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Meet Sheetal Jain
Our VP of Technology, Sheetal Jain, leads our team of Sitecore practitioners and holistic technology practice. His passion for technology helps him continuously evolve and deliver connected experiences for our customers, while transforming their digital presence through customer experience management solutions and customer engagement solutions. 
It is this expertise that has helped our customer, Plan International Canada evolve their Martech stack with Sitecore DXP to enable a better customer experience.  

We had a chance to sit down with Sheetal and learn more about his upcoming Q&A with Plan International Canada on their journey to composable Sitecore DXP and what you can expect during his session. 
Q: How do you define connected experiences? How does this approach influence your work?
Connected experiences are those that enable consistent, relevant, and contextual messaging to customers and they make the customer feel like that brand is speaking to them on a one-to-one basis. This approach helps us to design, imagine, and architect solutions that put customers at the center of everything we do.
Q: When it comes to customer experiences, what advantages do you provide clients with?
We provide the ability to service clients end-to-end (Strategy, UX, CX, Development, QA, and Managed Services), which gives us an edge in delivering connected experiences across both experience platforms, like Sitecore, and engagement platforms, such as Salesforce. We call this achieving ‘customer 360’ for brands.
Q: What do you want the main takeaway of your session to be?
A lot of organizations are embarking on a composable journey, but with the vast nature of the digital ecosystem, it is a complicated endeavor to solve for composable architecture. This session helps organizations to understand the nuances of embarking on a composable journey. We will learn how Plan International Canada planned and executed their first phase of their composable journey.
Q: Can you give us a glimpse of your journey in the Sitecore ecosystem?
With over 15 years of experience in Technology and Digital Transformation consulting services and client-side experiences in diverse set of industries ranging from Healthcare to Retail to Financial Services, I’m a 10X Sitecore MVP currently heading up the global Sitecore technology team for Horizontal Digital while managing a portfolio of over $40Million in revenue. My passion for technology helps me continuously evolve and deliver connected experiences for our customers, while transforming their digital presence through customer experience management solutions and customer engagement solutions.
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Meet Sheetal Jain

Google Analytics 4: Why it's important and what you need to know
Google recently announced  that Google Analytics 4 (GA 4) will formally replace the long-standing Universal Google Analytics (UA). It also announced that Universal Analytics properties will no longer collect any data starting on July 1st, 2023. GA 4, which was formerly known as “App + Web”, has been around for a little while now — but many Google Analytics users had been still relying on UA for its analysis and reporting.  
 
These announcements signal the time to focus on migrating to GA 4, and for the first time ever with Google Analytics, to continue collecting data for your site!
What is Google Analytics 4?
GA 4 was originally introduced to the world as “Google Analytics App + Web” with the intent of unifying and combining data from your native app and your website. It was the first attempt at using consistent metrics and dimensions for your website and any apps your organization had. Previously, these were seen as completely different platforms and even had different metrics (like “screen views”). Eventually, Google announced that “App + Web” was being redeveloped into Google Analytics 4 and started adding additional features. One of the key reasons for the move to GA 4 is the unification of website and app data. Some other reasons per Google include: 
 

    Privacy-focused and durable for the future
     Intelligent, using machine learning to unearth insights about the customer journey across platforms and devices
    Enhanced, seamless integrations with Google's advertising platforms to optimize campaign performance and drive greater marketing ROI

The focus on privacy and the future here are key. GA 4 is better prepared for a future that doesn’t rely on cookies and is more secure and private for the user. GA 4 is entirely based on events — a pageview or session start are events, for example. GA 4 is also focused on capturing custom events much easier and many common events are collected by default, such as page scroll and link clicks. 
Some common complaints about Universal Analytics will also be improved with GA 4. Data sampling will not be an issue in standard reports when using a secondary dimension, which happened often in Universal Analytics. Another common complaint was around cross-domain tracking. Previously, this had to be completed at the code level or in Google Tag Manager. In GA 4, cross-domain tracking has been simplified — now you can simply configure your domain settings in the Admin Settings and not have to alter the code for this setup. 
Metrics you might be used to in UA might also be slightly different in collection or in title. For example, you will not be able to compare the metric of “page views” between UA and GA 4 as the way that metric is collected is completely different. Some metrics will have changed dramatically or might disappear as standard metrics. One example of this is “bounce rate”. Things might change, but, as of right now, “bounce rate” is not a standard metric in GA 4. There are also new metrics, like “user_engagement”, which is a time and focus based metric. 
Which version do I have now?
In case you aren’t sure what version of Google Analytics you currently have on your site, Google provides a quick and easy way for you to check.
What should I do now?
First, it’s okay to be overwhelmed by this change and to ask for help. There will be a sizable amount of work in making this migration to GA 4 for most existing Google Analytics implementations. If you haven’t already, the first and most important step is to create a GA 4 property to start collecting data. For now, this property will collect data in parallel with your current UA property. To create that new GA 4 property, you can use Google’s “GA 4 Setup Assistant Wizard”. It will guide you through the process. This will not influence any current UA Properties you have collecting data right now. If you need more information or help, Google’s documentation on this topic might also be useful.
Migration and Measurement Strategy

One of the key efforts that will have to happen for migrating from UA to GA 4 will be translating your current custom events into a GA 4 schema. This will also provide a good opportunity for you to consider re-evaluating your website measurement strategy as you complete this process. Do you have a documented measurement strategy for your side that aligns the business objectives of your organization to the various goals, KPIs and tactics of your site? If not, this is the best possible time to go through that process.
Once you feel confident with your measurement strategy, it’s time to start migrating events. For events you want to migrate to GA 4, you’ll want to evaluate how it fits into the new GA 4 schema of:
Enhanced measurement event

    Some example events are page scrolls, page views, link clicks, file downloads and video engagement.


Automatically collected event

    Some example events are error collection, session start, user engagement and notification send. Some enhanced measurement events are also automatically collected events.

Recommended event

    Some example events are login, purchase, refund and sign up.

Custom event

    Any event that is not in any of the above groups will be a custom event, similar to all events created before GA 4.

Training and communication
This is going to be a big transition for everyone. What made up the structure of UA and past versions of Google Analytics have been in place for well over a decade. Users of Google Analytics are used to the interface, metrics and reporting of UA.
One part of this migration that simply cannot be overlooked is the training and education for you and anyone who is using Google Analytics on a regular basis. It would be wise to name a subject matter expert on your marketing or analytics team or to utilize a consultant or agency to help with the migration and the education and training. Also, GA 4 is going to change a lot over the next few months and years. New features will be added, some things will change, and some things might even be removed. It will be important for your expert or partner to stay on top of the constantly moving landscape. 
As an experience-forward consultancy, we understand the importance of having the right data that leads to actionable insights that drive results. Things are moving fast with Google Analytics 4 and by the time you read this, there may have been more changes. Let us know how we can leverage our data and analytics expertise to help as you embark on your new journey with GA 4.
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Google Analytics 4: Why it's important and what you need to know

 PaaS vs SaaS – How your cloud strategy can play a role in delivering CX
The economic realities 

While delivering meaningful customer experiences is critical in the decision-making process, the cost of doing business is also a key decision factor. Some things to keep in mind include how your organization will provide ongoing support and optimization, the speed to market to drive maximum ROI and how your experience will competitively differentiate.
It’s also important to consider the operational realities of the employee experience can be just as important as the customer experience and they are often overlooked. As you evaluate cloud service models, it will be important to identify areas where even modest technology restructuring can improve efficiency and the customer experience.  

PaaS Considerations
Pros

    Can be highly scalable and easily support multi-tenant
    Offers the ability for maximum customization 

Cons

    More costly to maintain over time
    Requires in-house technical resources or vendor reliance  



SaaS Considerations 
Pros

    Offers ease of set up and ongoing maintenance
    Includes best-of-breed functionality and responsiveness for packaged business capability
    On-going support in updates is owned by the software provider  


Cons

    May lack end-to-end seamlessness across the full customer journey
    Tends to lack overall control which reduces competitive digital differentiation 

Ultimately, it’s important to choose a cloud service model depending on your business requirements and the number of tasks you want to perform yourself or delegate to a separate partner or service provider.  

Embracing a composable future
Depending on the business capability, most organizations have several business platforms that make up their full MarTech stack. So, why not have a mix of both? While your approach may vary, you aren’t “stuck” choosing one model over the other as brands and organizations ‘pick-and-choose’ different technology platforms to support the specialized capabilities needed to support the experience and business needs.  

In the early days of CMS, content management – combined with web experience management – was the standard, giving the power to marketers to create and manage content across experiences as well as providing advance marketing features like personalization and analytics.  

In the past 10+ years, Digital Experience Platforms (DXPs) have emerged as an integral part of a MarTech stack and provide a fully integrated set of core functionality to support the composition, management, delivery and optimization of contextualized digital experiences. Today, DXPs are available in two ways: Monolithic and Composable.  

A monolithic, or traditional, DXP provides all digital marketing capabilities in a single architecture – with the main benefit, and why many brands choose this solution, is simplicity. A monolithic DXP is an enterprise system that reduces the need for internal users and administrators to switch from system to system to manage an end-to-end digital experience. 

A composable solution allows you to build your own DXP by integrating multiple capabilities from different platforms. This means that you can choose the solutions that are best for you and your brand, enabling your organization to build a ‘best-in-breed’ approach to your tech stack – one that is tailored to the nuances of the business while meeting the needs of your customer experience. 

Plus, choosing a composable solution also means that you don’t have to go “all-in” from the onset. If existing components of your marketing stack are working well for you and fit within your strategy, then keep them! You only have to implement what you need to fill the gaps.  

To help determine the progression of a DXP for your organization, the following outlines three categories that cover the situation for most brands: 
1. Monolithic Invested

    Currently driving value/ROI
    Existing Paas MarTech footprint

2. Composable Curious

    Interested in maturing the end-to-end CX
    MarTech includes both PaaS and SaaS solutions

3. Composable Ready

    Truly integrated CX across end-to-end journey
    SaaS leverages the full capabilities of the cloud, beyond storage and hosting, including elastic scaling of highly available resources.

Your plans for ongoing optimization and support matter – including how capabilities may be provided by multiple solutions to make up your MarTech stack. The possibility to use a variety of tools from your preferred vendors allows for considerable flexibility while helping you reach and adapt faster to change.  

Once you have modernized your applications for better business value, it's time to look at gaining efficiencies to help reduce the dependency on technology and IT teams in maintaining these marketing platforms. This can be addressed by the adoption of SaaS solutions into your marchitecture that allow you to integrate with your existing business applications.  

Switching to managed solutions provides not only hosting but also monitoring, alerting and corrective actions that are carried out by an outside partner. The idea is not replacing your IT with an external partner, but to optimize the IT focus on delivering business value that your organization creates rather than on maintaining servers and applications. 
Final thoughts on CX technology
Hopefully, you’re seeing parallels for your organization in terms of how you’re thinking about evolving, maturing and/or even modernizing your Martech stack. You might also notice some alignment with ways to progress your organization’s hosting model and DXP maturation.  

The good news is that there’s no right or wrong answer – only what’s right for you and your organization. With the right approach, the right team and a great consulting partner, the journey your organization takes can:

    Meet the demands of your customers and business today
    Lay the foundation for future maturity and evolution of your DXP
    Fiscally plan budgets that align to current CapEx parameters while considering long-term growth and scale investments

Regardless of where your starting line is, your process must begin with the intersection of your company’s objectives and customer needs. From there, it’s about determining the business capabilities you need to achieve them.
McKinsey
Additionally, SaaS-based technology solutions are on the path to becoming the default software-delivery model with an increase from 6% of enterprise software revenues in 2010 to 29% in 2018. Given that the recent growth of remote working due to the COVID-19 pandemic an, the shift to SaaS models is only continuing to accelerate. 
As a marketer, delivering the smart, connected experiences your customers want requires anticipating their needs in real time. These connected experiences ensure that an end-to-end journey is cohesive and seamless — so that each interaction builds upon the last, informed by customer data and intelligence, from behavior and intent.
 
While the vision for this level of engagement may be in-place, the reality is that a connected Martech stack is needed to provide the functionality to develop and activate these types of experiences. Two key considerations for scaling an organization’s marchitecture are a DXP (Digital Experience Platform) and the approach to connecting older legacy systems to newer platforms and ongoing maintenance.
 
As part of conversations with potential clients that are involved with or considering a technology transition, it’s not uncommon to hear comments like:
 

    We need to improve the digital experience for my customers, but I know the technologies and systems in place are not allowing me to do that.
    Will our platforms grow with us and support the experiences we're trying to create?
    As we look to embrace a composable future, will our marchitecture support a seamless customer experience?

 While technologies alone will not drive world-class relationships with your customers, having a better understanding of where your organization is at with its technology enablement can help provide a roadmap to a strong Martech starting point – upon which your organization can deliver more connected customer experiences.  

The foundational cloud model of your Martech platforms may seem like an unlikely place for marketers to begin mapping their CX, but it's a key piece to set the stage for building end-to-end connected experiences. Making the selection between a PaaS (Platform as a Service) or SaaS (Software as a Service) solution not only impacts capability, but also determines how seamless the integration may be between platforms and the value it drives for your business long-term.

PaaS 
PaaS is a cloud computing model that provides customers a complete cloud platform—hardware, software, and infrastructure—for developing, running, and managing applications without the cost, complexity, and inflexibility that often comes with building and maintaining that platform on-premises.

    IBM
    

SaaS
SaaS is a way of delivering applications over the Internet—as a service. Instead of installing and maintaining software, you simplyaccess it via the Internet, freeing yourself from complex software and hardware management. 

    Salesforce

Start with the end in mind

At Horizontal, we embrace an experience-forward philosophy that puts users and their needs at the center of how we design and build digital experiences. When evaluating potential directions to start building or evolving your marchitecture, it's critical to identify technology platforms that align back-of-house operations and how your business will properly support the experiences your customers engage with regularly. Marketers, CX leaders, digital professionals, and everyone involved with ensuring successful business outcomes for their organization have a slew of technology options to choose from. 

As you and your IT team work to identify a roadmap to attain the ideal approach to modernizing your organization’s technology, it’s important to consider composable solutions that allow the ability to ‘pick-and-choose’ different technology platforms for specialized capabilities as there's no one-size-fits-all approach. Listed below are some key factors to keep in mind that can help guide the decision-making process when selecting the right cloud foundation optimize your CX capability. 

Customization versus configuration

Central to figuring out which technology path is best for your business is understanding how unique and proprietary your experience will need to be to engage your customers and support the business. 

If you’re creating an experience that’s highly unique or creating a digital product that will essentially be the basis of your business, then a PaaS solution may be the best fit. As a highly scalable, cloud-based solution with the capability to support the development, testing and hosting in the same environment, PaaS solutions are ideal for providing the ability to fully customize your digital experience to fit your unique business needs.  

If your organization is looking for standard business capabilities that platform providers have widely available (CRM functionality for example), then a SaaS solution may be the best fit. With no need to download, install or upgrade software, SaaS solutions offer out-of-the-box business capability that you can configure to your business needs. Also, since SaaS solutions are scalable and customizable, these solutions often provide the quickest way to get your experience to market.
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 PaaS vs SaaS – How your cloud strategy can play a role in delivering CX

Elevating Empathy to Support Your Customers 
With consumer sentiment dropping, this typically leads to more conservative consumer spending. Naturally, consumers are adapting behaviors to accommodate rising prices of inflation by eating more at home, switching to products that are more cost-friendly and shopping at retailers that they perceive are doing better at managing prices.  

So how do brands support consumers as they change their spending habits?  

“People tend to have a rational response to gains but an emotional response to loss,” said Michael Finke, a professor of wealth management at The American College of Financial Services. (Forbes) 

What’s interesting about the human psyche based on Michael Finke’s point, is that while consumers will be fickle in daily spending like groceries and gas, they’ll still be willing to shell out for bigger ticket items – such as appliances or TVs that aren’t replaced as frequently - before the cost of those products increases. 

And as a result of this mindset shift, brands may once again find themselves needing to expand to meet consumer needs. It’s no secret that the pandemic materially altered how brands operate and do business – with many brands quickly amplifying and enhancing their digital experiences. This nearly overnight overhaul included everything from ensuring ecommerce seamlessly fulfilled customer demands as brick-and-mortar closed their doors to BOPIS (Buy-Online-Pickup-In-Store) opportunities to increasing delivery service logistics all powered through an app. But now the question is will these previous changes be enough or will brands once again be faced with trying to keep up with new customer behaviors.  

We’re not the only ones thinking about this. Salesforce’s State of Marketing 7th Edition polled industry professionals to understand the priorities and challenges they face: 
As you can see, innovation and real-time customer engagement made the top-five in both categories. And one interesting challenge that was a carry-over from the year prior is creating a cohesive customer journey across channels and devices.  

Which is why we place so much emphasis on helping our clients realize truly connected experiences. 

We know that competitors are just a “click away” for our clients who are in a mature, saturated landscape. Which means customer loyalty can erode if those customers find it difficult to engage with a brand at any point in their journey. So when customers traverse through the conversion funnel, it’s imperative their journey is seamless across touchpoints, channels, departments and devices. 

In order to do this, brands need to tie everything together. Starting with stitching individual customer data at each moment along the conversion continuum. Eliminating data siloes. Where each interaction is informed by the previous point of engagement. It’s also imperative to integrate the technology stack systems in a way that enable teams to collaborate in creating a frictionless customer journey, while having data flow unobstructed between platforms. All to anticipate customer needs, while proactively surpassing their expectations.  

That’s where the art of empathy comes into play. Brands that have illustrated their ability to adapt with the new demands of customers will continue to thrive with meaningful customer connections. And knowing that consumers will likely be more discerning with how they spend, brands will need to place a higher-level of empathy on supporting their customers through this period of economic instability.  

Let’s take a closer look at how brands can activate this level of empathetic intel. 

Unified Customer Data: Shining a Light on Where Consumers Place the Importance of Their Dollar 

If your organization has a means to aggregate and unify customer data, you’re well on your way to understanding how your customers may be shifting their behaviors.  

    Identify patterns of past interactions and purchases. If you see shifts beginning, leverage personalization to surface cost-friendly options commensurate with new buying patterns. 

Analytics: Capitalize on Channel and Touchpoint Analytics to Optimize Content and Search 

Arguably, consumers may be doing more due diligence up front to research what products and/or services are being offered at the best price.  

    Utilize analytics to understand where your customers are searching and discovering product pricing. If search engines are surfacing competitive offerings above yours, it’s critical to employ an SEM investment to combat it, while you boost your organic search to regain the top spot on SERPs. 
    Content may be another key aspect of the digital marketing strategy to examine. If consumers are shifting what’s driving them – leverage analytics to find ways to meet them with the content that conveys affordability AND quality which all ladders up to perceived value. 

Journeys: Refactor Pathways to Conversion that Entice Loyalty 

Now is not the time to cut back on incentivizing your most valuable customers. The general rule of thumb is that the top 20 percent of your customers account for about 80 percent of your company revenue. Given the potential volatility of the market, customers tend to look elsewhere if it saves them money in the short-term. But the long-term is where brands survive and thrive in times like these. 

    By knowing your customers and whether they’re in your top 20 percent base, you can now focus on ways to encourage driving them towards programs that keep them loyal. For instance, if your brand has an app that automatically identifies and applies discounts to products as they shop, create journeys that encourage downloads and usage (e.g. Target Circle). 
    This not only rewards customers, but it also has a beneficially cyclical effect where you continue to capture rich data on customers to improve the experience and content for them.  

First-Party Data: Proactively Own Customer Intelligence 

Privacy regulations are changing the way brands collect customer intel in the new ‘‘cookieless world.’’  

    Because first-party data is intel your customers have explicitly given you (with permission), every data point they provide is like casting a vote in favor of your brand to continually improve on the 1:1 personalized experience you create for them. 
    This is key for building a 360-degree view. Profile information and explicitly identified preferences combined with implicit behavioral data allows you to get a full understanding of who they are and what they need from your brand (especially now in a time where consumers are looking for help in their buying decisions).  


Customers are more than just your company’s basis of revenue. They’re people – like friends in your inner circle or members of your family. They’re human. And they deserve to be treated with experiences and moments that elevate empathy. By putting people at the center of everything you do, you’ll craft and create connected experiences that support them in the right ways, while driving greater lifetime value.  

Learn more about Horizontal’s approach to connected experiences. Drop us a line.
Reuters
U.S. consumer sentiment fell more than expected in early March as gasoline prices surged to a record high in the aftermath of Russia's war against Ukraine, boosting one-year inflation expectations to the highest level since 1981. Support will also be coming from plentiful jobs and abundant available cash and credit for many. The volatility of income expectations may suggest consumers are struggling to understand how labor market tightness and inflation will impact their budgets. 
Elevating empathy is a core value here at Horizontal Digital – a value that empowers us to put ourselves in our customers’ shoes and build experiences based on where they’re at. So as we’re coming out of a pandemic, now deeply entrenched in the conflict in Ukraine, along with rising inflation and gas prices, market analysts are somewhat split on if the economy is on the verge of a recession. Which begs the question…how are consumers reacting to these uncertain times? 

A recent article from Rueters (March, 2022) published a study from the University of Michigan indicating that the consumer sentiment index had fallen to 59.7 (the lowest reading since 2011). 
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Elevating Empathy to Support Your Customers 

Is your CX ready for personalization? 
As marketers look for ways to connect with and move customers along the purchase funnel, the ability to create connected experiences will likely include some element of personalization as part of a digital strategy. And rightly so, as there are many clear indicators suggesting that personalization should now be an imperative for businesses: 

    “72% of customers will only engage with personalized messaging.” Smarter HQ 
    “Marketers who invest in Advanced Personalization efforts can realize upward of $20 in return for every dollar invested.” The Relevancy Group, LiveClicker 

With powerful data points like these, adding personalization to improve your content and user experience seems like an obvious next step. Or is it? 
Personalization is NOT a UX band-aid 

When we talk to potential clients about personalization, the impetus for these conversations often varies greatly. Here are a few examples from recent meetings:  

    “Our search appliance isn’t really working. Nobody can find what they’re looking for — so we think personalization might be able to help.”  
    “To put it bluntly, our UX sucks...the site is just a patchwork of different experiences that we’ve tied together. We think adding some personalization should help fix the experience.” 


Whether the term “personalization” was the buzzword of the day, or it was something a former coworker suggested, the answer in both of these scenarios was a clear and resounding NO!  

Personalization is more than a band-aid to help address the absence of a solid UX foundation, search taxonomy, content strategy, accessibility, etc.  While it may be considered the cornerstone to customer relevance, personalization is ultimately a stand-alone marketing tool and tactical strategy that is meant to enhance UX and content strategies, not replace or fix them. 

Have a clear understanding of current performance 

At Horizontal, we strongly believe in an Experience Forward mantra that puts users at the center of everything we do. Before we can start to think about developing an effective personalization strategy, it’s impossible to do in the absence of understanding how your default UX and content strategies are currently addressing user needs. Information architecture, design systems and interaction models should already be working together at a basic level to support how users navigate, find content and achieve their goals while they move through the funnel. An effective approach to personalization must always start with a solid default existing user experience to build upon and there are some clear dependencies you need to consider in order to implement successfully. 

If we don’t understand the current state of user behavior, we won’t have the basis we need to properly enhance, test or modify from a personalization perspective. 

What is your state of readiness? 

Before exploring personalization as an effective strategy, a realistic assessment of readiness is needed to confirm some basic foundational work is in-place to effectively support it.  
At its most basic, the definition of personalization is showing the right content to the right user at the right time and place. As such, the approach will often be dependent on the existing content strategy and available assets. Without a robust, default state that includes a content strategy rooted in understanding user needs, exploring personalization as an effective strategy may be premature. 
And when we think about content, we’re not just thinking about words on the page. Since imagery is visually engaging and effective, the visual components of a personalization strategy will need to be in lockstep with the overall messaging strategy. In many cases, we are relying on hero images and other visual assets to help bring a personalization strategy to life.  
Ultimately, we want to be as upstream as we can to identify some of the potential content gaps to help determine how we’re going to secure the needed assets. Depending on the level of maturity, it might only be possible to initially explore more basic content variations such as CTA buttons or image assets reflecting geographic locations. An overall readiness in terms of content and assets may dictate a phased approach with a series of launches.  
Don’t overlook technology integrations and dependencies 

To go beyond a segment–based approach and implement a more granular level of personalization, there will be a dependency on having systems in-place to provide the data needed to tell us who your users are.  
A technical feasibility assessment may be needed to assess the integrations with systems like CRM (Customer Relationship Management), CDP (Customer Data Platform) and other systems of record to help us stitch together a record of those users. For an e-commerce experience, there would also be a need for a PIM or other system to understand product availability. Without these integrations in-place, it will be much more difficult to determine how to personalize on a 1:1 level. 
In addition to confirming the systems, there may also be a requirement to unify and streamline your data. While many organizations are swimming in loads of customer data, it is often located in separate siloed areas and departments. CDPs are one solution to add to your martech stack to help solve this data unification challenge.  
With the understanding that 3rd party data and cookies are going away, now is the time to think about how to solve the business challenge of gathering and unifying your customer data. In order to realize an effective 1:1 personalization strategy, you will need the complete, golden record for your customers to create connected customer experiences across multiple touchpoints and devices. 
Crawl | Walk | Run: use cases help identify a path forward 

The approach to defining a personalization strategy is grounded in UX and content. We’ll want to consider the known behaviors of users in the context of a UX journey or flow to help determine how personalization can be applied and ultimately enabled by content and technology. 
We start looking at default user behaviors by using data to illustrate their journey and help tell the story of what users are doing on the site today: 

    How many users or personas are we targeting? 
    Where are they landing on the site?  
    Where are they at in the site experience? 
    What pages are they consuming?  
    Where are the potential friction points in the experience? 
    Are there high-value pages they aren’t landing on? Or are they landing there but there is less engagement?  

Ultimately, use cases help us uncover the stories that inform why performance isn’t meeting expectations. Once we’ve ideated and assessed level of effort, business value, complexity for the use cases, then developing an appropriate personalization strategy becomes an exercise in defining the rules and mapping the rules to the experience to determine possible strategies to improve the UX to better align with established business goals. 
Testing plays an important role 

Success often depends on actively monitoring the effectiveness of the strategy and refining it as needed to deliver the desired results. When implementing a personalization strategy, we’re likely going to scale-in updates incrementally rather than full, sweeping changes. So, testing becomes an important element of personalization strategy to help determine potential shifts in messaging and content to help move users through the funnel.  
While we can deploy different types of testing, more often than not we’re talking about A/B testing as opposed to multi-variant testing. Since we’re not going to know what content is going to be effective when we start, part of the content strategy may require different variations on existing assets to support opportunities for A/B testing. Typically, we’re not doing full page tests that involve swapping out multiple elements on a page. We might be comparing variations of a similar asset or comparing performance of different assets and testing select pieces of content like a headline, hero image, a specific content block or possibly the color treatment of a CTA button or the supporting text. 
Before testing, it will be critical to understand what we’re evaluating and confirm what success looks like to the business. What were we anticipating the result to be? What is the action we want users to take? This reiterates the importance of data dependency and the reliance of our partnership with analytics capabilities to understand the KPIs and help identify opportunities for testing incrementally to refine the strategy along the way. 
Like any other worthy customer centric pursuits, personalization needs to be approached strategically, and thoughtfully. Many of our clients came to Horizontal in search of a trusted partner to embark on this endeavor. If you’re interested in finding ways to infuse personalization into your organization’s customer experience strategy, our team of experts are ready to dive in and roll up our sleeves alongside you. We’d love to be in touch.  
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Is your CX ready for personalization? 

Personalization and what it means for today’s marketers
Personalization has been a buzz word within the marketing world for years. However, the concept of utilizing data to customize user experiences and increase relevancy for the customer is a marketing tactic businesses of all sizes can no longer ignore. 

In the past, we’ve seen tech leaders like Tesla, Apple and Amazon show customers what it feels like to be known. Their deep pockets of data and in-house systems make it possible to utilize every element of the customer journey to enhance it for future interactions. 
 
But how do others achieve a similar end? Don’t all customers deserve this type of digital experience even if they aren’t all tech giants? 

Simply put, yes.  

The power behind personalization 

In a time where everyone’s individual newsfeeds are based on their own interests and actions (views, clicks, likes, etc.), this mindset has elevated customer expectations for digital experiences raising the bar for everyone. As companies work to increase the number of brand loyalists, knowing what is important to their customers and being ready with relevant content at every touchpoint can often be the deciding factor.  
 
The development of personalization has required our technology stacks to truly work together connecting key consumer data powering the next experience for the customer.  

It’s forced companies to look at their data sources they have (or consider building them) to ensure they aren’t leaving customers behind in this evolution. The impending sunset of 3rd party cookies in 2023 will only accelerate this seismic shift with businesses. A comprehensive suite of solutions bringing together a 360 view of the customer will be table stakes in the future.  

Using existing architecture and data streams to reach the desired level of personalized connection for your business often presents a formidable challenge. Luckily, there are several tools available to fill in gaps or to be part of a complete rebuild.  

Enhancing the power of Salesforce Marketing Cloud, Interaction Studio is a real-time interaction management (RTIM) solution that provides powerful segmentation and sophisticated AI to deliver contextually relevant experiences that inspire customers to act. Marketers can visualize, track, and manage customer experiences to drive valuable engagement at the right moment — in the way customers and prospects prefer — to increase loyalty, engagement, and conversions. 

Regardless of the path you choose, putting in the time to construct a fully functional connective back-end system will pay off in achieving your business’ goals faster and more efficiently in the future.  

It’s not all about technology 

Good technology doesn’t stand on its own. How a business is personalizing should be based on their business goals, performance KPIs and asking key questions to bring a laser focus: 

    What drives your business?  
    What are the key touchpoints (Digital & IRL) that drive conversion?  
    What puts your “high-value customer” in that audience category?  
    How can you drive more business through them?  
    How can you elevate other customer segments to increase business impact?
    How connected, from end-to-end, is the experience you’re creating for your customers? 

For example, one business may implement a location-based personalization strategy to drive impact to the brick & mortar location while another looks to provide their customers with a carousel of ‘Favorites’ or ‘Buy Again’ offerings digitally increasing sales, but with differentiated tactics. Both tactics could be beneficial to the same business but utilized for specific customer segments based on how they  interact with the business. Aligning goals and strategy ahead of any implementation will ultimately lead to better measured results for your customer.  

Personalization should also exist throughout the customer journey. Understanding how each key customer segment navigates your digital space creates opportunities for ways to personalize to keep users engaged in the funnel. A simplistic example of this is alerting customers when they have abandoned their cart. 

The elevated experience provided to the customer through personalization rules and use cases itself could be the driver of additional visits or purchases — ultimately building retention and loyalty for the business. Staying vigilant when it comes to regular reporting to ensure learnings from customers are being utilized for similar audiences driving future business impact.  

The customer is the channel 

While a solid technology platform and business strategy are important, customers should play THE central role when developing the strategy informing personalized experiences.  

They can be a central determinant as to which data a company can collect. How a business secures and utilizes key customer data can require a customer’s permission like capturing cookies, opting into email, text messages, or any other offsite communication. As regulations continue to tighten and evolve to keep the customer’s data safe, individual allowances from the customer will likely do the same. Proving your business is trustworthy with this type of information will be key for future evolution in this space.  

This makes Brand Trust another key piece of the puzzle. A customer’s level of trust in a business can directly impact how much communication they opt into. Building up a customer’s trust can take time and can be earned by providing a seamless, reliable experience — both digitally and in person.  

Simple details of a customer’s experience can drive brand trust and it’s not a one size fits all. Some customers are motivated by speed and convenience while others are dazzled by low pricing.  But everyone wants  a positive customer service experience to ensure they come back. As each successful encounter with a customer is collected, your tech stack should be able to analyze and derive insights to determine what is needed for the next successful encounter with that customer. 

Don’t just “set it and forget it” 

While elements of personalization can be automated, keeping up with customers’ needs and interests will need to be managed, tracked and updated. For continued success, it’s critical to manage this as an iterative process: test, learn and adapt to build on what you know with what you learn to inform the best way to move forward. 

It’s exciting to know that we have access to so much of what our customers want and need from our businesses. Working to continually evolve the story for them is our job as marketers and our duty to give every customer the joy of being known, heard and spoken to exactly as they want to be. 
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Personalization and what it means for today’s marketers

Sitecore brand refresh and a shared enthusiasm for the future
Award-winning experiences that turn customers into fans 
In a world where your competitors are just a click or swipe away, it’s imperative that brands keep these aspects of the experience in mind. We’ve partnered with brands that not only improve the customer experience but deliver against it on a human level.  

For telecom company GCI, providing connectivity through its broad set of product and service offerings (mobile data plans, high-speed internet, cable and streaming programming and entertainment) to the community of Alaska is the driving force for their business. So, it was critical to streamline the process of choosing and buying the right plans and products. This was achieved by putting both for end customers and the internal teams within the organization (like the sales and customer service support teams) at the heart of the experience. Through the partnership with GCI, collectively we designed and developed a fully integrated and custom shopping experience to help customers better communicate their specific needs, while reducing the checkout time. Our collaboration with GCI earned us a 2021 Sitecore Experience Award.  

DP World operates a global ecosystem of interconnected ports and container terminals – and evolving to expand its business model to an end-to-end logistics enterprise. To support this evolution of growth and scale, we consolidated their 30 disparate regional business unit sites into a single global digital experience. With built-in geo-personalization embedded into the experience, it helps customers access more relevant content faster. Like GCI, the transformation of DP World’s digital presence was recognized in 2020 with a Sitecore Experience Award.  

Lixil is the parent company for household water fixture and faucet brands American Standard, Grohe and DXV. These consumer brands and line of product offerings are known for their innovation and reputation of quality (having been recognized with over 300 industrial design awards). However, their digital experiences weren’t living up to that brand promise, along with missing core e-commerce functionality – an opportunity to introduce a new DTC channel to their customer base. We partnered with Lixil to fully redesign and relaunch each brand experience that was not only transactional but featured each brand’s line of products in a beautiful and meaningful way that spoke to customers while they were in their process for design inspiration for their home remodeling and construction projects. All of which built on top of Sitecore for Lixil to easily ‘spin up’ new brand sites that support multi-regional product catalogs and multi-lingual needs; 3x faster than the previous solution. The project was highlighted as a customer case study in last year’s Sitecore Symposium.   

 
Humanizing data to transform contextual engagements 
To realize making these three pillars a reality within a Connected Experience requires a sound strategic approach. One that considers consumer (whether that be end-customers or even internal team members) insights so the end-to-end journey is designed with empathy and informed by data and intel to meets their needs, while being enabled by an integrated modern technology stack. Which dovetails into the other aspect of Paige’s post and where Sitecore is channeling their innovation towards a composable DXP. Connect Intelligently, was outlined as a product differentiator in their DXP offering.  

Data in context powers new perspectives and possibilities. When you have tools and insights that allow you to anticipate consumer needs and preferences, you’ll be a step ahead of the competition. We provide solutions that enable you to deliver more engaging, personalized content across all touchpoints. With Sitecore platforms, brands can learn faster, act sooner, and connect more effectively than ever.  

Sitecore’s CDP is product that can accelerate organization’s initiatives to better unify customer data, that facilitates collaboration between internal departments and functions to share intel in the common goal of activating a connected experience (one that brings to life contextual engagements, friction-free interactions and anticipatory solutions).   


It’s time to get to know your customers. Again. 
As the 2021 recipient of Sitecore’s Global Product Expertise Award, we’re ‘chomping at the bit’ to dive in and harness of capabilities of Sitecore’s current and future offerings to build truly connected experiences for the world’s most beloved brands. If you’re ready to elevate your brand’s customer experience, let’s talk.
Customer loyalty…is driven largely by customer experience. In fact…65% of consumers said a consistently positive experience through their entire interaction (journey) would make them a long-term customer of the brand.
Forbes Insights, December 2019
Recently, Sitecore CMO Paige O’Neill wrote a blog post about her company’s new brand refresh —sharing updates on visual identity and brand elements like colors, typography, illustration and photography style, including a brief sizzle video that shows off a preview of what’s to come.  
Since Horizontal is an original Sitecore Platinum Partner with 12 recognized MVPs, over 100 Sitecore implementations and a shared mindset on Sitecore’s capabilities and future opportunities, one thing that really struck a chord and stood out as a part of this announcement was Sitecore’s updated Mission and Vision statements: 

Our mission is to Elevate leading brands through unforgettable digital connection with their customers. 

Our guiding vision is to Disrupt the market with innovative solutions that turn consumers into fans.

In particular, the fact that both the mission and vision have a laser-focus on consumers. The mission to have an unforgettable digital connection with them paired with the vision of offering innovative solutions that turn them into fans. Consumers are who we serve and ultimately answer to — they tell brands loud and clear through their purchasing power, loyalty and opinions what they want and need, like or don’t like.  
 
Making it easier for consumers through connected experiences 
So, it stands to reason that Sitecore would have consumers at the heart of their company’s purpose and reason for being. In like-minded fashion, putting consumers (people) at the center of everything we do at Horizontal is the ethos behind our Experience Forward sensibility – which aligns perfectly with Sitecore’s mission and vision.  

This sensibility is the grounding foundation and lens we apply to the work we do for our clients on their journey of digital transformation. A progressive evolution that continually aims to raise the bar of customer experiences that lead to successful business outcomes. Customer experiences that are driven by friction-free interactions, contextual engagement and anticipatory solutions.   



    Friction-Free Interactions: We think of friction-free engagements as a continuous conversation between customers and your brand. 
    Contextual Engagements: Context not only adds an additional layer of meaning and understanding across interactions, it also helps chain 
    these interactions together to paint a clearer picture of customer intent. 
    Anticipatory Solution: Piggybacking off the power of context, the trove of data collected from connected experiences powers the ability to assess individual customer needs and predict for them; anticipating their needs in real time. 

Source: Get to Know Your Customers. Again. (Horizontal Digital whitepaper 2022)


These three pillars are the key ingredients that establish the makings of building a Connected Experience for your customers. Afterall, a great connected customer experience increases brand affinity.  
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Sitecore brand refresh and a shared enthusiasm for the future

Meet Matt Wash
Connections Spotlight Speaker: Matt Wash
Get to know Matt Wash
As our Marketing Cloud Practice Lead, Matt Wash leads our global team of Salesforce consultants who all strive to create incredible connected experiences for our clients – experiences that are rooted in personalized moments that ultimately build richer relationships between brands and their customers.
It’s this expertise that Matt will be bringing to the spotlight as he takes the stage alongside Marketing Champion, Jackie Mennie, to teach fellow Trailblazers about achieving omni-channel personalization at scale.

We had a chance to sit down with Matt and learn more about his involvement with Salesforce Marketing Cloud and what you can expect during his session.
Q: Can you give us a glimpse of your journey in the Salesforce ecosystem?
My journey with Salesforce began back in 2015 when the University of St. Thomas announced it was implementing Salesforce as its system for constituent management for admissions, alumni, and current students. I managed the enterprise email program and helped the university in its transition to Marketing Cloud. From there I moved to manage the email marketing for Room & Board where I modernized many of their supporting systems and incorporated enterprise data into the platform as a way to enhance their customer journeys. After a brief stint at Securian Financial where I provided technical leadership I found my way to Horizontal as a consultant where I now lead the Marketing Cloud practice, specializing in email marketing and real-time Personalization.
Q: What’s the most rewarding part about helping your clients with their Personalization strategy?

I love seeing clients having their “Aha” moments and taking ownership of the solutions that we build. Salesforce is a massive platform with complex facets of interconnected systems, different rules, taxonomies, and multiple teams that all make it work. The software is amazing but without a network of talented, dedicated, and empathetic individuals to listen, interpret, and teach its users, it’s just software. I love my job as a consultant because I get to be at the fulcrum between great software and great organizations. There’s no place I’d rather be. 
Q: What do you hope people take away from your session?

I’m hoping three specific things happen: 
1. I hope attendees leave thinking about the ways in which they will apply information they learned from the session to their organization and begin the planning process to start using real time personalization.
2. I hope they feel empowered with the success stories they've heard because they feel they were facing similar challenges in their own organization 
3. Finally, I hope they leave with the belief that real-time personalization is within reach with the right planning and alignment within their organization, and there are reasonable places to begin that are valuable. 
Q: What are you looking forward to most at Connections this year?

Meeting people and hugging Astro. 

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Connections Spotlight Speaker: Matt Wash

Using first-party data to elevate connected customer experiences
You’ve likely already heard about the changes in how the internet and internet of things (IoT) can collect and use consumer data. And with these changes, it’s imperative for your company to understand not only the regulations that exist, but also the limitations that are emerging from third-party tech updates. That’s why we at Horizontal believe that the future of delivering personalized, connected customer experiences lies in the ability of companies to deliver on their first-party data. 

But first, let’s back up. 

With consumer digital usage – from smartphones to online shopping to wearable technology – almost everything we do can be tracked. This includes things like where you are and where you go (geo-tracking), what you do online (internet activity to entertainment programming you stream), your health readings (heart rate and sleep patterns) and your biometrics (facial and voice recognition). Paired with any personal data you give when you buy a product or apply for a loan, the plethora of consumer data being collected, sold and shared with third parties has created a groundswell for more transparency and control of what data is being captured and how it’s being used. 

In fact, a survey of 2,000 U.S. adults conducted by KPMG reported the following
These consumer concerns have led to the introduction of various laws and legislation being passed in recent years. From GDPR to CCPA, an increasing number of policies are being implemented to drive a higher level of compliance and accountability for companies to be more transparent — while also allowing consumers to have more control over tracking technology.  

The below chart provides an overview of what’s included in these regulations, and we foresee more regulations likely being passed over the next few years. This matters to you because even if you’re not headquartered in these countries or states, you still need to follow them if you have any consumers who reside in these locations. And as more local regulations get passed, the more you have to keep up with.  
GDPR Compliance - EU law and data protection ensures users have the right to

    Be forgotten 
    Data portability 
    Data rectification 
    Object to data processing 
    Object to identity profiling

CCPA ensures consumers within California have the right to

    Know about personal information a business collects about them, including how it is used and shared 
    Delete personal information collected from them (with some exceptions) 
    Opt-out of the sale of their personal information 
    Non-discrimination for exercising their CCPA rights 

While regulations continue to be a major talk track, major tech companies are already taking their own initiative and making changes to align with consumer demand of data tracking. In 2023, Google Chrome will stop using cookies on their web browser. 

"Subject to our engagement with the United Kingdom’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) and in line with the commitments we have offered, Chrome could then phase out third-party (tracking) cookies over a three-month period, starting in mid-2023 and ending in late 2023."  – Google 

Similarly, as a part of Apple’s 14.5 iOS release, it launched a new privacy feature called App Tracking Transparency — effectively allowing users, when prompted, to opt-in or out of having apps track usage and activity.  

"If you say no to tracking, the app will no longer be able to use Apple’s IDFA identifier to share data about your activity with data brokers and other third parties for ad-targeting purposes. It also means the app can no longer use other identifiers (like hashed email addresses) to track you, although it may be more challenging for Apple to actually enforce that part of the policy."  – Tech Crunch 

All this to say, as much as the advancement of technology has improved consumers’ lives for the better, we’re all still human…and as humans we sometimes have trust issues. In this case, the trust issues lie within how technology is being used underneath the surface of digital habits and behaviors in our daily lives.  

Justifiably so, recent news stories have illustrated how bad things can go when customer data is breeched. More notably was a major data breach of T-Mobile in 2021 – where more than 50 million people had personal data like social security numbers, driver’s license information and device IDs hacked. Obviously, this is a huge identity fraud concern if you were one of those T-Mobile customers.  

So how do brands and companies expertly balance everything between keeping data secure, using that data in ways to enrich the brand experience for their customers — while also facing the impending sunset of big data & third-party cookie tracking? 

The first thing is remembering that there are real people behind the numbers. As a digital practitioner, put yourself in your customer’s shoes. Think about how you’d want your information to be kept private — but when given permission, used in ways to make the customer experience more personal and fulfilling. It’s imperative that your organization think about how to humanize data. This is where you lay the foundation of trust with your customers.  

With this foundation of trust, along with showing how you’ll elevate the experience a customer has while using their data, customers will be more apt to share it with you (in an equal exchange of value). So, collecting more first-party data – data that you collect directly from customers and thereby own – will be a much bigger priority for brands. These are things like identity data (name, email), transactional data (purchase history, loyalty status) and user-defined data (content and communication preferences). 

And it’s not hard to get started. At Horizontal, our No Code Preference Center is a solution for enterprise companies to quickly spin-up and capture customer communication preferences while staying compliant with all the regulations. We also strongly advise our enterprise clients to lean on customer data platforms (CDP) to activate a connected experience. CDPs have emerged as a means to holistically capture and aggregate customer data from multiple disparate sources — essentially unifying customer data that then allow you to activate personalized interactions. 

With a customer-centric, data-focused sensibility, you can build company strategies around realizing connected customer experiences – one that uses rich data points to inform each touchpoint and moment of engagement through their journey.  

Learn more about how your organization can activate 360-degree customer data through our Humanizing Customer Data series. Download our free whitepaper (the first of our three-part series) on this topic – Get to know your customers. Again.  
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Insights

Ideas and perspectives that drive our way forward