Using uMarketingSuite to turn Umbraco into a Digital Experience Platform (DXP)
Many marketing teams are choosing to use Digital Experience Platforms (DXPs) to support the delivery of excellent experiences for customers including websites, microsites, e-commerce and apps. A DXP goes beyond just being a Content Management System (CMS) by adding digital marketing capabilities such as personalisation, optimisation and customer profiling. By having everything in one integrated solution, it’s easier to deliver strong websites that you can continue to improve and optimise.
One CMS we often work with is Umbraco. It’s an excellent and versatile platform which is easy to use for marketing team and content owners; it’s intuitive interfaces are one of its strengths. It is however not generally considered a fully blown “DXP”. However, by adding the uMarketingSuite – a bundled offering of core digital marketing capabilities built on Umbraco that integrates with the core CMS – you can effectively extend Umbraco into a full DXP.
We’re pleased to announce that we are now a reseller for uMarketingSuite and we’re looking forward to extending the power of Umbraco with some of our existing and new customers.
What is the uMarketingSuite?
uMarketingSuite is positioned as an “all-round marketing toolbox” that comes with functionality covering a range of areas – Umbraco analytics, A/B testing, personalization, and more. It includes many of the core digital marketing features that marketers are looking for in a DXP.
uMarketingSuite is an initiative from Perplex Digital, a leading and longstanding Umbraco partner based in the Netherlands. In 2020 uMarketingSolutions B.V was founded as a separate organization to launch uMarketingSuite worldwide.
With the first release coming in April 2020, the solution is now nearly two and a half years old and has reached a good level of stability and maturity that makes it a highly reliable add-on to the Umbraco ecosystem. Installation is easy and can take less that ten minutes. The product is also compatible with Umbraco 8 and beyond.
At 3Chillies we always consider any new offering very carefully. However, the strong features, the platform maturity, ease of installation and reasonable cost made it a relatively obvious choice for us to start to offer uMarketingSuite is to our clients.
What features are included in uMarketingSuite?
uMarketingSuite comes with a number of core features.
Umbraco Analytics
At the core of uMarketingSuite is a powerful analytics module that uncovers insights into user behaviour. While you can get all the visitor stats you would expect, it also probes deeper and reports on items such as clicks on links and PDFs, page scroll depth, a more accurate estimate of time spent on the website (excluding idle time), length of video watched, interaction with forms and more.
Because all of the analytics data is stored server-side and transmitted via first-party cookies, customer data is never shared with third parties. This helps to navigate challenges around privacy. This data also powers the personalisation and optimisation capabilities of the suite.
A/B Testing
A/B Testing is a staple for optimising websites and customer experiences. uMarketingSuite comes with an A/B testing module that is easy to use and quick to set-up, using a convenient split-screen editor. This removes any barriers that can discourage extensive A/B testing and helps marketing teams put optimisation at the heart of what they do.
Personalisation
uMarketingSuite’s personalisation module enables digital marketing teams to create more relevant and targeted digital experiences that ultimately result in more conversions, from lead generation through to sales. Setting up personas is relatively straightforward, and you can then deliver personalised content to these groups, or as part of wider customer journeys.
Profiling
uMarketingSuite isn’t intended to replace either your CRM or customer data platform (CDP), but instead collects profile data which can then enhance your existing customer records. When a customer is “identified” profiles can be enhanced with your existing information with insights on user interaction, often to a very granular and detailed level through activity tracking. “Unknown” profiles can also be accessed. Profiling allows you to gain insights for improvement but also to move targets and existing customers further down your sales or engagement funnel.
Three reasons we’re excited about uMarketingSuite
One of the reasons we’re excited about uMarketingSuite is we think that it will help open up Umbraco to more customers. Sometimes marketers hold back from using Umbraco for their digital project, even though they really like the platform because it’s so easy to use, but have felt it doesn’t have all the features they need, or provide a long-term solution with a more comprehensive set of features. The personalization, profiling and detailed analytics in uMarketingSuite now make Umbraco a more viable long-term DXP solution.
Composable DXPs are also currently an area of focus for many platform vendors. A composable DXP is specifically a “best-of-breed” DXP made up of a number of various solutions from different third-party vendors, allowing a more flexible approach with marketing teams able to work with their preferred solutions. Adding uMarketingSuite to the core Umbraco DXP fully fits into the composable DXP model that is becoming more popular in the marketplace, with the ability to integrate further capabilities from other providers.
Another reason we’re excited about the product is that we expect uMarketingSuite to continue to expand, for example with the ability to integrate campaigns into the suite as well as marketing automation. We think there is the potential to add even more value to digital marketing teams.
Interested in uMarketingSuite? Get in touch!
If you’re an existing Umbraco customer and want to expand the power of the platform or are looking for a new DXP which is super easy to use, then get in touch!
