Launching Eargo’s Site in Adobe Experience Manager
Overview
Eargo’s mission is to change the way the world thinks about hearing loss by improving the customer experience at every step of the hearing care journey. The company has done that by developing a hearing loss solution combining sleek proprietary technology, on-demand licensed hearing professionals, and advanced personalized apps that offer high-quality performance from virtually invisible hearing aids. To further improve its customer experience, Eargo engaged Velir to help research and implement a content management system that would allow their team to author content quickly and consistently for their website.
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Challenge
Eargo’s website was previously composed of custom code and static hardcoded pages. This made it difficult for their content authors to keep up with the daily demand of updating its products and services—so, they began searching for a content management system for their website. While Eargo considered Contentful and Adobe Experience Manager (AEM) as potential options, Velir helped set up demo meetings and guide technical conversations about each platform.
Eargo also asked us for guidance on how each one might fit into the ecosystem of services they were hoping to build out. After comparing the two platforms with us, Eargo became more interested in AEM because it offered established services like Adobe Analytics and Adobe Digital Asset Manager (DAM) out-of-the-box, with other potential products and services it could add from Adobe’s self-contained marketplace.
With a content management system selected, Eargo needed help building out their new site on AEM, so they looked to us for our expertise in this area as well. The project faced several challenges including the speed at which it had to go to market, Eargo’s desire to release a beta site, the need for a consistent look and feel across digital experiences, and the requirement to perform nimble, iterative development without adding risk to business continuity.
Eargo needed their new site to go to market in 3–4 months with the plan to release a beta version two months before Black Friday. They also had to give their shopping experience the same look and feel as their new AEM site without removing it from its existing platform. We worked with Eargo to address each challenge to and accomplish their goals with this project.
Eargo’s challenges included:
- Launching a new site in AEM in 3–4 months
- Releasing a beta version of their site midway through the project
- Keeping their shopping experience on the same platform while mirroring the look of its new AEM site
- Performing nimble, iterative development that didn’t interfere with business continuity
Approach
As Eargo’s implementation partner on this project, we worked quickly to form a cohesive team with their developers, product owner, and marketing lead. Using our AEM expertise, we guided Eargo through what was possible in a beta release to hit their deadlines. Through daily and weekly meetings, we also helped them prioritize the content that would deliver the most value with AEM as quickly as possible.
From a development perspective we followed all of Adobe’s standards and best practices to deliver the most textbook AEM project possible. Minimizing customizations would allow Eargo to take advantage of the bigger Adobe ecosystem easily after their site launch. And it would make maintaining their site more efficient because Eargo wouldn’t have to contend with upgrading a lot of custom components and integrations.
For the site we leveraged Adobe Cloud (AEM’s Cloud), and we used Storybook and GULP to do static development of the front-end components we implemented in Adobe Cloud. We also leveraged Experience Fragments to share data between Eargo’s shopping platform and their main website.
To ensure constant collaboration and a smooth transition to the new AEM site we did multiple code reviews and demos with Eargo’s team. We also held handoff meetings near the end of the project with Eargo’s tech team and worked diligently with Adobe’s launch success team to meet all their recommended metrics. The result was successful development collaboration and seamless handoff to Eargo’s team.
Our approach included:
- Guiding Eargo on what was possible in a beta release to hit their required deadlines
- Using daily and weekly meeting to prioritize what would deliver the most value as quickly as possible in AEM
- Following Adobe’s standards and best practices to deliver the most textbook AEM project possible
- Leveraging Experience Fragments to share data between Eargo’s shopping platform and main website
- Performing code review and demos, as well as handoff meetings with Eargo
Solution
Our successful collaboration with Eargo allowed us to meet the project’s deadlines and accomplish their goals. Their new AEM site was launched before Black Friday. This site made day-to-day management of the website much easier by offering marketers direct access to make edits and craft new content. It also created a scalable foundation for Eargo to build on in the Adobe ecosystem. Eargo can add personalization and optimization and move their Ecommerce solution to AEM, so everything is under one system. Their developers are trained on AEM best practices and can now manage the website more effectively.
Results:
- A content scalable management system for Eargo’s website
- A site launched before Eargo’s Black Friday deadline
- Easier daily website management for marketers to edit and add content
- A scalable foundation for Eargo to build on their site with Adobe’s ecosystem
- Eargo developers trained in AEM best practices