We’re in a rush almost always and don’t have the time to go through stuff that is not useful to us. Finding content that is most relevant amongst oodles of unrelated content saves us a lot of time. Displaying web content based on user’s demographics and/or anticipated needs plays an important role in building a compelling and engaging Drupal website.

 

So you want to take a secret vacation and google your way through heaps of travel websites only to find that some of those smart little websites already know where you’re going and when! Now there’s a fine line between content personalization and “creepy” content personalization. As a marketer, we need to ensure we don’t cross that line as it can lead to long-lasting damages. Content personalization done the right way results in better user engagement, ability to predict purchase intent and increase conversion rates and revenues.

Content Personalization Aspects to Consider

Websites like Facebook and LinkedIn also implement Content personalization techniques and leverages them to present you with relevant posts, links and ads on your personal feed. If you’re a Netflix user, you will notice that the movies/dramas shown to you first are the ones you are interested in. This is based on your viewing history and genres you are most interested in. Amazon will show you products that you are most interested in and most likely to buy based on what you may have searched previously.

Content personalization can be carried out with the help of some tools that can either record data for the future use or grab information based on some factors including:

    •  Geographic location of the User

    •  Date or time the user logs in

    •  If a user has logged in or is an anonymous user

    •  Gender of the user

    •  Which part of the site the user is on

    •  User’s preferences (chosen by them previously)

    •  User’s device details (mobile, tablet, desktop)

    •  Previous registrations (events, newsletters)

    •  Previous shopping history

    •  …and many more

Personalizing Website Content with Drupal 8

Drupal offers many options that can help personalize content according to different contexts. Here we’ll discuss about a few modules in Drupal 8 that will help you content personalization:

EU Cookie Compliance (GDPR Compliance) Module

Although this module isn’t one to help you out with managing content personalization, the EU Cookie Compliance Drupal 8 module is a great starting point to do the right thing. And the right thing here is Consent. This module helps keep your website aligned with the General Data Protection Regulation that came to effect in 2018. It helps provide with a customizable banner where you can ask for consent of storing your visitor’s personal details or other identifiable cookies. You can obtain consent either by default, opt-in and opt-out. It implements JavaScript functionalities to save cookie information. It also works great with responsive and multilingual websites. This module is also supported in Drupal 9.

Menu Per Role Module

This one is a very simple and no-frills content personalization module that works on your menus. The Menu per role Drupal module enables you to show or hide menu items in your menu to users depending upon their user roles. For example, if you are an anonymous user, you shouldn’t be able to see the “My Account” menu link in the menu section. Instead they should be able to see a “Register” menu. While a registered user should be able to see and access the “My Account” menu item, they do not have to see the “Register” menu. However, this module works only on content menu links and not menu links provided by configuration. This module is supported in Drupal 7, 8 and 9.

Acquia Lift Connector Module

The Acquia Lift Connector module is an integration module that integrates with Acquia Lift services that enables you to deliver personalized experiences. Acquia Lift can be easily used by a marketer who comes from a non-coding background. It comes with a drag and drop UI for content targeting, the ability to preview and test the behaviours in real-time, analytical capabilities and much more.

Smart Content Module

This module works great in conjunction with other modules in its suite. The Smart Content Module for Drupal 8 enables anonymous and real-time web personalization. Site admins will be able to display different content for different user roles based on browser conditions. For example, you can display different content to a returning user or an optimized content to a mobile user. It uses conditions to decide what to show or hide that are evaluated on the client-side. This module comes included with the Smart Content Blocks and the Smart Content Browser modules. This module is compatible with Drupal 9 too!

Content Personalization modules for your Drupal 7 website

Commerce Recommender

If you have an ecommerce website and looking for content personalization, this is a very useful Drupal module. When a user selects a product, it offers views where users can see products that have been ordered by others. It also offers recommendation based on the user’s previous purchases.

Browsing History Recommender

As the name suggests, this module provides content recommendations depending on the user’s browsing history information and are fully customizable.

Fivestar Recommender

This module integrates other Drupal modules like the Fivestar module, Voting API etc. to provide with views for the user to view “Users who liked this also liked” and “Recommendations for you” based on the ratings on Fivestar voting by other users for the products and based on the current user’s previous ratings for different products.

Personalization Module

This module allows you to personalize content depending on user behaviour, geolocation and other taxonomies. Personalized content can be displayed based on the user’s interests. For example. If a user is trying to dig through a lot of articles on Sales and Marketing, you can suggest some sales and marketing content to them. You can also use this module for advertising on sites. For example. If a user has been looking through different websites for buying a phone, you could display ads of the top few phones available. It can display a “Suggested Content” block and/or a “Suggested Content” paginated listing for your page. This module can work with non-Drupal core caching too.