Dynamic content is defined as any digital or online content that changes based on data, user behaviour and preferences. This can be text, audio or video format content.
In this article, we explain what dynamic content is and its essential components, benefits, best practices and marketing applications with real-life examples!Â
Table of Contents
- What Is Dynamic Content? Why is it needed in Marketing?
- Types of Dynamic Content Applications
- Technology Maturity Levels for Dynamic Content Implementation
- Benefits of using Dynamic Content over Static Content
- Best Practices for Your Dynamic Content Strategy
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What is Dynamic Content and Why is it needed in Marketing?
Dynamic content is any digital or online content that changes based on data, user behaviour and preferences. This can be text, audio or video format content.
In other words, the next time you login to your YouTube account and wonder why the video recommendations shown are so aligned to your preferences – you can be sure that they are dynamically generated recommendations based on your historic behaviour and preference on Youtube or other Google owned websites /apps.
The ultimate aim for the company is to provide you video content options that you are most likely to engage with. This is also the reason why marketers today need to explore dynamic content. With the focus turning to customer-centric marketing, most Brands aim to deliver delightful customer experiences at each stage of the buyers’ journey. One way to do that is to leverage dynamic content that is not only personalised to the individual, but also contextual ‘in-the-moment’.
Another popular dynamic content application you may have experienced is a dynamic title based search engine ad campaign. Google once said that 15% of all its daily searches are completely new search strings and combinations. Which means, even Google can’t help you predict the exact words that a user might use to search for the same product.
This is why Google allows Adword managers to create ads that generate dynamic titles based on user searches. Ofcourse, the actual product offering in the landing page must still justify these variations in ad title formation for it to make sense. The ultimate aim of applying this tech is to make product advertisements more relevant to user searches, thereby increasing ad click-through-rate and increasing conversions from their Adword campaign.
Below is a visual example for Dynamic Ad titles used by Amazon for its Google search text ads. Notice how the ad title changes with the search query, while the destination page (URL) is the same:
Dynamic Ad Title 1
Dynamic Ad TitleÂ
As illustrated in the two examples, application of dynamic content depends on your overall digital marketing strategy and business objectives.
Learn more: What is Content Experience?Opens a new window
Types of Dynamic Content Implementation at Various Stages of the Buyers Journey
Marketers can use dynamic content at each stage of the buyers journey – or the purchase funnel – from Awareness (outreach/lead-gen) to customer acquisition (Conversion) to retention/upsell and engagement. Let’s explore these applications in detail:
1. Using Dynamic Content at the Awareness and Outreach Phase
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Whether you are a product or services company, one of the key metrics determining marketing success is creating awareness and generating leads from outreach activity. This means better CTR from email campaigns, and more ROI from programmatic adtech, display, search and social ads – the 2 most commonly used marketing outreach and awareness creation methods.
Dynamic content can be a strong catalyst to improve results from these outreach programs.
Let’s see how the application of dynamic content in the two most frequently used digital marketingOpens a new window outreach methods works in practice:
1.1 Email
You can make your email campaigns more relevant to readers by dynamically generating and personalizing the following aspects of the email:
- Customized email template for users based on trackable data on preference, demographics and stage of their buying journey.
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A good example of intelligent email database curation and template sourcing is Netflix’s dynamic email strategy. Depending on the stage of your journey with Netflix and behavior as a user – you will receive either a promo for signup, to complete your payment, latest shows to stream, alerts on your favorite shows, account renewal etc.
- Personalized email greeting by adding user’s name to address them.
- Online event invites as per reader’s timezone to increase ease of event registrations.
- Adding supplementary data to email body content, dynamically furnished with contextual data from user’s account. Such variables include history of account activity, preferences shown when logged in, type and level of product subscription etc.
- CTAs that are contextual to the action being requested, such as completing a purchase, renewing an account, learning more from an article etc.
Learn More:Â
Below is an example of an Amazon Local newsletter and the content sections that they have chosen to be dynamic:
1.2Â Â Dynamic Content for Text and Display Ads
If you are running a paid campaign, be it display or just text ads, dynamic content can help you optimize the following areas of your ad delivery and outcome:
- Strategic mapping of digital text ad titles, to user search queries. Google Adword is a great example, where text ads for a landing page can be completely or partially generated dynamically to match user search queries.
- Dynamic display ads for remarketing campaigns where ads are strategically selected based on prior user interest. For example, lets say a user visits the Facebook page of an ecommerce site, shows interest and intent but does not make a final purchase. Now this user can be automatically retargeted on Facebook, with the dynamically generated ad of this product. This is an in-built feature within the Facebook ad machine and you do not have to manually generate or track these retargetes text / display ads.
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Having discussed the core applications of dynamic content in Awareness/outreach, let’s move onto the next stage of its application in digital marketing.
2. Dynamic Content for On-site Engagement
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Once you have managed to get a user on your site, it is time to provide them with the most relevant and contextual content experience, such that they are closer to converting into leads / customers. Let’s look at the various sections of your site where you can apply dynamic content:
2.1 Site Search
A site search is a dynamic content space that can scan your website for a user entered search string and show related products, services or information pages. This dynamic content tool is widely used by ecommerce sites and publications, as it significantly improves site navigation and helps users reach their preferred destination pages.
Below is an example of site search on the Martech Advisor site, where you are reading this article:
2.2 Product / Content Recommendations
Whether you are a B2B or B2C company, as long as your generate content, you can utilize a good recommendation engine that can contextually select and suggest articles /product/ feature information pages that are relevant to the visitor’s buyer persona and customer journey.
For example, let’s consider a user of a software product who has purchased a mid-level license. The next time this user consumes content on this company’s website, a smart content recommendation engine can select and present article recommendations that informs this user on advanced product features and their benefits – to upsell a higher value license to this user.
2.3Â On-page Pop-ups
Pop-ups are evergreen engagement tools to increase conversions – as long as they are strategically planned to be non-intrusive, contextual and relevant to the customer / buyer’s journey. Dynamic content pop ups can be page-specific or user specific.
For example– A marketer can classify and map a set of pages spread across the website to different stages of a typical buyer’s journey. Based on this classification, the next step will be to enable pop-ups on these pages that helps educate and take readers to the next step in their buying journey. In other words, taking them closer to converting to a customer or upselling to a higher value product / service.
Below is an example on how Hubspot uses dynamic pop-ups on blog categories:
Dynamic Pop-up 1: Sales Blog Category Page
Dynamic Pop-up 2: Service Blog Category Page
Another example is using pop-ups for dynamic survey questions to be answered by users on a website. Even based on commonly trackable information available on most content marketing tools such as Hubspot or Google Analytics, you can create dynamic website surveys based on geo-location, age group, gender, interests etc, and collect valuable web visitor feedback and opinion.
3.Dynamic Content​​​​​ for Conversion
So far, we have explored the use of dynamic content for better marketing outreach and successfully bringing the target user to your website for further nurturing through onsite engagement. Now, let us explore how we can use dynamic content to increase website or page conversions.
Below are the key opportunities to implement dynamic content for higher conversions:
 3.1. Display Banners
Display banners for user engagement can be used on your web-pages, audience engagement emails (to your free users / customers / subscribers to upsell them to a higher value product) as well as inside your own product applications.here are some specific placements:
- In-web pages: display banners are especially engaging when the content is dynamically generated in the context of the page’s content. This means – picking the right ad for the right pages of your website.
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Below is an example of dynamic display banner on MTA’s subject-specific category pages:
Dynamic Display Banner In Content Marketing Category Articles
Dynamic Display Banner In Customer Data Management Category Articles
- In newsletters and emails: Display banners in lead nurturing or audience engagement emails and newsletters can be dynamic based on email database classification and user stats.
For instance, if you have 4 types of audience engagement newsletters for 4 types of subscribers or users, then you should have 4 types of display banners for each newsletter, such that it best aligns with the overall message of the emails. This leads to increased CTR and lead generation/ conversion for the overall newsletter program.
- Inside software /app banners: In-application banners let you can show dynamic content banners to logged-in users, allowing for even greater personalization based on usr account details and history.
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3.2. Native-content Promotions
Native content promotion means adding promotional content within an article /blog content. The goal is to promote items that make contextual sense, and adds value to the reader.
Since native-content needs to be contextual to the page and content that contains it, it makes is an excellent case for using dynamic content.
The strategy here is very similar to how you might go about your dynamic display ads – you can make them page specific, category or tag specific or product specific. The goal is to come up with a placement that makes the promotion insertions least disruptive to reading and adds most value to the reader. In turn, you get the best click-through rates.
Infact, as a thumb rule, the best way to guarantee better CTR in any type of campaign, is to make the ad placement as relevant to the user’s journey as possible. How you choose to make such categorizations will depend on your business and digital marketing strategy.   Â
Following up from the above example for dynamic display banners, here are some examples of native content promotions for ebooks that actual add value to the reader:
Native Content Promotion In Content Marketing Category Articles
Native Content Promotion In Customer Data Management Category Articles
3.3. Forms and Chat-bots
Lead capture / signup forms and chat-bots are the last leg of the lead conversion / upsell funnel. If a user has voluntarily clicked through pages, shown interest in your content and has finally arrived at a form or is chatting with the bot – it indicates a strong intent of action/purchase.
The goal here will be to leverage dynamic content to make the conversion or CTA as quick and easy as possible.
One of the most successful applications of dynamic content on lead forms and chat bots is by using browser cookies. Using this method, common fields between two forms (doesn’t even have to belong to the same website) can be auto-filled. Once the user has filled the first form, that data gets saved in the browser.
Similarly, if your user is already logged in, your system will most likely have all the data needed to sign them in and the entire data capture form can be skipped to shorten the entire re-sale / upsell / subscription / download funnel.
For example, if you download our Content Experience ebookOpens a new window , you don’t have to fill the form again to download another ebook, say our Identity Resolution ebookOpens a new window .
Similarly, if you are logged into your Martech Advisor account , you don’t have to fill any data fields to download or view any asset.
Learn More: What is Omnichannel Marketing?Opens a new window
Technology Maturity Levels For Dynamic Content Implementation
Today, application of dynamic content is not a technical challenge. Your development team or email marketing toolOpens a new window should be able to easily manage such customizations. The real challenge is the depth of customization of the dynamic content ,which means, capturing and intelligently using audience / customer data to make promotions, engagement and conversion campaigns as tailored to individual users and their context ‘in-the-moment’ as possible.
The classification of existing martech for dynamic content and personalization are :
- Basic – these include customizations that can be handled by your internal development team or relatively inexpensive tech. For example, custom emails, basic cross-website display banners, name personalisation etc.
- Intermediate – these include dynamic content generation that require fairly advanced tools such as email platforms to setup lead nurture campaigns. These systems usually require APIs to communicate with your website, capture and map user data from CRMs and map that activity to the type of content.
- Advanced – this primarily consists of advanced dynamic content and personalization tech likedrawing customer data from systems such as customer data platforms (CDPs). These systems use the latest identity resolution technology to map, track and unify data about individual users across devices and platforms to offer a single, unified, 360 profile of each customer. This advanced symbiosis of customer data management and data activation enables the highest degree of personalisation currently available, and has great applications in most B2C and B2B marketing environments
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Learn more about Customer Data ManagementOpens a new window and its impact on dynamic content and personalized marketing.
Benefits Of Using Dynamic Content Over Static Content
If you have reached this point, you probably already understand the very wide advantage dynamic enjoys over static content, both for marketing performance and campaign outcomes. Here is a quick comparison of dynamic and static content applications using the same marketing use cases we discussed above:
| Marketing Use Case | Dynamic Content | Static Content |
| Awareness/Outreach | Â | Â |
| Contextual emails based on user data for list segregation. Compared to static, they provide about 10-15% better open rates (if you are using a CDP, this number varies between 20-25%) and better in-content click-throughs. | General emails sent to an entire database without using any data points for customization. Significantly lower open rates at about 5-10%, and lower in-content CTR. | |
| Text and Display Ads | Greater competitiveness and relevancy of ads, in-the-moment, to searchers, resulting in better CTR. | Less relevant ads that typically lose out placement to dynamically generated competitive ads. In other words, significantly less ad competitiveness and CTR. |
| Engagement | Â | Â |
| Site search | Better on-site browsing and navigation for users to reach pages and content of interest. This increases the total session time and engagement of a user and provides more chances for conversion. | Without a site search option, users have to depend on manual header and footer navigation bars. This leads to higher bounce rate, lower page engagement, less on-page session time and less chances for user conversion. |
| In-page content recommendation and pop-ups | Smart recommendations and pop-ups based on buyer persona and journey significantly increases time on site and click through probability | Static recommendations and pop-ups based on static logic. For example, showing a pop up after 15 seconds into a user’s session, invariant of where they came from or what they might be reading. |
| Conversion | Â | Â |
| Display Banners and Native Promos | Contextual banners and native promotional placements based on the type of content/article, such that they add value to the user. | Static banners and native placements that may or may not form a contextual link to the content. In other words, the campaign is product-specific and not reader/customer-centric. |
| Forms and chat-bots | Static banners and native placements that may or may not form a contextual link to the content. In other words, the campaign is product-specific and not reader/customer-centric. | Users will need to fill the same fields in different forms. Has much lower form-fill success rate. |
Learn more: How to Create a Content Experience StrategyOpens a new window
Best Practices For Your Dynamic Content Strategy
Now that you have clarity on the actual application areas of dynamic content across various stages of your digital marketing strategy, let’s wrap up with a look at the best practices to keep in mind while formulating your dynamic content strategy and selecting areas of implementation:
1. Determine Martech Purchase
As we explained before, the depth of your dynamic content implementation will depend on the level of personalization technology your organization has or plans to purchase. Personalization provided by typical content marketing tools is usually basic-to-intermediate level. If you can invest in a technology such as a CDP, that will allow individualized dynamic content and deliver precise content and brand experiences required for better marketing conversions.
2. Prioritize Marketing Goals and Metrics
What is your ultimate marketing goal? Which area of marketing deliverable is your highest priority to drive results that will determine marketing success?
For instance:
- If your goal is to increase email conversion, you will need to implement dynamic content and personalizations to your email campaign.
- If your goal is to generate more ad traffic and show better ROI on paid promotions, your dynamic content implementation will prioritize display and text ads.
- If your goal is to improve on-page session time and reduce bounce rate, go for a smart recommendation engine.
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And so on.
Learn More:Â
Top 20 Content Marketing Strategies For Your 2020 PlanOpens a new window
3. Leverage Cross-channel User Data
While this is an advanced implementation, a true dynamic content strategy that can generate real personalization must strive to gather as much cross-platform and cross-device user data as possible. CDP-powered omnichannel campaigns are ideal, however, even deep-diving freely available tools like Google Analytics and your own product software (if it applies) can provide you with the basic information required to take omnichannel information into consideration while formulating your dynamic content strategy.
How have you approached your dynamic content strategy? Tell us on LinkedInOpens a new window , FacebookOpens a new window , or TwitterOpens a new window .