Robert McGovern | Sitecore Strategy MVP 2025, 2024, 2023 & 2022

Jan

2024

Featured in the Best of 2023 Sitecore content

I was delighted to feature in Jonathan Corely’s roundup of the best Sitecore Marketing a n d D i g i t a l E x p e r i e n c e content of 2023 along with my fellow Sagittarians James Gray and Issy Stephen.

We had a serious output of Sitecore-specific content in 2023 at Sagittarius and the content that made it onto Jonathan’s list covers a broad spectrum ranging from Sitecore Send (myself), Sitecore XM Cloud (Issy) and Artificial Intelligence (James).

Read the full list here: Best of 2023: Top 20 Assets for Sitecore Marketers and Digital Experience Strategists.

Nov

2023

What is XM Cloud Plus?

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.

Nov

2023

Sagittarius welcomed the UK Sitecore User Group community for last night’s event

It was fantastic to welcome the UK Sitecore User Group community to our new(ish) London office in Shoreditch last night for the lastest SUG UK meet-up featuring some fantastic talks from the below Sitecore gurus:

‘Sitecore Content Search: Building a frontend for Sitecore Search results’ – Sean Carter, Head of Sitecore Development at Sagittarius

‘Streaming Seamlessly: Integrating Content Hub with your existing video streaming platform’ – Julius Angwenyi, Sitecore Architect at Avanade

‘From JSS to Headless SXA’ – Alex Washtell, Freelance Sitecore Consultant at Kasaku

Oct

2023

Everything you need to know before getting started with Sitecore Send – Part 2

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.

Oct

2023

How To Update Personalisation Rules in Content Editor

In one particular client project, we experienced an issue when updating Rules in Experience Editor causing the page to freeze when you click the Save button.

One way around this is by updating the Rules in the Content Editor instead of Experience Editor which you can do by following the below steps:

Go into Content Editor.
Choose the page you want to edit the personalisation rules on. Make sure you click on the page folder itself and not on Local Content.
Click on the PRESENTATION tab in the upper navigation bar.
Click on the Details item in the lower navigation bar.

Click on the FINAL LAYOUT tab of the pop-up panel.
Click on the Edit button at the bottom of the Default section

Click on the Controls tab in the left panel.
Click on the component that you want to update.
Click on the Personalize button in the right panel.

Update the Personalisation rules as you would in Experience Editor.
Click the OK buttons going back out through the panels you came in using.

Click the Save icon in the top-left of the lower navigation menu. This should work whether or not the Experience Editor save function works. Finally, Publish the page.

Sep

2023

Everything you need to know before getting started with Sitecore Send – Part 1

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.

Aug

2023

My talk at SMAC Webinar #14

I was delighted to speak at the 14th SMAC webinar on 8th August 2023 about Sitecore Send alongside the fantastic Samantha Goble and Daulton Allison of XCentium and Kimberly McCabe of Perficient. The full line-up is below.

Samantha Goble and Daulton Allison, M.S. of XCentium on tips for creating digital strategy plans and documentation to help marketing teams to grow their personalization and content operations.

Robert McGovern of Sagittarius on how you can “speed-run” all the main features of Sitecore Send.

Kimberly McCabe of Perficient on how to resonate with customers by knowing their JOBS in 3 areas.

Jul

2023

Launching Sagittarius’s new Sitecore Send Academy

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.

Jul

2023

Owen Taraniuk, Sitecore SVP of Global Partners visits

It was great to have Owen Taraniuk, Sitecore SVP of Global Partners over to Sagittarius today for our annual Summer Conference and hear about some of the exciting things coming down the track at Sitecore. It’s going to be an exciting second half of the year.

Jun

2023

How To Add and Test Sitecore Goals

This article is part of my HOW TO series, aimed to demystify certain parts of the Sitecore ecosystem and make it easy for the community to understand.

Using Sitecore Goals is one of the most fundamental and valuable parts of the Sitecore offering and it is something that everyone working with Sitecore XP show know, even client-side admins.

While it might sound daunting to use, there is a very simple 4-Step process involved in Creating, Adding, and Testing the Sitecore Goals that you use on your website.

Step 1. Create a Goal

Go to the Marketing Control Panel from your Sitecore Launchpad dashboard.
Navigate to the Goals folder and click on it to select it.
Right-click the folder and choose Insert to add a Goal.
It is normally best practice to have different folders underneath Goals to help you categorize and manage your Goals, especially if you intend on having many of them in the future.
Similarly with the naming convention, it is usually best practice to name the Goals in a consistent way (e.g. Page View_Home and Page View_Products) so they are easy to find when you need to select a Goal from the Goals pop-up (which lays out Goals alphabetically).
Now you need to Deploy the Goal, which can be done from the REVIEW tab.

Step 2. Add the Goal to a Page or Item

Go to Content Editor and find the Page or Item you want to add the Goal to
Add the Goal
- Page View – To add a Page View Goal to a Page, visit the ANALYZE tab and choose the Goals option. A pop-up box will appear with all the Goals available to toggle. You may choose more than one Goal to toggle.
- Component – If you want to add a Goal to a certain Component this should be accessible from a dropdown menu that has been linked to that Component during development. If it is not there, reach out to your developer.
Click Publish

Step 3. Trigger the Goals

Now, you need to trigger the Goals to test them and see that they’re working as expected. Visit the Page or Click the buttons connected to the Goals to trigger them in your environment.

Step 4. Check the Goals in Experience Analytics

To make sure that your Goals are being picked-up as expected, go to Experience Analytics and select the Conversions tab.
In the Conversions section, there will be Goals sub menu.
Click into this section and you will see a dashboard with the Conversions, Visits, Conversion Rate etc. for each of your Goals. Manage the date range from the date picker at the top of the table.