How to use Storyblok CMS for AB testing and website personalization

September 13, 2024ProductBy Juliana Amorim

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 significant 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 the 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.

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 effort, as integrating third-party tools for these purposes can be complex and time-consuming, and 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 content on 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. Or choose a plugin to add basic personalization flexibilities.

AB testing

Likewise, Storyblok does not have built-in AB testing functionality. This makes it difficult for marketers to experiment with different page versions, 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 or VWO.

Alternative for personalization and AB testing

Croct is designed specifically to address the challenges of 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 significantly modifying your existing infrastructure. It also allows you to work with both default and static content.

• Unified solution

  Instead of relying on multiple tools for personalization and AB testing, Croct provides an all-in-one platform that integrates smoothly with your existing CMS, saving you time and effort. It also provides built-in CDP and analytics capabilities.

• Real-time personalization

  Croct lets you easily segment users based on their behavior and preferences, and 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, enabling more efficient tests with greater confidence and statistically significant results. This helps you optimize your website or app more quickly and with less traffic.

• Developer-friendly

  With first-class developer support, 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:

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 bit different. Croct is a dynamic CMS focused on experimentation and optimization, so you can use it only for the elements and components you want to experiment with.

Therefore, Croct CMS can coexist with Storyblok CMS. Let's say you have a website where the top menu, main banners, and forms are the most important for conversion. 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 connect elements and components between Storyblok and Croct, giving the content and the growth team the autonomy they need.

If your goal is to create dynamic, user-specific experiences and optimize conversions, take the first step by talking to our team. We're working on a new plugin, and it would be great to have you as a design partner!