Sitecore Tools

As new Sitecore CEO Dave O’Flanagan said at SUGCON Europe last month, “XP is going nowhere”. In addition to the literal hundreds of updates that go live with XM Cloud in the background without the need for a platform upgrade (you can keep track of them at this link – you’re welcome!), XP is certainly not being left out with the launch of Sitecore XP 10.4 this week.

We’ve had to wait a bit longer than usual for this update (10.3 was released in December 2022) but it’s well worth the wait. Here are some of the highlights from the 200 updates that are coming with 10.4 (you can check out the full list here in the Release Notes).

Personalisation improvements

Along with the future-facing migration and integration tool updates, there are a bunch of new features that will help you create value straight away, specifically when it comes to personalisation. You will now be able to personalise more effectively by targeting specific audiences with custom languages, which is great for global companies targeting across different geographical locations. There’s also more intuitive customisation of visitor data tracking and targeting which can help marketers create personalised experiences based on behaviour, preferences, and demographics without the need for developer involvement.

Along with the above, there is the added ability to trigger campaigns or goals based on rules, which is great if you want to display content from a campaign only when certain pages have been visited. According to Sitecore, it’ll be easier to add new facets for segmentation, personalisation, analytics, and marketing automation too.

Easier composability

The integration updates in 10.4 will let clients connect XP more effectively into their composable marketing stack and more easily sync XP analytics data with third party CRM, CDP, marketing automation tools, and other marketing systems. Expanded integration with Sitecore Connect gives clients the ability to connect their XP instance with over 1,000 martech solutions.

XM to XM Cloud Migration Tool

This has been somewhat of a bugbear for clients who have been migrating to XM Cloud from XM / XP so far, so it’s great to see the addition of a tool to help with migrating content, media, and users from a source XM instance to an XM Cloud environment. According to Sitecore, this tool “provides an aid for the routine and sometimes recurring back-end migrations, so our customers/partners can focus on migrating and developing new front-end sites”. For clients who might not be ready to migrate to XM Cloud just yet, this gives them peace of mind that it will be easier to do so from 10.4 in the future if they so wish.

xDB to CDP Migration Tool

Similar to the above, for clients looking to take advantage of some of the recent suite of composable tools, this will make it easier to migrate your xDB data to CDP. According to Sitecore, this tool can be used for “transferring site visitor contact facets to Sitecore’s CDP and Personalize products, and also via Sitecore Connect to external systems”. This will let you use ready-to-go connectors to combine Sitecore xDB data with other data sets to enrich the migration and gain deeper insights by exporting and combining faceted contact data in Power BI.

Looking toward the future

The above only scratches the surface of course, but it’s some of the main highlights that jumped out to us. You can check out the full list of feature updates here. Mainstream support will be available until the end of 2027 and extended support will be available until the end of 2030 which offers peace of mind to clients that are considering upgrading from an older version of XP to 10.4.

If you’re thinking about moving to XP 10.4, or even if you’re weighing up the benefits of moving to XM Cloud, get in touch with us and we’ll help you make the decision.

Sitecore DX in Minneapolis last month was an exciting affair, not just because it filled the gap where the annual Sitecore Symposium gathering would usually take place, but also because it was where Sitecore launched XM Cloud Plus and Sitecore Accelerate.

As Sitecore continues to enlarge its SaaS offering we’re seeing new and expanded cloud products and tools coming to market such as Sitecore Search, Content Hub ONE, and Sitecore Connect over the last twelve months.

But with XM Cloud essentially being the Hero product in the portfolio, taking over the mantle from Sitecore Experience Platform (XP), what actually is XM Cloud Plus?

Well, as the name might suggest, it is essentially a beefed-up version of XM Cloud with a bunch of added features and capabilities that make it even more useful to clients, enabling them to deliver experiences that convert to their own customers.

XM Cloud Plus includes XM Cloud (obviously) but adds built-in site search, AI-powered personalization, omnichannel content channels, comprehensive analytics as well as seamless integration and connectivity:

• AI-powered Search features enable intelligent search recommendations and access to an extensive array of personalisation development tools enables omnichannel personalisation targeting (utilising features associated with Sitecore Search and Sitecore Personalize).
• An omnichannel content centre lets teams manage all their digital customer touchpoints from a single content repository that ensures streamlined workflows and brand consistency across channels (utilising features associated with Connect Hub ONE).
• Seamless integrations and connectivity features offer easy implementation within an existing tech stack to create connected customer experiences across channels (utilising features associated with Sitecore Connect).
• A drag-and-drop Form builder provides customers with an easy way to add data capture forms to their pages and components.

Think of XM Cloud Plus as a more direct upgrade to Sitecore XP as opposed to the more streamlined standalone XM Cloud. As Sitecore say themselves:

“XM Cloud Plus is designed to answer the needs of Sitecore XP customers who have enjoyed a powerful solution in a single product and are ready to make their transition to the cloud, and for brands that want to leverage a composable technology stack but use a proven product combination to simplify deployment and accelerate time to value.”

We’ve seen this ourselves from some clients that are currently on Sitecore XP and considering a future upgrade to XM Cloud but with the standalone version not quite offering feature parity with what they currently had.

This is a smart move from Sitecore and we think that XM Cloud Plus will come to be the Hero product that most clients will adopt over the next few years.

If you would like to explore your options with upgrading your tech stack to XM Cloud Plus, or indeed making the move to Sitecore from another platform, Sagittarius can help you on the way. Get in touch with us today and we’ll help you on your journey.

This article appears on the Sagittarius blog.

In Part One of ‘Everything you need to know before getting started with Sitecore Send,’ we laid the foundation for harnessing the power of Sitecore Send in your email marketing endeavours, exploring Sitecore Send’s Email Lists and Campaigns. Let’s continue our journey by delving into Sitecore Send’s email marketing automation and analytics with Segments, Forms, Automation, Reports, and Integrations.

Read the full article on the Sagittarius blog at this link.

Despite being a part of every brand’s marketing strategy since the dawn of time, email marketing is still one of the most effective ways to engage with your customers and stimulate sales.

99% of email users check their email daily, some as much as 20 times a day! And 61% of consumers prefer to be contacted by brands through email as opposed to other channels.

Email is still essential to any business’s marketing and sales strategy, and having the right tool is paramount.

Sitecore Send is Sitecore’s latest SaaS email tool, built for the composable world, and this product should be part of any conversation an organisation has around revamping its email capability.

But, like rolling out any new tool, there are considerations to make before you dive in. With that in mind, there are seven elements you need to know about before getting started with Sitecore Send.

• Email Lists – Who you’re sending your emails to and what data points you have on them.
• Campaigns – These are the emails themselves, how they look and feel and what info is in them.
• Forms – Getting new users into your lists and what info you want them to give you.
• Segments – How you can group your users based on common characteristics so you can create relevant Campaigns.
• Automation – Setting up automated messages based on certain Triggers and Conditions.
• Reports – Viewing how successful your Campaigns are.
• Integrations – Getting your system to share information with other tools or platforms.

Read the full article on the Sagittarius blog at this link.

I was delighted to deliver Sagittarius’s very first Sitecore Send Academy training internally today with an aim to get the whole agency up to speed with the features and benefits of Sitecore Send so we can help our clients roll it out for their own businesses.

In conjunction with last week’s Sitecore DX Europe in London, Sagittarius created a collection of content based on the outlined topics of the day. As part of this series, I created a bite-size video on how to use Sitecore CDP (Customer Data Platform) to parse customer data, giving viewers an overview of what type of information they can store on their customers and how it is formatted.

In preparation for this week’s Sitecore DX Europe in London tomorrow, a few of us here at Sagittarius created a collection of content based on the outlined topics of the day. One of which was a bite-size video that I produced on creating a scalable content strategy and how Sitecore Content Hub can help you do just that.