Driving engagement in three months: GEHA's journey with Sitecore Search and Sitecore Personalize

In only three months, GEHA had to address two challenges:

• Adding site search to the main website
  Historically, GEHA had no search mechanism in place, which complicated navigation on a site rich with healthcare-related content. Users needed an intuitive way to find specific information like medical and dental benefits or external resources, such as PDFs and links.
• Implementing an entirely new homepage with a new color scheme
  Unlike the sales-centric original homepage, the redesigned one focused more on who GEHA is as an organization. They leveraged A/B testing to ensure the changes enhanced user experience.

After introducing the two challenges, Uy Tran explained the decision to implement Sitecore Personalize.

A hybrid approach of combining Sitecore XP with Personalize enabled GEHA to personalize key components of their site without fully overhauling their existing systems.

Alex Edwards shared some of the team's personalization tips and tricks that helped streamline the project. One key insight was the decision to run the old and new homepage designs on the same URL, dividing the two pages through Sitecore XP caching. This clever approach allowed for faster page loading without users even realizing they were part of an A/B test.

Edwards and Tran highlighted the importance of gathering as much data as possible during tests. By customizing goals and tracking every interaction, such as CTA clicks and time spent on pages, the team gained deeper insights into user behavior. This led to actionable results, like discovering that while users preferred the new homepage, a large number were using it simply to access GEHA’s member portal.

The second half of the session focused on the integration of Sitecore Search, a first for GEHA. The company adopted a crawl, walk, run strategy to gradually roll out features over three months. They started with a basic search results page, followed by implementing search analytics and auto-complete, and finally moved to advanced features like PDF and external link support.

One of the key challenges GEHA faced was adapting to Sitecore Search's React SDK, a framework that many organizations using Sitecore XP, including GEHA, were not familiar with. Tran revealed that their team had to custom-code elements to work with Sitecore Search, which added complexity to the implementation. However, thanks to robust APIs and Sitecore’s documentation, they were able to overcome these hurdles.

In just three months, GEHA and Arkane Digital demonstrated the transformative power of a thoughtful, phased approach to digital personalization and search optimization. By adopting Sitecore Search and Personalize, they turned ambitious goals into tangible results—helping users find relevant content faster and tailoring experiences in real time to meet individual needs.

As brands continue to navigate the evolving digital landscape, GEHA and Arkane Digital's experience offers a powerful roadmap for leveraging Sitecore's capabilities to create rich, engaging interactions that resonate with users.

Learn more about Sitecore Search and Personalize here.