Enterprise website features don't always require an enterprise system at an enterprise cost. Advances in browser technology are changing the landscape as we speak. Instead of using cloud-based middleware or server applications for implementing website personalization, a simpler alternative is now available, and it works across all web platforms.

This article is a brief look at how these advances simplify the key aspects of personalization - data storage, workflow automation, and integration.

Website Personalization

Businesses can improve website engagement and conversion ratios by dynamically targeting each visitor with page content that is relevant to their interests. Successive visitors are likely to see completely different content delivered from the same page. 

Tracking and capturing visitor behavior is the first stage of website personalization. This behavior data needs to be stored somewhere. The arrival of HTML5 introduced local storage which enables around 5MB of data to be stored in the visitor's web browser. We can now use clever client-side JavaScript to track each visitor's behavior and save it in their own browser. The visitor's behavior across many visits to the same website can be saved. This distributed approach is much simpler than the traditional way of storing aggregated website behavior on a web server, or in a cloud-based solution like a CDP. It also improves performance by offloading the processing time to the visitor's browser.

 The next stage of personalization is to render page content that better reflects the visitor's needs. The decision to show a targeted version of content depends on the visitor's previous browsing behavior - captured in local storage. Again, the logic to decide what content to show has historically been server-side functionality or executed via a third-party cloud application. Now, using local storage, enterprise-level personalization is possible by running client-side scripts on the browser! The script simply reads the value of a behavioral indicator (or facet) in local storage and renders the appropriate page content. Client-side personalization works with all web technologies, and the implementation skills, JavaScript, are widely available. Even better, this approach works on headless JAMstack architectures so the resulting website has lightning-fast performance.

Local storage simplifies and reduces personalization costs by eliminating the need for expensive third-party, often cloud-based, systems with complex logic and large databases.

CRM Integration

CRM Integration classically means the creation or updating of a CRM lead record from a web form. For simple web form submissions, client-side scripting can be used e.g. Salesforce Web To Lead.

Beyond simple form integration, enterprises benefit greatly by making a visitor's website behavior available to their sales team. This improves engagement throughout the sales process and provides campaign segmentation options.

Enterprises can go further by enabling the sales team to personalize each visitor's website experience from the CRM. This effectively adjusts the online messaging as the visitor progresses through the sales process. Hand-in-hand with this is the sought-after "Returned Visitor" feature that notifies the CRM sales team when a nominated visitor returns to the website.

Until recently, these features have been complex and only available in enterprise systems but, again, we can simplify (and reduce costs) by turning to client-side scripting and local storage.

Send2CRM

A great implementation of client-side personalization is FuseIT's Send2CRM. It uses scripting and local storage to improve visitor engagement. When a web form is submitted, the form data and aggregated visitor behavior is posted directly to Salesforce CRM. The sales team can review the visitor's online behavior, and choose to override the client-side website personalization from Salesforce. S4S Cloud makes it possible to:

• Create/update Salesforce records including contacts, cases, or even multiple records from a single web form submission
• Push visitor browsing behavior to the Salesforce record and subsequently keep it up-to-date using real-time or sync processes (to capture the website activities of returning visitors)
• Drive website personalization from Salesforce
  • Update the visitor's local storage data with field values from the visitor's Salesforce record or
  • Update the personalization databases used by enterprise websites e.g. Adobe and Sitecore