><p><span>Marketers stuck with single-use content often leaned towards two extremes when thinking about personalization. Content marketers tried to manually create a new set of assets for every possible interaction a customer could have, which required an overwhelming amount of content and didn’t always make sense from an ROI perspective. While technical marketers narrowed in on the UX aspect to optimize banners and CTAs, which moved the needle on conversions, but focused on only a narrow slice of the customer-brand relationship.&nbsp;</span></p><p>'<span>The technology has caught up to where the typical marketer is able to find the sweet spot in the middle,” says Fogelsanger, referring to the rise of headless content.&nbsp;</span></p><p><span>A headless approach decouples the content from its presentation. So the content on that landing page you just published can be broken up and reused in unlimited ways. Pull the intro copy over into an email, push the header banner to an in-store kiosk, or have the product descriptions read out loud by voice search. No more single-use content. Which means teams can escape the page-based walls of manual personalization and explore a more scalable approach of mapping individual pieces of content to multiple visitor intents.&nbsp;</span></p><p></p><figure style="text-align: center"><div data-img-caption-container="true" style="display: inline-block; text-align: center;"><img src="https://images.contentstack.io/v3/assets/bltc5a09bf374882538/blt3ecbb936456f9300/60b93338df261323b023c784/traditional-vs-headless-personalization-across-devices.png" data-image="9is7uvwslsa3" alt="traditional-vs-headless-personalization-across-devices.png" width="100%" style="margin: auto;text-align: center;width: 100%;" /></div></figure><p><a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Um6QnjmQwcKwjEIwP6L8Y9wR7Nvlpm8U/view?usp=sharing"><span></span></a><a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Um6QnjmQwcKwjEIwP6L8Y9wR7Nvlpm8U/view?usp=sharing"><span></span></a></p><h2><span>Stop proposing on the first date&nbsp;</span></h2><p><span>Uniform, </span><a href="https://uniform.dev/" target="_blank"><span></span>the headless API-first personalization platform</a><span>, is helping many customers adopt a mindset of delivering content as a response to customers in-the-moment intent. With personalization tools that adapt content as a visitor explores the site, marketing teams are no longer limited to A/B testing single interactions but can focus on a more long-term relationship with a customer.&nbsp;</span></p><p>'<span>A good way to think about it is a love story, because content is what makes a visitor fall in love with your brand.” says Lars Petersen, Co-Founder of Uniform, “If you go on a blind date and the first thing your date asks is ‘will you marry me?’ that’s going to be awkward. Yet, as consumers, when we come into a website today, the first thing we see is ‘buy this’ or ‘get a call from sales today’.”&nbsp;</span></p><p><span>Like any relationship, the one you have with your customer works best when it’s two-sided.&nbsp;</span></p><p><span>“Personalization is a feedback loop, it’s not just a one-way channel of showing customers what you think they want to see,” says EPAM’s Matt Bradbeer. “You have to give the customer a way to talk back, to have a conversation, and be able to use that information to change the way you do business.”</span></p><p><span></span></p><h2><span>Bridge the gap between creation and personalization&nbsp;</span></h2><p><span>Using legacy, manual personalization tools to deliver an experience that reacts to visitor feedback is, for many enterprise companies, not scalable enough to be worth the time and effort.&nbsp;</span></p><p><span>“You essentially need to have a PhD in creating rules,” says Petersen about the traditional rules-based approach to personalization. “It’s a very technical task.”&nbsp;</span></p><p><span>For many marketing teams, the tool used to manage content is completely separate from the tool used to personalize it. Often, this means personalization efforts are handed over to someone else or just forgotten entirely.&nbsp;</span></p><p><span>But today, modern software vendors are designing their products with integration in mind, using standardized API building blocks that make it possible to manage multiple tools in a shared user interface. Sharing a UI makes it easy to weave personalization into the authoring process, so that the people closest to the content can be the ones who put it in context.&nbsp;</span></p><p><span>“Having an easy to understand personalization layer, like Uniform, and have it exposed right inside the content experience is a real game changer,” says Fogelsanger. “Now you don’t need to think about personalization differently, you’re just describing the content when you’re authoring it.”</span></p><p><span></span></p><figure style="text-align: center"><div data-img-caption-container="true" style="display: inline-block; text-align: center;"><img src="https://images.contentstack.io/v3/assets/bltc5a09bf374882538/blt640e4c1084689ecd/60b97239df261323b023c78a/api-first-approaach-personalization.png" data-image="8tx2rs2xyhkm" alt="api-first-approaach-personalization.png" height="auto" style="margin: auto;text-align: center;" /></div></figure><p><a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/1dyabRND32Y0t0GIAp9qxg0NwmOuWprfr/view?usp=sharing"><span></span></a></p><h2><span>Take control of your data&nbsp;</span></h2><p><span>Not only do modular tools bring previously siloed applications into the same UI, but they also make it easier to connect the data behind them. “One thing I would say to people on this journey is to get your data into a place where you control it and own the structure, and it’s aggregated, agnostic and available to any system or touchpoint you want, when you want it,” says Bradbeer.</span></p><p><span>Building this type of fully composable, data-agnostic architecture doesn’t happen overnight, and a major benefit of MACH tools is that companies can start benefiting from this approach without waiting around for a big-bang replatform.</span></p><p><span>“You can put a MACH frontend or backend on what you’ve got, which allows you to get some immediate benefits while chipping away at the larger architecture,” says Prescott. “You can get going where you can and where you’ll see the biggest impact, while also planning for the future.”</span></p><p>T<span>his lowers the barrier of entry for personalization. Companies can gain momentum in one area, such as email nurture or the promotion of an annual event, and be able to reuse that data and scale efforts to the rest of the experience over time.&nbsp;</span><span></span></p><h2><span>We’ll show you how</span></h2><p><span>“Project CUE is about showing omnichannel experience can be fast time to market,” says Petersen. “That it can meet the requirements of fast performance based on the core web vitals, and the experience the visitor gets across the different channels being highly relevant to their intents.”</span><span></span></p><p><span>“The overall theme of Project CUE is that you can start now.” says Fogelsanger, “There are things that you intuitively know about your customers and your business that can be a starting point.”&nbsp;</span></p><p><span>“I think there are a lot of brands interested in taking this approach, they’re just not sure how to do it or not sure if they can do it in a way that’s not too disruptive to their content machine.” adds Fogelsanger. “My hope is that we can show there is a lower impact way of doing things a lot smarter, that you can weave personalization into the way that you’re managing your content experiences today.”&nbsp;</span></p><p><span>Project CUE kicked off this May, so stay tuned for updates and insights.</span></p>

 “By 2025, 80% of marketers who have invested in personalization will abandon efforts due to lack of ROI, the perils of customer data management or both.” 

Of course, since that prediction, a lot has happened. While traditional, rules-based personalization might very well be abandoned in a few years, the rise of intelligent personalization tools is opening the door for a new approach. 

“We’re moving into a world where organizations have access to data that allows them to personalize not just the products you’re seeing, but the experience and the timing of conversations a business is having with you,” says Matt Bradbeer, MACH Business Lead at 

. “Personalization has moved from a very blunt approach of showing an ad or a product to having a constantly evolving conversation.”

Fortunately, the enterprise technology market is adapting quickly to suit the omnichannel customer - and the busy teams that cater to them. To show just how fast companies can get content personalization up and running with 

 to launch Project CUE - taking personalization from idea to market in less than 12 weeks. 

To showcase the possibilities of a MACH approach to content personalization, Contentstack, 

 have teamed up for what we are calling “Project CUE”. In less than one business quarter, the team will identify a personalization use case, develop a content model in Contentstack, add personalization with Uniform, and debut the omnichannel experience at the 

“Most of the businesses I talk to are ready for personalization and many have tried it, but the question becomes how to do it successfully,” says Neal Prescott, Vice President of 

 at EPAM. “We don’t see many people wondering if personalization is the right choice, it’s just unclear how to take those first steps.”

This is the goal of the project. To show how - and how quickly - personalization can be implemented across the customer journey. 

To kick off Project CUE, we spoke with the co-collaborators to understand the historical challenges to personalization, steps teams can take to overcome those barriers, and how a MACH approach (microservice-based, API-first, cloud-native, headless) is helping enterprises reimagine personalization in an omnichannel world. 

Getting on board with the idea that customer journeys are no longer linear means digital marketers have to let go of old ways of thinking about channels, pages, and content.

“One of the things that made personalization so difficult in the past was the traditional presentation or channel-centric approach to content.” explains Peter Fogelsanger, Global Head of Partnerships at Contentstack. “If there was content on one page that would be valuable for personalization on another it was a very cumbersome—and often manual—process to leverage that content elsewhere. Even within the same website.”

Marketers stuck with single-use content often leaned towards two extremes when thinking about personalization. Content marketers tried to manually create a new set of assets for every possible interaction a customer could have, which required an overwhelming amount of content and didn’t always make sense from an ROI perspective. While technical marketers narrowed in on the UX aspect to optimize banners and CTAs, which moved the needle on conversions but focused on only a narrow slice of the customer-brand relationship. 

The technology has caught up to where the typical marketer is able to find the sweet spot in the middle,” says Fogelsanger, referring to the rise of headless content. 

A headless approach decouples the content from its presentation. So the content on that landing page you just published can be broken up and reused in unlimited ways. Pull the intro copy over into an email, push the header banner to an in-store kiosk, or have the product descriptions read out loud by voice search. No more single-use content. Which means teams can escape the page-based walls of manual personalization and explore a more scalable approach of mapping individual pieces of content to multiple visitor intents. 

, is helping many customers adopt a mindset of delivering content as a response to customer in-the-moment intent. With personalization tools that adapt content as a visitor explores the site, marketing teams are no longer limited to A/B testing single interactions but can focus on a more long-term relationship with a customer. 

A good way to think about it is a love story, because content is what makes a visitor fall in love with your brand.” says Lars Petersen, Co-Founder of Uniform, “If you go on a blind date and the first thing your date asks is ‘will you marry me?’ that’s going to be awkward. Yet, as consumers, when we come into a website today the first thing we see is ‘buy this’ or ‘get a call from sales today’.” 

Like any relationship, the one you have with your customer works best when it’s two-sided. 

“Personalization is a feedback loop, it’s not just a one-way channel of showing customers what you think they want to see,” says EPAM’s Matt Bradbeer. “You have to give the customer a way to talk back, to have a conversation, and be able to use that information to change the way you do business.”

Bridge the Gap Between Creation and Personalization 

Using legacy, manual personalization tools to deliver an experience that reacts to visitor feedback is, for many enterprise companies, not scalable enough to be worth the time and effort. 

“You essentially need to have a PhD in creating rules,” says Petersen about the traditional rules-based approach to personalization. “It’s a very technical task.” 

For many marketing teams, the tool used to manage content is completely separate from the tool used to personalize it. Often, this means personalization efforts are handed over to someone else or just forgotten entirely. 

But today, modern software vendors are designing their products with integration in mind, using standardized API building blocks that make it possible to manage multiple tools in a shared user interface. Sharing a UI makes it easy to weave personalization into the authoring process, so that the people closest to the content can be the ones who put it in context. 

“Having an easy to understand personalization layer, like Uniform, and have it exposed right inside the content experience is a real game changer,” says Fogelsanger. “Now you don’t need to think about personalization differently, you’re just describing the content when you’re authoring it.”

Not only do modular tools bring previously siloed applications into the same UI, but they also make it easier to connect the data behind it. “One thing I would say to people on this journey is to get your data into a place where you control it and own the structure, and it’s aggregated, agnostic and available to any system or touchpoint you want, when you want it,” says Bradbeer.

Building this type of fully composable, data-agnostic architecture doesn’t happen overnight and a major benefit of MACH tools is that companies can start benefiting from this approach without waiting around for a big-bang replatform.

“You can put a MACH frontend or backend on what you’ve got, which allows you to get some immediate benefits while chipping away at the larger architecture,” says Prescott. “You can get going where you can and where you’ll see the biggest impact, while also planning for the future.”

his lowers the barrier of entry for personalization. Companies can gain momentum in one area, such as email nurture or the promotion of an annual event, and be able to reuse that data and scale efforts to the rest of the experience over time. 

“Project CUE is about showing omnichannel experience can be fast time to market,” says Petersen. “That it can meet the requirements of fast performance based on the core web vitals, and the experience the visitor gets across the different channels being highly relevant to their intents.”

“The overall theme of Project CUE is that you can start now.” says Fogelsanger, “There are things that you intuitively know about your customers and your business that can be a starting point.” 

“I think there are a lot of brands interested in taking this approach, they’re just not sure how to do it or not sure if they can do it in a way that’s not too disruptive to their content machine.” adds Fogelsanger. “My hope is that we can show there is a lower impact way of doing things a lot smarter, that you can weave personalization into the way that you’re managing your content experiences today.” 

Project CUE kicked off this May, so stay tuned for updates and insights.

omnichannel-personalization-project-cue_hero.png

Reimagining agile omnichannel personalization with headless content

Survey: The Pains and Priorities of Digital Experience for IT Leaders in 2020

<p>We recently conducted a survey of 100 business, technology, and marketing leaders at UK enterprises to learn more about <a href="https://www.contentstack.com/resources/eb/the-state-of-digital-experience-investment-in-the-united-kingdom" target="_blank">how well current digital experience investment aligns with digital transformation ambitions</a>. Overall, we found out that there is a lot of room for improvement. Only 27% of respondents said their current tools were adequate to meet their ambitions over the next 18 months. Furthermore, companies are wasting a quarter of their digital experience budget on capabilities they don’t use.</p>
<p>Nearly all (98%) of these organizations have some sort of digital transformation project underway, and technology executives are at the helm of most of these efforts. </p><p style="margin: auto; text-align: center;"><img data-image="98034khvxlk9" src="https://images.contentstack.io/v3/assets/bltc5a09bf374882538/blt644bb3d1ddfcb900/5fa492553cdbef7187ce4800/pie-chart-of-digital-transformation-leaders.png" data-sys-asset-uid="blt644bb3d1ddfcb900" alt="pie-chart-of-digital-transformation-leaders.png"></p>
<p>These survey results give valuable insight into the pain points these digital leaders are experiencing with their current investment, how they plan on moving forward, and the slight differences in their transformation ambitions compared to their business and marketing counterparts. </p><h3>The Role of IT is Getting Wider</h3>
<p>As digital expands its reach across the enterprise, it blurs the roles and responsibilities within the C-suite. IT leaders see an increase in project requests — a 40% increase in 2020 according to a <a href="https://resources.mulesoft.com/ty-report-connectivity-benchmark.html#loaded" target="_blank">MuleSoft report</a> published at the start of the year — and an increase in the work required to get the company on board with new changes. </p>
<p>This year has made it clear just how critical digital business is. IT has seen an <a href="https://www.ensono.com/about-us/press-room/it-departments-have-seen-increased-focus-and-funding-2020-new-study-reveals" target="_blank">increase in focus and funding due to the pandemic</a>, with 38% of IT decision makers saying it has helped improve the understanding of the department and 30% saying they now have more control over business decisions. </p>
<p>This increased authority, combined with their wide-angle view of the company’s digital architecture, sets the stage for IT leaders to make significant shifts in an organization’s digital maturity. </p><h3>Today’s Investment Pains</h3>
<p>Technology, business, and marketing leaders agree about the current state of their digital experience investment. All three groups report that a quarter of their investment is inadequate for today’s ambitions, and roughly half of the features and capabilities in that investment go unused.</p>
<p>However, there are differences in opinions on future technology choices. Over the next 18 months, 52% of business leaders expect to invest in new technologies compared to 36% of IT leaders. In the same time period, marketing and business leaders expect current investment to become more inadequate while IT leaders don’t expect further decay.</p><p style="margin: auto; text-align: center;"><img data-image="30xogxezfrn5" src="https://images.contentstack.io/v3/assets/bltc5a09bf374882538/blt15dd73eaa8f784fa/5fa492786f82405d9a4a9b0c/bar-graph-difference-in-dx-tech-leadership-roles.png" data-sys-asset-uid="blt15dd73eaa8f784fa" alt="bar-graph-difference-in-dx-tech-leadership-roles.png"></p>
<p>This could be attributed to IT leaders having a better overview of the current toolkit. There may be tools already purchased, not yet implemented, that are capable of meeting future needs. With 74% of IT leaders listing “lack of integrations with other technologies” as a top factor contributing to technology inadequacy, they may be aware of upcoming integration plans that will make specific tools more usable. So while some investments will decay, other investments will become more adequate over time. </p>
<p>On the other hand, the difference could indicate that business and marketing leaders hear more about the capability performance from the user’s perspective. The backend of a solution might be smoothly implemented, and <em>theoretically</em>, it should be able to do what you want. Still, if users find it frustrating, it won’t be seen as an adequate technology. Both groups were more likely than their IT counterpart to say that the high cost of implementation and low employee adoption were barriers responsible for unused digital experience capabilities. </p>
<p>IT leaders will need to address departmental barriers and differences in expectations to ensure future technologies have the best chance of success. </p><h3>New Technology Priorities</h3>
<p>When asked about their top three evaluation criteria for new technologies, IT leaders were most likely to say the total cost of ownership (62%), ease of integration (56%), and optimizing current processes (50%). They were least likely to be looking to new technologies to open new revenue streams. With half of CTOs stating that part of their role is dedicated to the <a href="https://blogs.gartner.com/samantha_searle/2019/11/25/the-evolving-role-of-the-cto/" target="_blank">modernization of core technology infrastructure</a>, it makes sense that the top priorities would revolve around fine-tuning business processes, budgets, and the backend.&nbsp;</p><p style="margin: auto; text-align: center;"><img data-image="xafj4o22tqsb" src="https://images.contentstack.io/v3/assets/bltc5a09bf374882538/bltb52850dd181e9106/5fa49283c1502b76a1699ea2/chat-what-companies-look-for-in-new-tech.png" data-sys-asset-uid="bltb52850dd181e9106" alt="chat-what-companies-look-for-in-new-tech.png"></p>
<p></p><h3>How 2020 has Shifted Priorities </h3>
<p>It’s estimated that the impact of COVID-19 has accelerated companies’ digital communication strategies by a <a href="https://www.computerweekly.com/news/252486191/Covid-19-accelerates-UK-digital-transformation-efforts-by-over-five-years" target="_blank">global average of 6 years</a>. An IBM survey found that <a href="https://newsroom.ibm.com/2020-09-30-IBM-Study-Majority-of-Global-C-Suite-Executives-are-Rapidly-Accelerating-Digital-Transformation-due-to-COVID-19-Pandemic-but-People-and-Talent-are-Key-to-Future-Progress" target="_blank">66% of executives have completed initiatives this year that previously encountered resistance</a>. Traditional and perceived barriers like technology immaturity and employee opposition to change have fallen away.  </p>
<p>When asked how COVID-19 has impacted their technology evaluation criteria, each criterion was more important by at least half of technology leaders. Remote work support and ease of employee adoption saw the most impact, with 83% and 71% saying they were more critical, respectively. </p>
<p>IT leaders have had to take on the monumental task of figuring out how to keep business running with a suddenly remote workforce, so it’s no surprise that their top priorities focus on ensuring tools are usable. With over <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/54-percent-adults-want-mainly-work-remote-after-pandemic-study-2020-5?international=true&r=US&IR=T" target="_blank">half of employees wanting to continue working remotely</a> after the pandemic, the technology decisions an organization makes now are laying the foundation for the long-term. </p><h2>Steps to a Successful IT-Led Digital Transformation</h2>
<p>In a recent <a href="https://www.contentstack.com/resources/eb/break-replatform-cycle-mach-enterprise-architecture" target="_blank">ebook about modern enterprise architecture</a>, we interviewed digital directors who are currently leading their organizations through major transformation efforts. They shared some of the key lessons they’ve learned along the way to company-wide change. </p><h3>Align the Brand Early </h3>
<p>When Tom Morgan, Director of Digital at <em>The Spectator</em>, was tasked with <a href="https://www.contentstack.com/resources/eb/break-replatform-cycle-mach-enterprise-architecture" target="_blank">modernizing the British media company’s architecture</a>, he said the first step was to understand what the 200-year-old brand meant to their readers. </p>
<p>“In order to have a chance of changing people’s perceptions around technology, I really needed to be able to speak the brand language. That was a case of spending immersive time with our product, but also spending immersive time with our customers. Above all the other change mechanisms we did, all the prototypes and all the bulldozing, that was probably the most powerful one. It means that now, when I sit with other stakeholders and talk about decisions from a technology point of view, I can talk with a position of authority about what that means to our readers and what that means to our customers, but also what it means to our legacy and our institution.” </p><h3>Departmental Projects to Multidisciplinary Products </h3>
<p>Whereas projects have clear end dates and focus on concrete deliverables, products have evolving roadmaps and focus on delivering functionality and measurable value add. This sets up a space for cross-departmental teams to collaborate on the full product lifecycle — planning, design, implementation, launch, value measurement, improvement, maintenance, and retirement. </p>
<p>Approaching transformation with a cross-section of departments helps each stage go smoother, says the Director of Digital at an iconic British luxury fashion house. “There will always be mini compromises along the way, but you can have a lot of unity from the very beginning in the choices you make. That sets you up well for the phase where you deliver.” </p><h3>New Types of Vendor Partnerships </h3>
<p>While IT respondents were not likely to place importance on vendor support, 39% of business leaders felt it was a top reason current investment will become inadequate. Marketing leaders ranked it as the second most important evaluation criteria for new technology. </p>
<p>Marketing and business teams who are eager to employ modern software capabilities are looking to <a href="https://www.contentstack.com/resources/wr/headless-fintech-learning-from-early-adopter-fireside-chat" target="_blank">partner with vendors to pilot new types of digital experiences</a>. While IT departments may have a more realistic view of how mature the architecture is and feel the company is not yet ready for these initiatives. </p>
<p>However, for enterprises that are ready to modernize their architecture, a vendor relationship is fruitful. In interviews about their <a href="https://www.contentstack.com/resources/eb/break-replatform-cycle-mach-enterprise-architecture" target="_blank">move to MACH architecture</a> (Microservices, API-first, Cloud-native, Headless), digital leaders discussed this partnership’s importance. </p>
<blockquote>“We’re going to be the first UK publisher to be doing headless at this scale. You can’t do that without an understanding from your solution partner that it’s more than just a software-as-service relationship. It’s a deeper part of the journey.” -Tom Morgan, Director of Digital, <em>The Spectator </em></blockquote><h2>Strong Collaboration For A Smooth Journey</h2>
<p>Companies that aim to be digital leaders will have to take some paths that don’t have clear roadmaps.</p>
<p>When companies stall in their digital progress, the cause is more likely to be misaligned culture (18%) or insufficient commitment across the organization (14%) than significant disruptions to the market (6%), according to a <a href="https://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/mckinsey-digital/our-insights/how-to-restart-your-stalled-digital-transformation" target="_blank">study by McKinsey & Company</a>. The most commonly cited reason for those who avoided digital derailment was “strong alignment and commitment across the organization.” </p>
<p>Clear communication among the C-suite, departments, and external vendors can match priorities with possibilities and create the smoothest journey to digital transformation.</p>
<p>See the full results of the UK enterprise leader survey: <a href="https://www.contentstack.com/resources/eb/the-state-of-digital-experience-investment-in-the-united-kingdom" target="_blank"><strong>The State of Digital Experience Investment in the United Kingdom </strong></a></p>
<p>Learn more about how Digital Directors are modernizing business: <a href="https://www.contentstack.com/resources/eb/break-replatform-cycle-mach-enterprise-architecture" target="_blank"><strong>Break the Replatforming Cycle with MACH Enterprise Architecture</strong></a></p>

uk-research-pains-and-priorities-of-digital-experience.png

<p data-children-count="0">Contentstack and Valtech built a working Augmented Reality showcase in less than 4 weeks of development. Here you’ll find the resources to the full story: how we built it, what we’ve learned, and of course, how you can try it for yourself.</p>
<p data-children-count="0">The brief was to build a production-ready (or as close as possible), open-sourced, mobile-web-based (for maximum accessibility) augmented reality demo that leveraged Contentstack’s content experience platform and headless CMS.</p>
<p data-children-count="0">Spoiler alert: We did it.</p>
<p data-children-count="0">Here’s another spoiler: You can view the demo video below, and try it for yourself here:&nbsp;<a href="https://spyglass.valtech.engineering/" target="_blank">spyglass.valtech.engineering</a></p>
<p style="text-align: center;" data-children-count="0"><iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/Fk9cfQePYeM" title="YouTube video player" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" style="width: 560px; height: 315px;"></iframe></p><h4 data-children-count="0"><strong><br></strong><strong>Read the full story of how we built Project Spyglass at the links below:</strong><br></h4>
<p data-children-count="0"><strong>Week Zero:</strong> <a href="https://www.contentstack.com/blog/all-about-headless/how-to-concept-and-pitch-an-augmented-reality-demo-in-one-week" target="_blank">From brief to concept</a></p>
<p data-children-count="0"><strong>Week One:</strong> <a href="https://www.contentstack.com/blog/all-about-headless/augmented-reality-for-retail-from-concept-to-game-plan-week-one" target="_blank">From concept to game plan</a></p>
<p data-children-count="0"><strong>Week Two:</strong> <a href="https://www.contentstack.com/blog/all-about-headless/augmented-reality-retail-skincare-poc-week-2" target="_blank">Content modeling and interaction building</a></p>
<p data-children-count="0"><strong>Week Three:</strong> <a href="https://www.contentstack.com/blog/all-about-headless/building-a-working-retail-augmented-reality-prototype-final-week-of-development" target="_blank">Integration!</a><strong></strong></p><h4 data-children-count="0"><strong>See the evolution of the project in th video:</strong></h4>
<p style="text-align: center;" data-children-count="0"><iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/8Ubgi248Nac" title="YouTube video player" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" style="width: 560px; height: 315px;"></iframe></p>
<p style="text-align: center;" data-children-count="0">Check out the <a href="https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLO9M7FOXF_QsmFGP_iAsLHPmz-vrabRK1" target="_blank">full video playlist here</a></p>
<p data-children-count="0"></p><h2>What Did We Learn?</h2><h5 data-children-count="0"><strong>1. Start with “Why?”</strong></h5>
<p data-children-count="0">Augmented reality applications should not just be built out because they are “cool”. Any new customer-facing touchpoint needs to respond to user needs. We learned that AR is useful for distilling large volumes of potentially complex information, and coupled with personalization technology, can provide a customized retail experience that helps filter through potentially confusing purchasing options. This was our starting point and our anchor throughout the entire project.</p><h5 data-children-count="0"><strong>2. Use tools that simplify</strong></h5>
<p data-children-count="0">Technology can help.&nbsp;After extensive research on <a href="https://www.contentstack.com/blog/tech-talk/augmented-reality-frameworks-for-an-enterprise-web-based-ar-application" target="_blank">Augmented Reality frameworks</a> and methodologies, we selected the following technology stack:</p><ul data-children-count="0"><li>A-frame, which is a way to describe a 3D scene in an HTML-like markup</li><li>AR.js, which layers that 3D scene on top of camera pixels</li><li>Parcel, a low-configuration bundling tool</li><li>Contentstack, to provide the content to the application in real time via its headless GraphQL API.<strong><br></strong></li></ul><h5 data-children-count="0"><strong>3. Work in parallel</strong></h5>
<p data-children-count="0">A very small team (4 people) built this demo in 4 weeks. The trick was having all parts of the project being developed simultaneously, and iterating throughout the course of the project.&nbsp;</p><ul data-children-count="0"><li>Content: Mapping content properly is essential, so start early and continue to iterate.</li><li>Design: Keeping with our “why”, the goal was making the application easy to interact with, so our designer iterated on sketches and concepts and designs right until the very last day.</li><li>Engineering: Work out individual scenarios, then put them all together later.</li></ul><h5 data-children-count="0"><strong>4. MACH is Essential</strong></h5>
<p data-children-count="0">Having an API-first headless CMS made it possible to quickly upload content and pull it into the application. <a href="https://www.contentstack.com/resources/ds/mach-understanding-key-criteria-for-modern-cms" target="_blank">MACH (microservices, API-first, cloud-native and headless) technologies</a> make it quick and easy to build out new touchpoints, whereas with a more traditional system it would have taken much longer to create an environment where this innovation could be built.</p><h4 data-children-count="0"><strong>Want to Learn&nbsp;More?</strong><br></h4>
<p data-children-count="0">Watch lead architect Jason Alderman and Contentstack Head of Product Marketing Sonja Kotrotsos delve deeper into all the lessons that we learned from building Project Spyglass <a href="https://www.contentstack.com/resources/wr/tnw-2020-augmented-reality-for-retail-enterprise/" target="_blank">in this session from TNW Conference.</a></p>

Contentstack and Valtech built a working Augmented Reality showcase in less than 4 weeks of development. Here you’ll find the resources to the full story: how we built it, what we’ve learned, and of course, how you can try it for yourself.

The brief was to build a production-ready (or as close as possible), open-sourced, mobile-web-based (for maximum accessibility) augmented reality demo that leveraged Contentstack’s content experience platform and headless CMS.

Here’s another spoiler: You can view the demo video below, and try it for yourself here: 

Read the full story of how we built Project Spyglass at the links below:

See the evolution of the project in th video:

Augmented reality applications should not just be built out because they are “cool”. Any new customer-facing touchpoint needs to respond to user needs. We learned that AR is useful for distilling large volumes of potentially complex information, and coupled with personalization technology, can provide a customized retail experience that helps filter through potentially confusing purchasing options. This was our starting point and our anchor throughout the entire project.

Technology can help. After extensive research on 

 and methodologies, we selected the following technology stack:

A very small team (4 people) built this demo in 4 weeks. The trick was having all parts of the project being developed simultaneously, and iterating throughout the course of the project. 

Having an API-first headless CMS made it possible to quickly upload content and pull it into the application. 

 make it quick and easy to build out new touchpoints, whereas with a more traditional system it would have taken much longer to create an environment where this innovation could be built.

Watch lead architect Jason Alderman and Contentstack Head of Product Marketing Sonja Kotrotsos delve deeper into all the lessons that we learned from building Project Spyglass 

Valtch_CS_POC_blogWcopy.png

Project Spyglass: 4 Weeks to a Working Augmented Reality Prototype

<p>While many digital transformation projects can be made more successful with the support of a qualified implementation partner, it will be almost essential for businesses that want to pursue a MACH technology architecture.</p>
<p>In this article, we pull from a history of MACH implementations shared by <a href="https://www.contentstack.com/" target="_blank">Contentstack</a> and <a href="https://www.valtech.com/" target="_blank">Valtech</a> to share the top evaluation criteria that businesses must consider when selecting a MACH implementation partner.</p><h2>What is MACH?</h2>
<p><a href="https://www.contentstack.com/blog/all-about-headless/6-ways-identify-modern-enterprise-software" target="_blank">MACH is a new breed of technology</a> built on four key principles: It’s microservices-based, API-first, cloud-native, and headless.</p>
<p>This kind of technology architecture enables businesses to build ever-evolving digital experiences with tools that are always modular, pluggable, and scalable.<br></p>
<h2>Why Go MACH? </h2>
<p>MACH technology allows you to create an enterprise technology stack made up of <em>exactly</em> the tools you need, when you need them — and replace them once they no longer meet your needs. <a href="https://techcrunch.com/2016/01/23/get-small-to-get-big-through-microservices/" target="_blank">Microservices help cut development lead times</a> by 75%.</p>
<p>MACH technology is, by definition, easily extendable. That means, with MACH, your business can use robust APIs to quickly integrate all of your technologies with any new tools (like personalization engines) or new channels where your customers might be found (<a href="https://www.contentstack.com/blog/all-about-headless/how-to-concept-and-pitch-an-augmented-reality-demo-in-one-week" target="_blank">like augmented reality applications</a>).<br><br>And because cloud-based MACH Is always up-to-date, it never requires costly, time-sucking upgrades; ultimately reducing your total cost of ownership. In fact, <a href="https://nucleusresearch.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/r208-Cloud-now-delivers-3.2-times-more-ROI.pdf" target="_blank">cloud deployments deliver 3.2X the ROI</a> of on-premise ones.</p><h2>Why It’s Important to Have a Partner for Your MACH Transformation</h2>
<p>Moving to MACH architecture requires specific expertise both for the initial shift as well as the ongoing, business-wide transformation that switching to MACH can incite. <br><br>For this reason, it makes sense for businesses to partner with professional services providers that have MACH implementation and operation experience.</p>
<p>Not only will the best MACH partner have the right staff on-site (or the ability to source the talent needed) to get your implementation off the ground, but they’ll also be able to help design and implement a solid foundation for your business and provide ongoing guidance for your team.</p><h2>Tips for Choosing the Right Technology Partner for Your MACH Implementation</h2>
<p>Remember these 6 tips when you’re evaluating for the best technology partner to implement MACH within your organization.</p><h3>Look for Outcomes, Not Time Spent</h3>
<p>First things first, you want a MACH implementation partner that prioritizes a results-focused engagement — <em>not</em> just a package of hours for a one-dimensional technology implementation and an ongoing support agreement. <br>To find out how likely a potential partner is to deliver actionable outcomes for you and your customers, you can start by taking a look at their past MACH technology implementations. </p>
<p>First, ask for case studies, which will give you an introduction into their track record for producing results. Consider contacting past clients and finding reviews across blogs, review platforms, and even social media.</p><h3>Pursue Ancillary Skills That Power the Entire Engagement</h3>
<p>Beyond the technical skills that go into a MACH implementation, there are ancillary skills a partner should also have to make your entire transformation a success. </p>
<p>“In my opinion, one of Valtech’s strengths is both the technical delivery of the services related directly to Contentstack, but also what I call the ‘soft skills’ critical to the overall engagement: Customer experience strategy, data science, content, etc.,” said Peter Fogelsanger, Contentstack’s Global Head of Partnerships. </p>
<p>“When you’re moving to MACH there’s a lot more to it than just replacing your CMS. It needs to be strategic and it needs to be agile and it needs to fit with the rest of the stack.</p>
<p>“It’s like building a house. You <em>can</em> learn how to do it yourself, but it’s nice to have a partner who can actually guide you through things like getting your internal teams spun up to support MACH.” </p>
<p>When transitioning to MACH, it’s best to do it alongside an implementation specialist that can support your digital transition every step of the way, even through the less technical tasks.</p><h3>Find Cultural Alignment</h3>
<p>Working with an implementation partner that aligns with your culture should be a priority when it comes time to transition to MACH. </p>
<p>For example, Contentstack and Valtech’s MACH implementation projects have always gone over so well because both organizations are culturally aligned — both are <a href="https://machalliance.org/" target="_blank">members of the MACH Alliance</a>, both feel passionate about helping enterprises achieve a MACH future, and the end-user experience is a top priority for both businesses.</p>
<p>“One of the things that has made our partnership strong is that both organizations are customer experience-oriented,” said Matthew Morey, Senior Vice President Of Technology at Valtech.</p>

<p>“It may sound cliché, but a lot of service providers are only billable hours-focused and many software companies are only results-focused. We’re both interested in the end-user achieving a desired KPI or improving their ability to do a specific task.”</p>
<p>When you’re aligned with your professional services provider, you’re more likely to be on the same page when it comes to setting and achieving goals throughout your MACH transformation. That’s a recipe for a happy team and, eventually, happy customers.</p><h3>Engage in a Paid Proof-of-Concept Project</h3>
<p>Boilerplate demos of individual MACH solutions won’t give you the full picture of how an organization-wide implementation will go for your business. And simply talking to an agency or watching their pitch won’t be the same as actually working with them.<br><br>Consider instead embarking on a small but <em>paid</em> proof-of-concept project when choosing a MACH implementation partner. This monetary investment means your own stakeholders will be more engaged and will give you a more accurate idea of what it’s like to work with your implementation partner of choice when real results (and funds) are on the line. Your investment in a paid proof-of-concept project doesn’t necessarily have to be a loss. If chosen well — and your partner can help with this! — you may end up with a useful chunk of code or even a start to a product that you can develop for customer use.</p>
<p>Another reason to invest in a paid proof-of-concept project is that you’re likely to work with the team with which you’ll be paired when it comes to instrumenting a full MACH implementation — giving you another chance to experience how your cultures align.</p>
<p>Luckily, with MACH, building out a paid proof-of-concept project doesn’t have to be an arduous process. Thanks to the ease of composability of MACH technology, projects can be spun up in a matter of weeks — not quarters — when teams are aligned on goals and priorities.</p>
<p>On-premise, monolithic systems don’t give you this opportunity the way cloud-based, modern solutions do. Take advantage of that.</p><h3>Seek Out the Boundary Pushers </h3>
<p>The Valtech + Contentstack partnership works because both parties are boundary pushers.</p>
<p>Valtech is always excited to implement emerging experiences using Contentstack’s platform — which is pushing boundaries in its own right in the world of headless content management.</p>
<p>Recently, we worked together to take something for which there was no blueprint (a content-rich augmented reality experience) and push the boundaries to charter our own. The augmented reality demo that we built in under four weeks — <a href="https://www.contentstack.com/blog/all-about-headless/how-to-concept-and-pitch-an-augmented-reality-demo-in-one-week" target="_blank">Project Spyglass</a> — was only possible because of MACH principles and because both partners were willing to challenge the status quo.</p><h3>Partner on Prioritizing Innovation</h3>
<p>As parting wisdom often is, our final bit of advice is a bit philosophical. <br></p>
<p>In the words of Pascal Lagarde, Valtech’s Vice President of Commerce in Europe, “ … don’t focus on features. Focus on vision; direction.” </p>
<p>Instead of honing in on the specific features or solutions a potential partner is currently working with, look at whether they have the same overall philosophical vision as your organization.</p>
<p>MACH technology is ever-evolving and ever-improving. Businesses and implementation specialists that don’t have a philosophy that prioritizes innovation will <em>never</em> make it in a MACH future.</p>
<p>You must make sure you’re on the same page as your implementation partner about the fact that composable architecture is the future of enterprise technology. And you must be sure they’re willing to go on a journey of continuous innovation with you, <em>not</em> just sell you a one-time solution. <br></p><h2>Get the Guide from Valtech and Contentstack </h2>
<p>Learn more about MACH technology implementation and how to make it work for your business in our new in-depth ebook from Valtech and Contentstack: <a href="https://www.contentstack.com/resources/eb/break-the-replatform-cycle-with-mach-enterprise-architecture-valtech" target="_blank">Break the Replatform Cycle With MACH Architecture</a></p><p><a href="https://www.contentstack.com/resources/eb/break-the-replatform-cycle-with-mach-enterprise-architecture-valtech" target="_blank"><img data-image="vus97lc46drw" src="https://images.contentstack.io/v3/assets/blt77283b164776448a/blta94ad93460f10550/5f9707af545bdb56ce49039a/MACH-ebook-banner.jpeg" data-sys-asset-uid="blta94ad93460f10550" alt="MACH-ebook-banner.jpeg"></a></p>

While many digital transformation projects can be made more successful with the support of a qualified implementation partner, it will be almost essential for businesses that want to pursue a MACH technology architecture.

In this article, we pull from a history of MACH implementations shared by 

Varia Makagonova

Posts by Varia Makagonova