Dynamic content delivery: How to engage audiences in the moment

Marketers are prioritizing personalization because it’s what customers want. In the 2024 State of Customer Service and CX Study, 81% of customers said they prefer companies that offer a personalized experience. And the bar for personalization is high. Customers expect tailored experiences like real-time recommendations, order reminders based on their purchase frequency, and event information that’s based on their location and changes as the event approaches.

To meet these expectations, you need dynamic content. With dynamic content delivery, you can classify customers into new or returning visitors, personalize experiences based on their profiles, and display more relevant content based on geographical regions, loyalty tiers, etc. Imagine showing customers the content most likely to get them to click, convert, or contact sales.

In this post, you’ll see how personalization has evolved, why dynamic content delivery is necessary, and what steps you can take to build a successful dynamic content strategy. I’ll also give you a peek at how Contentful is helping brands reach their personalization goals faster.

What is dynamic content delivery?

Dynamic content delivery is automated, real-time personalization based on audience signals and customer data. Dynamic content refers to the output, the part that the customer sees. Dynamic content changes depending on how, when, and in what context you view it. Think about the different user profiles on your favorite streaming service. They use dynamic content to show the most relevant content for each user, so you don’t end up watching cartoons after the kids go to bed.

You can use static and dynamic content together to enhance your marketing efforts.

Dynamic content is the result of an evolution

In the early days of digital marketing, the catchphrase was “content is king.” Quality content and lots of information made the sale.

As digital marketing matured, context became king. Marketers aimed to provide the right content at the right time. For example, if you’re promoting an event, promotional content would shift from information on date, time, and ticket prices to how to get there, where to park, and maps of the venue as the event gets closer, and then post-event pictures and add-ons.

Now, big data is king. Companies are investing in data collection and customer data platforms. The more data you have about your customers, the more targeted and customized content marketing can be. Real-time, data-driven personalization is like a one-on-one conversation with the customer. 

But it’s still about content. Dynamic content is how you present great content in the right context, informed by data. It provides seamless, cohesive experiences that carry customers from awareness through purchase and keep them coming back.

How are marketers using dynamic content? 

Dynamic content can be used at any stage of the customer journey, in welcome emails, product recommendations, event communications, customer loyalty programs, on web pages, ecommerce sites, and in Instagram campaigns. It’s a versatile tactic that drives results.

Here are some examples of how Contentful customers increase customer engagement and boost conversion by trading static content for dynamic content:

Personio, an all-in-one HR software solution, faced a different challenge: catering to large enterprises and small businesses. Using account-based marketing personalization and dynamic content delivery, they served both target audiences, increasing conversion rates by 45% for enterprises and 46% for small businesses. 

Ruggable, the direct-to-consumer brand known for its machine-washable rugs, increased click-through rates 700% by matching hero banners and landing pages to the messaging of paid ads. The same small team also had a big win when they personalized homepage product selections for visitors coming from email campaigns: a 25% increase in conversions! Learn more about how Ruggable implemented personalization. 

Are you ready to implement dynamic content delivery?

Most people I talk to are eager to get started with personalization and dynamic content delivery. Still, getting the foundation in place is essential before you try to create dynamic content at scale. Dynamic content creation works best when you have a strong content strategy, efficient content operations, a single source of truth, and enough data to understand your audience and deliver meaningful content variants.

Shifting from static content to a dynamic content strategy without a solid foundation can lead to mistakes that undermine customer trust. Mistakes can include inaccurate data that leads to wonky product recommendations, product descriptions that still have bits of the template or prompt left in them, and copy that sounds fake. These dynamic content fails leave customers feeling like your brand is inauthentic or doesn’t really care about them. 

Dynamic content strategy readiness checklist

• Organized content: Do you have a strong content strategy and a baseline of structured and organized content? Structured content is easier for people and machines (think AI) to understand and is critical if you want to deliver dynamic content at scale. 

• Efficient content operations: Do your content operations run smoothly with clear roles, replicable processes, and integrations that reduce manual work? Content creators should be empowered to work quickly, supported by the tools they need without overreliance on developers.

• Single source of truth: An SSOT is critical in keeping dynamic content consistent and on brand. People and machines need access to the right information and centralized content management that enables them to make changes in one place. This means a platform that can support web content, mobile content, and any type of digital or online content.

• Customer base: Do you have a big enough customer base to leverage data? How well do you understand user behavior and user preferences? Go through your website content and digital experiences from a customer perspective. Think about how each persona gets what they need,  and identify gaps and places where dynamic content can add value.

• Data: Accurate, accessible data fuels personalization and dynamic content. Useful data for segmentation includes: website statistics, the ability to identify new vs. returning visitors, browsing history, purchase history, demographics, and geographic location. 

As you build your foundation, it becomes easier to see where dynamic content fits into your strategy. You’ll see which pages get returning visitors from a specific geographic location and might benefit from localized versions. You might notice traffic spikes on event pages a few days before an event and think about what type of information those visitors want. You can plug in analytics systems to see how people move through your website and what content or products appeal to different audiences. 

The impact of AI on personalization and dynamic content

AI holds a lot of promise for optimizing dynamic content delivery, but managing expectations is important. AI can’t reliably create dynamic content and do personalization for you without a proper content foundation and the right inputs. Before you jump into personalization, you still need a content strategy, structured content that AI can access, an understanding of your customers, and data to get good results.

Before I became a solutions engineer, I studied television production. One of the things I learned that stuck with me is “don’t fix it in post.” In TV terms, this means you need to think upfront about what you're going to shoot, how you want to edit that, what your scenes are, and how you’ll bring everything together in the end. New students — myself included — would cut corners and plan to fix them in post-production. We quickly learned that it was more work, and the results weren’t as good as they could have been.

The same applies to AI and personalization. It’s unrealistic to think AI will overcome sloppy content organization, convoluted workflows, or messy data. 

Where AI works well

In our research on generative AI usage, we found that people want control over what AI tools are doing, and that’s a good thing. The most successful use cases I see combine the strengths of people and AI. They set up governance, human reviews, and AI traceability so they can learn where AI works well and where people are needed.

For example, with Contentful Personalization, you can use AI to identify audience segments and generate, deliver, and optimize content. But most customers prefer more control over AI, and Contentful gives you that control.

Customers use Contentful’s AI features to:

• Identify new opportunities, such as an underserved audience.

• Suggest segments and experiments that can boost revenue through more targeted upsells and cross-sells.  

• Create variants that a human can review before publishing. This can be especially helpful in expediting translations for localized content.

• Automate parts of the workflow to reduce manual handoffs.

These AI use cases help businesses scale personalization and dynamic content delivery while giving them the level of control they want. 

The bottom line: Dynamic content delivery is how brands deliver personalized experiences at scale

People want personalized content that’s relevant to what they’re doing at that moment and works across their devices. You need a seemingly infinite amount of content to capture user attention and keep them coming back, but you don't have endless resources. 

This is the challenge Contentful helps you solve. Regardless of where you are now, we can help you organize and structure your content, streamline operations, create a single source of truth, and integrate all your content sources and data so you can use dynamic content delivery to delight customers with seamless personalization at scale.

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