A Marketing Managers Guide to the Solution Architecture of a modern MarTech DXP

As a Solution Architect I spend lots of time working with Marketers to design technology solutions that make their operations more efficient and companies more successful.

The Technology landscape is advancing with increasing speed and companies need to keep up to engage customers and maintain a competitive advantage over their competitors. And so I thought I would write an article aimed at Marketers to give them a primer on their very important role in the Solution Architecture design of a MarTech DXP.?

My goal is that Marketers who reads this will:

• Gain insights into why Marketers are central to a DXP’s final design
• Understand the role of a Solution Architect
• Learn how Marketing teams can collaborate effectively with Solution Architects
• Improve understanding of the 'Why' behind a DXP Solution Architecture
• Gain the confidence to ask more detailed questions of the Solution Architecture design

The MarTech Conundrum

Marketing Technology, or MarTech, refers to the software and tools used by businesses to automate, measure, and optimise their marketing efforts. It can include Content Management and Commerce systems, marketing automation and social media management tools, Data Platforms, analytics software and lots more.

Now, we all know that Marketing and IT work closely together and at times that relationship can be frustrating. Think of a classic conversation between Marketing and IT departments:

Marketing: I found a great product. It uses the latest Artificial Intelligences and can be a game changer for our Digital Marketing operations. Can we add it to our website?

IT: Our website wasn't built in a way that allows us to add this technology easily. We need to rebuild large parts of the system. It will be a very large project.

Marketing: Disappointing but we can’t budget for such a project…

What an awkward situation for everybody and it’s nobody's fault. While the Marketing Manager wants to push boundaries, the IT infrastructure just wasn't created to extend to support new technologies.?

Conversations between Marketing and IT departments that play like this are an indication that a company is ‘stuck’.?

Stuck companies cannot move forward in a day where the rate of technological advance is quicker than at any time in our history. Startup businesses are disrupting in every sector. Staying relevant means using digital technology to continuously evolve and maintain that competitive advantage over competitors.?

And therein lies a business’s greatest threat and biggest opportunity.?

Let’s explore some MarTech history before moving on to look at the ‘whys’ and ‘hows’ of a modern solution.

The Disruption of MarTech - Monoliths and Modularity

The MarTech of yesterday was built as large single systems responsible for all aspects of marketing technology. A single system architecture, also called a? ‘Monolith’ architecture, has its limitations:

1. Marketers were unlikely to have the best capability in any single area of their Marketing technology. Although a company may be happy with their Content Management System, their Commerce solution might not be performing and they are stuck with it
2. New technologies could not be easily integrated into these systems
3. Changes to one part of the system could have unintended consequences for other parts creating a culture of caution
4. Deployments can be expensive and risky as everything is wrapped in a single code base
5. These systems were often built and maintained by single in-house IT teams

Advances in Artificial Intelligence is the biggest disruptor behind today's MarTech. As big brands push innovation, customers have come to expect personalised experiences consistent across digital and even in physical stores.?

Digital Marketers need their technology to be todays ‘Best of Breed’ while having the agility to quickly adopt the technologies of tomorrow.

This is why many modern businesses have moved to a ‘modular’ design of their software systems. The modular approach consists of seamlessly integrated products, each responsible for a different aspect of a company's MarTech capabilities and seen as the most suitable product in their area.?

This approach presents lots of advantages over the ‘Monolith’:

1. Companies build software tailored to their specific needs and goals
2. Ability to swap out components, products or technologies without affecting the rest of the software system or requiring large rebuilds
3. Cloud based components are common and so do not require maintenance while giving you access to it’s latest features
4. Extends smoothly to support new technologies as they come on the market

The process of engaging stakeholders to design software systems that solve business problems is called the Solution Architecture. A modern MarTech Solution Architecture design will define the modular components, relationships, and interactions necessary between technologies and products to create a DXP (Digital Experience Platform).

What is a DXP?

There were pain points as businesses began to move their MarTech operations to a modular design.

Marketers found themselves using separate systems for different tasks such as content management, e-commerce, and email marketing, which operated independently and had their own databases. This made it difficult to track and analyse customer behaviour and preferences, and required data to be duplicated and copied between systems.

The concept of a Digital Experience Platform (DXP) represents an improvement in MarTech, as it brings together various MarTech products into a single, unified source of customer data. A DXP offers consistent data and interfaces for managing digital marketing efforts. This allows marketers to work together in harmony and streamline processes.

With consistent data feeding into all parts of the system, it unlocks the potential to deliver a Next-Gen Customer Experience...

A Next-Gen Customer Experience

Customers expect convenience, personalisation, and engagement. Your Customer Experience should differentiate you from competitors, gain repeat transactions and create loyal customers over time.??

Think of your DXP as digitally impersonating the level of service and engagement they would receive from a Personal Shopping Assistant in a physical store.

A new customer walks into a retail store. A Shopping Assistant notices them and the interaction begins:?

• After noticing the customer browsing a particular type of product, the Shopping Assistant approaches
• Greets the customer and asks them what colours or styles they like
• Brings the customers attention to products they recommend based on their observations
• Informs that the store is running a promotional discount for new customers
• The customer makes a purchase and leaves the store

Although the customer has left the store, the customer relationship has not.

Another day, the customer returns. This time the Shopping Assistant remembers them so:

• Greets the customer, remembering their name, favourite colour and types of products
• Enquires how they got on with their previous purchase
• Understands what the customer is looking for on this visit
• Brings the customers attention to new products they might be interested in

To deliver a digital experience like this, you need to analyse each customer's demographic, preferences, and behaviours. You need to know each detail about your products. After that you apply algorithms to confidently engage customers, predict where they want to go and what they want to see.

This is a Next-Gen Customer Experience.

The Role of a Marketing Manager in Solution Architecture

As the Marketing Manager, you are central to the design of a DXP’s Solution Architecture.

You have the vision, expertise and strategic thinking to align the software solution with E-Commerce operations and Digital Marketing goals.

To deliver the best possible DXP design for your company, you will significantly contribute in some key areas.

Business Goals

You will know the business's overall Digital Strategy and align specific goals and objectives. Strategic requirements need to be identified early and drive decision making through the Solution Architecture process.

IT System Evaluation

You will evaluate the technical capabilities and limitations of your existing systems. This will help identify any potential challenges or constraints that may impact the DXP architecture.

Target Audience

You will understand the needs, preferences, and behaviours of your target audience. You will evaluate the competitive landscape and market trends that may impact the business now and in the future. You will strategise what is required to stay ahead of your competitors to acquire a larger share of the target audience.

Data Management

Once there is a clear understanding of business goals, target audience and IT systems, you and Solution Architect will develop a plan for data management.?

A single data platform will sit at the centre of your DXP. Determine how data will be collected, stored, and analysed.

Customer Experience

You will work with the Solution Architect to support the creation of user-friendly, personalised campaigns developed to engage and delight your target audience.

A MarTech DXP Solution Architecture

The diagram below illustrates a broad overview of a basic MarTech DXP design.

I recommend taking a few minutes to come back and review this diagram as you read through this section. Notice the three layers from the bottom up: Data Platform, Composable Products and Core Systems. Then think about how your current system might compare to such a diagram.

The Core System components deliver the customer-facing content and experience. A typical E-Commerce set up may comprise of the following:

1. Web Frontend delivering the final customer experience
2. CMS supporting Content Management
3. Commerce allowing customers to transact

‘Composable’ Product components are each responsible for a different aspect of the final customer experience and integrated with your Core Systems. The word Composable indicates that these products are designed to be swapped in and out without affecting other parts of the system.

Finally, at the bottom of the diagram, we have a Data Platform. Products interact with the underlying data to deliver a most sophisticated customer experience. Quality data enables a product to perform to their potential. Data is the foundation upon which great DXP solutions are built.

Product Integrations

MarTech DXP’s will typically include certain types of products.??

Through the use of lower level diagrams, we will now examine some key considerations when designing their Solution Architecture within a DXP.

Data Platform

E-Commerce businesses typically use a product called a Customer Data Platform (CDP) to create a comprehensive view of their customers. They bring together Product and Customer data across channels such as Web, Email, Social, Advertising.

A CDP should intelligently group customers into marketing segments based on their lifecycle of engagement, interests, preferences and behaviours.

Solution Architecture Considerations

A CDP will be capable of storing and analysing these key data types.

A Solution Architecture like in the diagram below shows how you could push this data to your CDP from a Commerce website.?

In the real world you’ll extend to include data from any other active channels such as mobile apps and email.

Product Data is pushed from your Commerce System while Customer Data is pushed from your frontend website and Content Management System.

Customer 'Segments' then enable Marketers to create personalised campaigns by grouping customers that share traits, behaviours or preferences for certain types of products.

Our Data Platform is the foundation of our DXP’s foundation and will be central to discussions on how to integrate other products as we proceed.

Personalisation

Advancements in machine learning and artificial intelligence are ushering in a new era of Personalisation.

You need to consider two broad capabilities when developing your DXP personalisation strategy:

1. Tailored Personalisation

This is the experience delivered to returning customers. Using AI Technology your Personalisation Product should assess the past behaviours to attribute them to Segments.

Personalisation will understand every Segment a customer belongs to and tailor the website experience to accurately predict the content and products somebody wants to see.

2. Anonymous Real Time Personalisation

• 85% of people on your site are first time visitors.?
• Only 5% of these will last more than 10 minutes.?

Turning First Time Visitors into Repeat Customers is your biggest opportunity.?

An AI powered Personalisaiton product can immediately build a Profile of even anonymous customers by analysing their interactions with a website, including the pages and products they view and preferred price points.?

Solution Architecture Considerations

Review this example high level Solution Architecture for a Personalisation integration. Then read on as we unpick it.

Personalisation should be closely tied to your CDP.

AI will assess a customers preferences and interactions before attributing them to a Segment which describe their persona and expectation for the brand. The Segmented data can be pushed to the CMS so that content can be personalised.

The key points for a Personalisation integration are that:

• CDP data is the oil in your Personalisation engine
• Your Personalisation product will integrate with your CMS and Commerce systems to predict which content a customer is interested in

Marketing Automation

A Marketing Automation system is responsible for creating, automating, sending and analysing marketing campaigns on channels such as email, sms and mobile app notifications.?

Using sophisticated, effective and personalised campaigns to engage high-value customers and create familiar experiences can be an effective way to drive repeat purchases and loyalty within your customer base. Loyal customers should convert into recurring revenue for your business.

Solution Architecture Considerations

Your Website will let customers subscribe, unsubscribe, and manage their communication preferences. This is typically accomplished by your Website sending relevant data to the API of your Marketing Automation platform.

After that there are two key integrations you need to think about:

• Tracking Campaign Engagement in your CDP
• Sending Campaigns to Customers Segmented by your CDP

Tracking in your CDP?

Customer' interactions with Marketing Campaigns should be tracked against each customer in your CDP. Typical Marketing Automation events that you should track against customers are:

• Sends?
• Opens
• Clicks
• Bounces

Tracking Marketing Campaigns in your CDP enable you to refine Segments of loyal customers based on their interactions with previous Campaigns.

Customer Segmentation

Your Marketing Automation software should consume Segments of customers created in your CDP so that your Marketing team can target them with personalised campaigns.?

As a Marketing team member you will:

1. Review Segments of customers in your CDP
2. Configure relevant Email Campaigns to send to customers who are within particular Segments

As these CDP Segments are also consumed by your website, you can provide consistent personalised experience? for customers no matter what channel they are on..

Experimentation

To know what works for customers, businesses need to be able to quickly and easily test various aspects of their digital marketing and e-commerce operations. This includes testing marketing messaging, promotions, customer experience and content across channels.

An experiment enables you to test different Variations of a Feature to learn what works best in the real world.?

The Audience for an experiment is the group of customers to whom it is deployed. In some cases, experiments that are deemed risky or niche should only be released to a smaller, targeted group of customers.

Solution Architecture Considerations

Your Experimentation product will interact with both your CDP and Website Frontend. Review this diagram and then we’ll dig deeper.

Here are some key capabilities to be aware of when integrating Experimentation into your DXP.

Segmented Audiences for Experiments

You want to be able to use customer segments created in a Customer Data Platform (CDP) as the target audience of an Experiment. This allows you to develop experiments that target different niches in your overall audience.

Experiment Tracking

The CDP should track when a customer is participating in an experiment, which variation they were in, and whether they were converted based on the experiment's success metrics. This in turn enables Marketers to create Campaigns for customers who converted within a previous related Experiment.

Experiment with Personalisation

To fully leverage the power of Experimentation, you want to test variations of personalisation algorithms allowing you to help understand what works best for customers in each Segment of your audience.

Search & Merchandising

A Search & Merchandising Product allows users to easily find the products or content they are looking for on a website or mobile app. It needs to be capable of personalising results based on a customer's behaviour to prioritise the products it predicts a customer is interested in.

It will have the following responsibilities.

Solution Architecture

Your Search & Merchandising product will sit between your CDP and your website. Interrogate the following diagram.

Let’s delve into the basics of Search & Merchandising Products and how they should integrate into your DXP.

The Search Index

A Search Index is a database of all searchable content structured in a way that allows fast and efficient search algorithms to be executed.

Content and Products from your Core CMS and Commerce systems will be synced to the Search Index. The Search index contains the content returned to your customer in search results.?

To avoid issues on your web or mobile app, the Search Index needs to be kept up to date with the latest data in your CMS and Commerce systems at all times.

Personalisation

Search results should be customised based on a customer's preferences and behaviours. When a customer performs a keyword search, the system calculates how relevant each potential result is to the search keyword and preferences of the customer.

Content that is relevant to the customer based on preferences and behaviours is ranked higher in the search results. Your Search and Merchandising Product will require access to your CDP data to personalise the results.

CDP Tracking

The following customer actions should be tracked in your CDP and details recorded around that action.

Other MarTech Products

A Real Work DXP solution will include a range of additional product integrations including Single Sign-On, Payment Providers, Analytics, Search Engine Optimisation (SEO), Customer Relationship Management (CRM), Customer Support, Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) to name but a few.

A great DXP solution means integrating a range of tools that cohesively streamline your business operations, maximise your digital marketing and provide customers with a next-generation digital experience.?

It improves efficiency, drives growth and stays ahead of the competition.

Additional Solution Architecture Considerations

A DXP Solution Architecture design will also consider non-functional elements.?

Marketing Campaign Efficiency

A DXP with great capabilities can only be a great DXP when it is efficient for Marketers to run advanced personalised campaigns. A well thought out solution can significantly boost a Marketing team's productivity.?

Make sure sufficient thought has been invested in these areas.

Scalability

As an e-commerce business grows, its digital marketing and e-commerce operations must be able to scale up to meet increased demand and traffic. A MarTech DXP solution architecture must be designed to support this growth and ensure that the platform can continue to provide a fast, reliable, and seamless customer experience.

Security

Security is an essential Solution Architecture consideration. In the digital world, businesses collect and store vast amounts of sensitive customer data, and it is essential that this data is protected from unauthorised access and misuse. A robust and secure strategy is essential to? ensure the integrity and confidentiality of this data, protecting the business and its customers from potential security breaches.

Working with a Solution Architect

A great working relationship between the Marketing Manager and Solution Architect will make for an engaging and productive process. Here’s some tips for making that relationship a big success.

Lots of Communication!

It’s hardly groundbreaking for me to write… “Communication is important!” So let’s not stop there and unpick a bit more.

Strategic Goals are never to be forgotten about! They’re the North Star of a project. Without them we would be bumbling about aimlessly in the dark. We would all be meandering in different directions. When discussing approaches with your Solution Architect always ask:

• How each decision aligns with project goals
• How success of each piece of your DXP solution can be measured

You’ve got great ideas! And you should never hesitate to run ideas past your Solution Architect. Just be mindful that lots of ideas can take a lot of time for your Solution Architect to unpick and in turn impact the velocity of your project.. So throw your idea out there..? but include some extra information

• Why and how your idea aligns with strategic goals
• Why you think it may be a better fit than the current approach
• How you believe we can measure the success of this approach
• How much time you would like to invest in assessing your idea

Armed with this information, you’ll both be capable of making an informed decision of if your idea:

1. May be a fit in your DXP solution and if so, invest time in digging deeper as an alternative.?
2. Or conclude that it’s not a good fit for your solution at this moment in time.

Either of these outcomes is a success as it keeps your project moving forward. The key is to get to one of these outcomes in the minimum time possible and appropriate preparation will see to that.

Have Regular Touchpoints with your Solution Architect. Review progress and articulate your feedback and concerns from your perspective. Never be afraid to challenge or be challenged in your thinking!

Ask Questions

One of the original purposes of this article was to:

Get confident in asking more detailed questions of the Solution Architecture design

Asking questions is how you gain a better understanding of the Solution Architecture and make sure you fully understand all aspects of your DXP design. Questions can also stimulate your creativity and challenge assumptions, which can lead to more effective and innovative solutions.

If you are not sure about something, ask the question.

Know your Assumptions and Risks

Assumptions and Risks are part and parcel of any project. Everybody needs to understand them and they need to be documented.

Assumptions are typically decisions that have been made or things assumed to be true that a project is based on. A project may need to be replanned if an assumption changes. They are foundational. Make sure all Assumptions are appropriately documented at the start of the process and accessible for all stakeholders.

Risks, on the other hand, are potential negative events that may impact the project. The likelihood of a Risk occurring needs to be documented and regularly reviewed. For risks deemed to be likely, invest in a mitigation plan before the project starts. As risks inevitably manifest themselves, you want to pivot course smoothly rather than disrupt? your project.

Choosing a DXP Vendor

Although every final DXP Solution Architecture will contain a unique combination of products and integrations that work best for a business, there are benefits from using related Products from a single DXP vendor.?

DXP products from the same vendor will be designed to plug into each other, reducing the complexity and cost of integrations. You will have a single consistent interface to manage Digital Marketing activities.

Commercially, a single vendor is more cost effective as there is advantageous discounted pricing as you purchase additional products. Training and support are also more easily accessible.

I have worked extensively with Optimizely DXP solutions and have been consistently impressed by the way their products work together. Optimizely have undertaken a series of product acquisitions with each being one of the ‘best in breed’ in their area. They continue to evolve so that these products work seamlessly together while providing a single interface for Marketers to go about their tasks.

Optimizely manage the Cloud Hosting of their product that include CMS and Commerce core systems as well as a set of additional products that include among others a CDP, Search, Product Recommendations, Content Recommendations, Marketing Automation. Experimentation.

Optimizely has a single sign-on for a consistent marketer experience and some products work together with no-code connectors therefore saving a lot of development cost.?

Check them out if you are in the market!

Conclusion

This isn’t a short piece so I do hope you learned something from my experience that can help on your next project.

Comments and Feedback of any type are very much appreciated. I want this to evolve into the best possible piece that can help Marketers navigate the complex world of MarTech DXP's.

Check out my blog for more developer focused content: https://johnnymullaney.com/