Integrating Third-Party Systems with AEM: Expert Guidance

• By Shamsher Singh Bhullar

• 22nd September 2023

Consumers now have more say in what they like. Today, they have more choices and influence on how they interact with products, services, and content. To meet their ever-rising expectations, brands today need to surprise and delight consumers at every point to earn their loyalty and business. For instance, if you want to integrate Google Search Console (GCS) data with your AEM-built e-commerce website to analyze data, performing third-party AEM integrations is an indispensable practice.

It is where companies need powerful tools like AEM that will help them create, uncover, and personalize the content at every stage based on their demographics. This blog is a gentle introduction to third-party integrations and how to perform one! Furthermore, if you’re an e-commerce owner, there’s some bonus content for you.

Why Adobe Experience Manager?

Over the past few years, the website’s structure has evolved from a static-looking brochure to a dynamic marketing platform. However, to meet the challenges of today and the needs of tomorrow, businesses need to be agile, scalable, and innovative. And it is where technologies like Adobe Experience Manager help them stay competitive.

Powerhouse company Adobe developed this software, which has delivered many software that have set them apart from the crowd. AEM allows organizations to create compelling online experiences, whether web, mobile, email, video, or social media. In short, this tool is comprehensive enough to manage every aspect of your customer’s online experience.

One of the Forrester studies states that the average enterprise manages 268 different digital experiences. Businesses can’t manage these touchpoints consistently on a single platform. And that is where AEM helps companies to boost ROI in countless ways.

Here is how AEM allows the organization to create compelling online experiences across digital channels:

• Unified Content Management: AEM provides a central hub that allows you to manage all digital content, whether web pages, images, videos, or documents. Unified content management simplifies the process of content creation, updates, and distribution across different channels.
• Responsive Design: AEM also supports responsive web design to ensure your content looks and functions seamlessly on various devices such as smartphones, tablets, and desktops.
• Personalization: The built-in personalization capabilities allow organizations to deliver tailored content to their users based on their preferences and demographics. It makes the user experience more relevant and engaging.
• Multi-Site Management: It can also simplify managing and maintaining multiple websites from a single platform. It is beneficial for organizations with various brands. Consistency ensures brand integrity and a cohesive user experience.
• Scalability and Performance: The scalable structure of the AEM ensures that your online experience remains fast and responsive even if your audience and content volume grow. This reliability is essential for delivering a consistent user experience.

What is Integration in AEM?

Integration in AEM refers to either the import or export of content from content workflows and vice versa. This practice makes it easier for content authors to work with any website interface. Apart from content integration, there is a massive application of third-party app integrations with Adobe Experience Manager. 

These integrations enhance the agility and utility and scale up existing resources. For example, e-commerce enterprises leverage the power of e-commerce third-party apps with AEM to enhance AEM power for businesses.

Introduction to Integrating with Third-Party Services

Adobe Experience Manager (AEM) allows you to integrate with third-party apps. The list of these third-party applications is given below:

• Amazon SNS connection – Amazon web services
• ExactTarget – email marketing
• BrightEdge Content Optimizer – content optimized for search
• Microsoft® Translator or other machine translation providers
• Pushwoosh Connection – Apps – push notifications
• Salesforce – sales and CRM software
• Twitter – social networking
• Facebook Connect – social networking
• Generic Analytics Snippet – analytics
• YouTube – video sharing
• Silverpop Engage – marketing automation, email, mobile, and social media

Integrating with Salesforce:

Integration of the Salesforce with AEM allows you to manage leads more efficiently. It also takes advantage of the features that Salesforce already offers by default. This setup will enable you to set AEM to send leads to Salesforce, and you can even create components that directly access information from Salesforce. This integration streamlines lead management and makes working with Salesforce data within AEM easier.

If you want to learn in-depth about how to integrate Salesforce with AEM, check out our info-rich resource here.

Integrating with ExactTarget:

Integrating Adobe Experience Manager (AEM) with ExactTarget allows you to manage and send emails created in AEM through the Exact Target platform. You can also use the ExactTarget lead management feature for organizing potential customers’ information on AEM website pages. This process will simplify managing and engaging the potential leads who interact with AEM-powered websites.

Integrating with Facebook and Twitter:

Social login feature allows site visitors to sign in with their existing Facebook or Twitter accounts. Instead of creating a new username and password, they can log in with the credentials they already use for their social media accounts.

AEM’s integration with Facebook and Twitter will enable organizations to offer a login option using Facebook or Twitter on their digital platforms. It facilitates a more personalized and connected user experience on your AEM-powered website.

Integrating with Other Providers:

AEM also lets you connect with other external providers with Generic Analytics Snippet. Analytics presents you with valuable insights about how people use your website. You can set it up quickly by choosing from pre-made configurations like Adobe Analytics and Target. You can also create your custom analytics setup using Generic Analytics Snippets for your specific needs.

How to Integrate AEM with Third-Party E-Commerce Solutions?

Although AEM is a solid content management system (CMS), its potential is getting hampered since it is less porous to integrate with third-party e-commerce solutions. However, this shortcoming can be filled up by leveraging a new-gen solution for integrating e-commerce solutions with AEM.

For instance, if you have built your e-commerce website using AEM and you wish to integrate it with a catalog of products from a third-party integration, the Commerce Integration Framework (CIF) is the answer. Various third-party solutions with different APIs and schemas can be connected using the CIF through the integration layer.

There are various approaches to integrating CIF with third-party e-commerce platforms. One of the most common methodologies to do so is through Adobe I/O Runtime. Adobe I/O Runtime helps in building a GraphQL API mapping layer. Adobe I/O is used to develop an API translation layer between e-commerce back-end APIs and the Commerce GraphQL Schema.

 Conclusion: 

Integrating Adobe Experience Manager, Adobe Creative Cloud, and third-party applications bridges the content management and creation gap. It allows organizations to seamlessly manage digital assets, create engaging content, and deliver exceptional experiences to their audiences. This integration simplifies workflows and empowers creative teams to work efficiently and collaboratively across the entire content lifecycle.

You can reach out to Deftsoft to build integrations on this robust and extensible platform. Our dedicated team will provide you with top-notch customer service so that you can create a personalized experience for your customers with engaging content.

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