How to use Storyblok CMS for AB testing and website personalization
Content management systems (CMS) have evolved beyond simple content delivery to meet the growing demands for dynamic, personalized digital experiences.
Storyblok is one of the leading headless CMS platforms used by developers and marketers alike. However, it has critical shortcomings when it comes to website personalization and AB testing.
When you're starting a website from scratch, your goal is probably to build one that gives your content team the autonomy to work without relying on developers. The main requirements at this moment usually are:
- It needs to be fast to load
- It needs to be indexed on search engines
- It needs to be scalable
- It needs to provide a good experience for content managers
But what about those things that come right after the website launch? You are about to make a decision for many many years, so you need to think about what's to come.
The marketing team starts driving traffic to the website. Soon enough, they start analyzing data to understand user behavior, which leads them to uncover optimization opportunities and need to test some hypotheses. As the next step, they need to personalize content for some user segments to increase conversions.
In the blink of an eye, you'll see yourself in the same situation again: the marketing team will become dependent on developers for everything. In this post, we'll explore Storyblok CMS, its limitations, and what are your alternatives for experimentation.
Traditional CMS and AB testing platforms are no longer enough. Make your website dynamic to support the growth team's needs.
What Storyblok CMS is good for
Storyblok is a headless CMS that allows developers to build flexible, scalable websites while giving non-technical users a user-friendly interface to manage content.
They're slightly focused on some industries like retail, SaaS, financial services, and education, but most of their applications are for static content like:
- Static websites, like corporate, publishing, or editorial websites
- E-commerce
- Mobile apps
- Industry-specific virtual and augmented reality applications
Storyblok is ideal for content-rich websites that need flexibility and scalability without being tied to a traditional monolithic CMS structure.
Why Storyblok isn't ideal for website personalization and AB testing
While Storyblok excels in content management, it has several limitations regarding advanced marketing features such as personalization and AB testing. These features require significant development work since integrating third-party tools for these purposes can be complex and time-consuming, which isn’t always feasible for fast-paced marketing teams.
Website personalization
Storyblok doesn't natively support personalized content based on user behavior or demographics. The CMS provides static content blocks without dynamic audience segmentation or real-time personalization options.
If you dig into their documentation and blog posts, you'll find some content related to personalization, like this one. However, for any strategy, you'll need to build your own personalization engine to collect, process, and use user data linked to your segmentation criteria.
AB testing
Likewise, Storyblok does not have built-in AB testing functionality. This makes it difficult for marketers to experiment with different versions of web pages, measure performance, and optimize content for conversions.
If you’re committed to using Storyblok and still want to implement AB testing, you’ll need to rely on third-party tools or custom-built solutions using plugins like Optimizely.
Here is a side-by-side comparison between Croct and Optimizely.
Alternative for personalization and AB testing
Croct is designed specifically to address the challenges that come with personalization and AB testing. Here's why Croct stands out:
Gradual integration
Croct can integrate with any framework, allowing you to fetch content dynamically based on user segmentation without having to modify your existing infrastructure heavily. It also allows you to work with both default and static content.
Unified solution
Instead of relying on multiple tools to achieve personalization and AB testing, Croct provides an all-in-one platform that works smoothly alongside your existing CMS, saving you time and effort. It also provides built-in CDP and analytics capabilities.
Real-time personalization
Croct allows you to easily segment users based on their behavior and preferences, then serve personalized content in real-time. You don’t need to build complex logic or custom integrations, as Croct takes care of this automatically.
Bayesian AB testing
Croct includes native AB testing capabilities using Bayesian statistics, allowing for more efficient tests with more confidence and statistically significant results. This helps you optimize your website or app more quickly and with less traffic.
Developer-friendly
With first-class support for developers, Croct offers intuitive APIs and SDKs that simplify personalization and testing workflows, reducing the need for manual implementation.
If you're curious about how Croct compares with Storyblok in terms of user satisfaction, this G2 comparison gives you a pretty good overview:
| Ratings | Storyblok | Croct |
|---|---|---|
| Meets requirements | 8.8 | 9.0 |
| Ease of use | 8.9 | 8.9 |
| Ease of setup | 8.5 | 8.8 |
| Ease of admin | 8.9 | 8.9 |
| Quality of support | 8.7 | 9.7 |
| Good partner in doing business | 9.0 | 9.4 |
| Product going in the right direction | 9.1 | 10.0 |
Why having 3 platforms for content management, AB testing, and personalization when you can have a single one?
But wait, I don't want to switch CMS and rebuild my entire website
No worries, you don't have to.
Although you can build your entire website with Croct's CMS, the most common use case is a little different than that. Croct is a dynamic CMS focused on experimentation and optimization, which means you can use it only for those elements and components that you want to experiment with.
Therefore, Croct CMS can coexist with Storyblok CMS. Let's say you have a website where the top menu, the main banners, and forms are the most important ones for conversion purposes. These could be dynamic elements integrated with Croct for AB testing or personalized communication, while the rest of the website could still live in Storyblok.
You can gradually move elements and components from Storyblok to Croct, giving the content and the growth team the autonomy they need. Here is an example of a customer who did exactly the same.
If your goal is to create dynamic, user-specific experiences and optimize conversions, take the first step by creating your free account and get up and running in just a few hours.