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Get the most out of the Sitecore community and platform with our list of Sitecorisms and best-practice tips.

Sitecorisms: A marketer’s dictionary for Sitecore

Let’s be honest. As a marketer, you are probably using multiple tools. Whether a CMS, a CRM, email automation, or something else, each tool has its own unique concepts and terms. This only adds to the time it takes to learn the specifics when transitioning from one to another (not to mention the frustration!). And it doesn’t help that often terms have different meanings depending on the context or tool. As fellow marketers, we know your pain.

Our Sitecore Business Optimization Strategies™ (SBOS) team has spent countless hours supporting customer transitions from a brand-centric marketing approach to a customer-obsessed one, made possible by a digital experience platform powering memorable customer experiences that build loyalty. And they’ve compiled their insight into a running list of Sitecore specific concepts and definitions you need to know, lovingly dubbing them Sitecorisms.

Some are unique to our ecosystem, platform, and capabilities. Others might conflict with how you’ve seen or heard them used elsewhere. Whatever the case, you can find their Sitecore meaning here.

For each term included, you will find a simplified definition of the concept as used by Sitecore paired with a common marketing definition — and a helpful tip to tie it all together.

Sitecorisms: Our definitions, their definitions, and tips

Term

Sitecore definition

General definition

Sitecorism tip

 

 

 

 

Context Marketing

Context marketing is about how, when, and why we deliver content. It’s putting your marketing messages into a context that’s relevant to each individual customer through digital marketing.

Based on search terms or recent web-browsing activity, context (or contextual) marketing refers to targeted advertising by user information.

At its simplest, context marketing is relevant digital communication. Brands can build trust with prospects and customers by creating meaningful experiences delivered to the right person, in the right place, and at the right time based on their past brand interactions and current needs.

 

 

 

 

Conversion

A metric counting the total number of times a digital goal has been achieved by users.

Conversions are goal completions which can be applied to any action a user takes on your website that is valuable in some way.

Common goal conversions include:
- Register for the newsletter
- Download the whitepaper
- Submit the contact form

 

 

 

 

Contact

A person that uses one or more devices to interact with your organization.

Unless you’re using a Customer Relationship Marketing (CRM) software, like SalesForce, a contact typically is a prospect or customer with a history of interactions with your brand.

Each contact, or visitor, has a unique contact record in Sitecore Experience Database (xDB). This record enables you to see a contact’s entire journey on your website. This allows you to recognize returning contacts regardless of device.

 

 

 

 

Contact Record

A container in the Experience Profile tool that stores information about the behavior of a user.

A collection of fields in a CRM system about a user which often corresponds to an account.

xDB keeps records of both anonymous and known contacts.

 

 

 

 

Engagement Value(s)

A numerical point value assigned to each digital goal. Higher point values reflect higher business values, including the level of commitment associated with a goal. Users and segments accumulate related metrics like total value and value per visit.

Engagement value is a Sitecore-specific concept, and many analytics platforms do not weight goals with a point value.

This metric is powerful within Sitecore. It can provide a measurement foundation for A/B testing and personalization, both of which help optimize relevant experiences for your audience. This can also be a huge indicator of the quality of traffic to your website.

 

 

 

 

Impressions

The number of times a specific variation of content is displayed (used in personalization)

Measurement metric to quantify the effects of digital marketing efforts such as display ads on a web page or any content rendered on a user's screen.

As with the broader marketing world, impressions are a critical indicator of both the number of people seeing your content and the effectiveness of your digital efforts in Sitecore. However, while impressions play a significant role in both personalization and ensuring quality traffic in Sitecore, they are merely one of many available metrics for understanding and optimizing customer journeys.

 

 

 

 

Item

A Sitecore “item” is a virtual object that lives within Sitecore itself (i.e., the Sitecore database). An item can represent any kind of information that makes up a webpage, for example, a piece of text, a media file, a layout, and so on.

An individual article or unit, especially one that is part of a list, collection, or set

Many content management platforms use different lingo to describe components within their systems. Some common ones are "Pages" or "Media Assets." With Sitecore, every virtual object is an item with a unique ID. Our item-based structure enables more granular personalization and omnichannel delivery.

 

 

 

 

Launchpad

The Launchpad is a collection of shortcuts to commonly used Sitecore applications. This can be customized based on roles or user group.

A marketing launchpad is a tool, or a group of tools, that helps ensure everyone is on the same page. As a living, collective source of marketing efforts — including analytics, active campaigns, projects, and more — it’s often the place to start your day.

Both definitions are true. In Sitecore, the Launchpad is your central hub for quick access to the tools you need to make meaningful digital experiences for customer connections.

 

 

 

 

Pattern Match

Sitecore's implicit profiling capabilities match visitors to pattern cards based on pages they’ve viewed. Pattern matching enables marketers to setup personalization that renders in-session, in real time.

Patterns are combinations of site interactions used or performed by a user to match to a specific pattern.

A key tool for marketers using Sitecore personalization, pattern cards, along with their configuration, set you up for success with the Sitecore Marketing Automation features.

 

 

 

 

xDB

Sitecore Experience Database acronym. This database is the central data repository with vast amounts of customer interaction data (including all contact data across channels).

Arguably the most important feature for any marketer and company in today's world, the DATABASE has many names.

xDB gives marketers a detailed view of their customers’ interactions. This data can power personalization based on web behavior from previous visits and contact data across all channels.

 

 

 

 

Confidence Level

Metric used to signify the statistical significance of an A/B Test. As a probability that the results will be correct if you took enough random samples, this percentage is the correlation of visitors and conversions calculated to reveal which variation yields the most conversions.

While this metric is not usually called out in other platforms, you may have heard it as determining the level of interest or popularity in any given test.

Confidence level is an important metric for determining when your A/B tests have been seen by enough visitors to clearly identify a winner. Aim for a level of 95% or more.

 

 

 

 

Score

Sitecore assigns marketers a Score based on the tests they launch. A leaderboard tracks the Best Guessing marketers, and marketers whose tests have the Highest Effect.

In test results, Score is a product of both the effect of the test and traffic to the page.

Often used in lead scoring as part of the sales cycle.

In Sitecore, this gamification dashboard element encourages adoption of A/B testing within an organization.

 

 

 

 

Important Sitecore acronyms

Every platform uses acronyms to simplify product names, features, and capabilities. While they certainly save reading and dialogue time, they can be a source of confusion for newcomers. Keep this cheat sheet at hand to reference the common acronyms used within the Sitecore platform and ecosystem.

Acronym

Term

XP

Sitecore Experience Platform

xDB

Sitecore Experience Database

EXM

Sitecore Email Experience Manager

CMS

Content Management System

CRM

Customer Relation Management System

CXM

Customer Experience Management

DXP

Digital Experience Platform

FXM

Federated Experience Manager

IaaS

Infrastructure as a Service

JSS

Sitecore JavaScript Services

ML

Machine Learning

MA

Marketing Automation

SBOS

Sitecore Business Optimization Strategies

WCM

Web Content Management

xConnect

Sitecore xConnect (service layer in the xDB collection)

WYSIWYG

“What You See Is What You Get”

XC

Sitecore Experience Commerce

WFfM

Web Forms for Marketers

XM

Experience Manager

SXA

Sitecore Experience Accelerator

MVT

Multivariate Test

PaaS

Platform as a Service

CaaS

Content as a Service

XaaS

“Anything” as a Service

CMP

Content Marketing Platform

MRM

Marketing Resource Management

PIM

Product Information Management

DAM

Digital Asset Management

AI

Artificial Intelligence

UT

Universal Tracker

DRM

Digital Rights Management

EVS

Engagement Value Scale

SPEAK

Sitecore Process and Enablement Kit

CD

Continuous Delivery

CDS

Content Delivery (sever)

CM

Content Marketing

CM

Content Management (server)

W2P

Web to Print

PCM

Product Content Management

IoT

Internet of Things