Content Consistency Is Vital for Omnichannel Digital Experiences

Nowadays, digital content is accessible to consumers at all times across devices — whether over mobile apps or programmatically. That’s why it’s imperative for content, including ads, to look consistent no matter where it reaches consumers.

However, maintaining content consistency can be a challenge, especially for brands and companies relying on legacy technologies. A key factor is the amount of manual work required to manage content and assets across digital experiences and devices. Gratifyingly, AI and modern solutions can automate and optimize content for omnichannel delivery, freeing developers and marketers from the burden of manually updating each and every piece of content for each and every experience.

Follow the green sweater

Let’s take an example of a hypothetical fashion brand called Luxe. Imagine a consumer shopping online while on the train. They swipe through the Luxe mobile app on their smartphone, and become interested in a green sweater priced at $45. They click the image, and go to a product detail page, but are interrupted by reaching their stop and must get off the train — abandoning their session on the app.

Later, while browsing on their desktop, the consumer sees a programmatic ad that promotes that green sweater — same image, but at a higher price of $50. While watching TV and simultaneously surfing online on a tablet later, the consumer finds the sweater on the brand’s website. The image looks squeezed, and the price is back to $45.

That’s a classic example of multiple engagements for one product. To properly service those experiences, Luxe needs an orchestration system that displays at all times the same image of the green sweater, the correct price, language, product description, and other details. Incorrect or inconsistent content could easily annoy that consumer enough to put aside their tablet and watch TV instead of buying the green sweater.

Considering that the majority of consumers today are on two screens at once, brands must update and optimize content properly to engage consumers across channels and touchpoints, including mobile, desktop, and IoT. To do so, developers and marketers need tools that can ensure the right format and aspect ratio for the brand’s content, which must load fast for all experiences.

But what about the manual tasks required to update the price, language, and image for each device’s unique requirements?

That’s where composable architecture comes in.

Compose the green sweater

In the world of digital experiences and web architecture, brands have traditionally run on legacy platforms that rely on one vendor powering the entire process. However, those platforms lag behind composable architecture in delivering modern experiences. That’s because composable can integrate headless tools from multiple vendors by connecting the tools to the front end through an API, generating best-in-class experiences and freeing the back end from being locked in to one vendor’s code or approach.

With composable and headless, companies can deliver dependable content across channels.

The fashion brand Luxe with the green sweater likely relies on a single-vendor, legacy platform for their web experiences, a different platform for mobile experiences, and another for ad content. In effect, there can be three legacy silos that are disconnected and inconsistent.

As a result, the images and pricing information displayed on mobile, IoT, tablets, etc., fall victim to complex code and manual errors, such as duplicate content entries.

A composable platform ensures image and pricing matches across channels through automation. What’s more, developers and even marketers can access an easy-to-use dashboard to update content — only once. The platform then automatically fills in the rest, optimizing the content to fit each of the channels. The price of the green sweater can go from $50 to $45 within seconds, accurately displayed across devices.

On an older platform, developers would need to revise the code and change the price for each location in which the price shows up, as well as update the image for each page visited. Not to mention that the changes would need to be done in multiple languages.

An update in price could take days to implement on a traditional platform.

Upgrade to composable

To keep up with today’s channel-switching consumers, companies across industries must power their digital experiences on composable. Consequently, developers and marketers can build and deliver diverse and immersive digital experiences without relying on complex code to glue together experiences. The time and cost savings are inherently significant, let alone higher productivity and peace of mind.

Companies like Luxe will want to have a strategy in place that gets them to a composable experience. They’ll want to build an adaptable and sustainable tech stack that can support dynamic changes to content.

This strategy can include evaluating current technologies to see what currently works with a composable architecture, streamline teams and processes internally to prepare for a composable platform, and find vendors that support the overall composable mission.

The goal is to avoid getting locked into one vendor or program, but rather fuel next-level experiences that run consistently across devices and channels. Consumers will appreciate the work.

The green sweater will be thankful, too.