Adage, Featured Episerver Partner
Adage, a Premier Episerver Partner, and 2X Partner of the Year were recently chosen as the representative partner for the Episerver Connect in Chicago! We’re proud to have been part of the event that was centered around customers networking with other customers.
Episerver Connect attendees had a unique opportunity to share experiences and best practices through presentations and break-out sessions. They also enjoyed an exclusive Episerver Road Map presentation and Key Note speaker Russ Klein from the American Marketing Association.
Here is what we learned from industry experts, the Episerver Team, and customers at Episerver Connect 2019 Chicago.
Client Presentation – American Academy of Pediatrics
Eric Mathias, Senior Director of Application Development from The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) discussed various milestones in their ongoing project with Adage and Episerver. The AAP started their journey with Adage and Epi back in 2013 when we released their commerce platform on Epi Commerce, replacing the previous 17-click purchase path. This leg of the project included integrations with their member database, netFORUM enterprise, inRiver PIM and Episerver resulting in a more robust user experience.
About a year into the shopAAP site being live, Adage implemented Episerver Perform, an AI platform for personalized shopping recommendations. The AAP has seen more than $500,000 in revenue increases that are driven through those automatic recommendations.
Eric then introduced everyone to the AAP’s Digital Transformation Initiative that they have engaged in with Adage. The first step following an in-depth discovery phase was to build an enterprise search platform. Members expressed frustration in not being able to find the information that they were looking for when engaging with the many websites and apps that AAP has, so this was the top priority. Now, the search app powered by Epi Find searches 13 different AAP websites and applications.
Finally, Eric discussed the plan to move every AAP website onto the Epi CMS. With the sites on several different platforms, it is a large undertaking, but they are very excited to consolidate their sites onto one best of breed platform.
Russ Klein, CEO of American Marketing Association – Keynote Speaker
Russ Klein provided insight on new ways to market using experience design and believes it is a necessary skill set for future marketers. He shared his expertise on building a powerful brand by combining experience and storytelling.
Russ shared opportunities for marketers to provide multi-sensory experiences to their consumers. A digital and physical fusion that is controlled by the organization.
“Control every piece of your customer’s journey,” Russ explains, “but find the sweet spot between what you can control and what customers still want to remain control.”
Breakout Sessions
Senior Digital Consultants from Adage and members of Episerver’s Team led separate technical and end-user focused breakout sessions. The group discussed topics pertaining to personalization strategies, siloed organizations, and the best channels for personalized content.
Personalization Strategies
Attendees shared how their organizations were currently utilizing personalized content, the potential role that machine learning recommendation technologies could play in augmenting their personalization efforts, and which channels offered the best opportunities for serving personalized content. While many of the organizations were doing some form of personalization, they often cited having a lack of data to feed a robust stream of ongoing personalized content. Or if they had data, it was often siloed within departments of the organization or across different technology platforms.
In regards to machine learning recommendations, all customers were interested in learning real-world results of how these technologies can increase ROI and deliver business impact. In regards to prioritizing channels, all organizations were in agreement that email and web were the primary channels being utilized to serve personalized content, with mobile being a channel they wanted to explore further.
Episerver Roadmap
Justin Anovick, VP of Product Management at Episerver presented the roadmap and future goals. He shared that Episerver’s goal is to maintain innovation while consistently improving customer and partner satisfaction.
Episerver is also working to make sure products and features interact better and give Episerver Partners and end-users a fluid experience. This includes core UI and UX capability improvements and improved product features like analytics and AI.
Episerver just launched Natural Language Processing with the help of Microsoft and has other Microsoft-driven innovations in the pipeline.
You can learn more and experience Episerver and Adage at Epi Ascend 2019, October 27th-29th in Miami, Florida. Episerver Ascend 2019 brings together a community of digital marketers, developers, and eCommerce leaders to share their strategies for driving growth through digital transformation. Join us!
Conclusion
As a Premier Episerver Partner, Adage is proud to collaborate with Episerver to show customer appreciation and cultivate the chance to learn from a strong Episerver community.
