Sitecore helps General Assembly revolutionize online education experience to boost site performance

General Assembly (GA) is the leading talent and upskilling community that helps businesses, governments, and individuals acquire the skills required to succeed in an increasingly complex technological era. Founded in 2011, GA has evolved into a center of excellence in training people from all backgrounds to upgrade their practical knowledge of tech skills now required in every company and in any role. With a global presence, GA needed to better meet the needs of its learners, company partners, and employees. This required an updated technology stack and a refreshed UX to make its products easier to find, help customers better connect with GA, and improve web content delivery.

Working with Platinum Sitecore Partner, Merkle, General Assembly quickly designed, developed, and executed a martech implementation and creative refresh to meet the needs of General Assembly’s front-end and back-end users. By optimally leveraging existing and new systems, General Assembly built a modern, composable digital experience platform using Sitecore XM Cloud to support a scalable, efficient self-service model.

With lead generation being the number one priority, Merkle and General Assembly deeply collaborated on performance optimizations. Balancing the need to quickly realize value while mitigating risk, General Assembly migrated and launched the site in a phased approach. Sitecore XM Cloud integrates with Vercel as the front-end host and connects with General Assembly’s existing DAM, Bynder, and Google Analytics applications.

A key Sitecore integration is GA’s Salesforce CRM which enables website leads to feed directly into Salesforce. Features such as personalized content displayed to users based on geography and localizing product and service content supports GA global expansion. Sitecore XM Cloud provides omnichannel content delivery and allows flexibility across any number of markets, touchpoints, platforms, and devices.

With the Sitecore-powered modern SaaS-based composable DXP in place, General Assembly has enhanced user experiences, improved operational efficiency, and positioned itself for sustainable, scalable future growth. General Assembly has seen a 12.5% improvement in page load speed (Google Lighthouse scores) and organic traffic outperform max projections by as much as 25% at each phase of launch.

There is also a three times improvement in visitor-to-lead conversion rate and a 43% increase in paid search click-to-lead conversion rate with a “Request Info” button on all pages. For learners, General Assembly has improved personalized experiences based on location with dynamically updated content. Website access has improved, and content is easier to find. Overall, learners get a more intuitive and aesthetically pleasing website experience.

General Assembly’s marketing team can make back-end updates quickly without significant development work. Some updates that used to take weeks are now viable in less than a day. They can dynamically refresh content on static pages while back-end connection between Google Analytics, Vercel, and other elements of the tech stack mean better insights and improve data-informed decision making. Marketing is also able to improve media ads with more intuitive, relevant landing pages for users to improve conversion rates.