When it comes to managing digital content, Adobe Experience Manager (AEM) has become an increasingly popular choice for many large companies looking to innovate the way they create and distribute content. As far as content management systems (CMS) go, AEM provides a number of tools that work together to make in-depth digital marketing and personalization simple.

But with such a large and multi-faceted tool comes many new concepts to learn. So let's go over 15 terms you need to know to stay ahead of the learning curve.

Digital Asset Manager

Digital asset managers (DAMs) take all your rich media files, including images, audio and video files, documents and more, and store them in one central location so they can be accessed by members across your team.

What sets AEM's DAM apart is its use of AI to retrieve and edit assets much more easily. No longer will your assets be trapped in a sea of files. The AI's ability to automatically assign tags and metadata make searching for that one file a breeze. It can also crop images as needed, track who is using what, and streamline creative workflows for each project.

Page Authoring

AEM's system for building customizable web pages features a simple drag-and-drop interface that shows the page author what options are available given the template selected. After a template author has set out what content can be used, the page author only has to click on components and drag them into containers to start building the page. Once the components are laid out, the author can select applicable content and styles to really customize the look without having to build anything themselves.

Personalization

Personalization is what AEM is all about. AEM uses a wide array of tools that work together to create custom digital experiences for every user, tying together web analytics, testing and targeting, fed by powerful AI and machine learning technology. AEM divides users into audiences and organizes content that is marketed to them into activities. These activities are comprised of one or more experiences that contain targeted content and engage customers at a more personal level.

Components

Components are the basic building blocks of your website. AEM comes with several “out of the box” components such as input boxes, drop-downs, tables, radio buttons, but also include things like carousels, slide shows, and banners. Can't find the kind of component you are looking for? You can also code them from scratch to make custom components like shopping carts, games, tools and calculators.

Once you have all the components that your site needs, it is just a matter of dragging and dropping them to fit the site's layout. You can style them with CSS to match your branding and use code to add more complex features.

Templates

To make digital content customization easier, AEM uses templates at multiple steps along the authoring process. Template authors create structures for pages, content fragments and experience fragments so that other authors already have an established model to follow as they contribute their pieces.

Content Fragments

Content fragments assemble text and images that should be grouped together based on a defined model, but that do not need to be presented in any specific way. Content authors build and update fragments, as well as create a master version and variations that may be used in different scenarios. These fragments can be reused in any number of different layouts by simply dragging them into the applicable templates. No need to create separate versions of your content from scratch.

Experience Fragments

Similar to content fragments, experience fragments group together related content. Where experience fragments differ is that they bundle both content and presentation into defined experiences that can be customized for different channels. For example, you may want to group a header component, an image and a description into one experience that can be altered for mobile, desktop and email in a consistent way.

AEM also features built-in templates to create variations for social media (including Facebook and Pinterest) and publish the fragments to these platforms directly.

Variations

Whenever you create content fragments or experience fragments, you will have a master copy that contains the fragment's default content. But the real power of these fragments lies in their ability to be modified into different versions. Based on each channel or scenario in which your fragment will be used, you can build a variation that fits the bill. These variations can then be used with any content or experience fragments and will save you a considerable amount of time and resources.

Style System

In line with its use of variations, AEM also implements a system of predefined styles that content authors can simply select while editing pages and components. It starts with a developer creating CSS classes that outline the specific styles needed and adding them to the appropriate components. Template authors can then define which style classes may be used with each template. From there, it is just a matter of the content author choosing which classes to apply to which components and pages.

Adobe Target

One of the most powerful tools included with AEM is Adobe Target, a testing and targeting tool that takes care of the content personalization you need to create unique customer experiences. With the help of Adobe Analytics, Adobe Target uses gathered information to build individual customer profiles that only become more defined with each interaction.

While still allowing you to set rules and stay in control, Adobe Target also uses an AI engine (Adobe Sensei) to analyze customer profiles and serve tailored experiences based on the interactions of both the user and those with similar profiles. And A/B testing couldn't be easier than letting Adobe Target do the heavy lifting and determine which results work best with which profiles.

Adobe Sensei

Adobe Sensei is AEM's powerful Artificial Intelligence (AI) engine that can be used to present personalized experiences for every user and predict which users are closest to conversion and which ones needs an extra nudge. Sensei is also used for other day-to-day time-saving tasks such as:

Smart cropping images for different device aspect ratios while preserving points of interest.

Smart tagging uploaded video and images to automatically add meta data based on what's in the image.

Smart searching to find visually similar images.

Text summarization to automatically edit down copy.

AEM Forms

Creating forms that retrieve the data you need without causing customer drop-off can be difficult, but AEM Forms creates responsive forms that retain customer engagement. Like with other AEM tools, AEM Forms can be built and modified using drag-and-drop and boasts a centralized portal to create and deploy dynamic forms in various formats, such as HTML, PDF and adaptive forms. These forms can be integrated with Adobe Analytics to gather metrics, and users can also make use of eSign services to confidentially sign documents electronically.

Workflows

AEM comes with a workflow manager that really helps streamline every step along the way. It starts with the page author setting up a workflow for the page they are working on. Once the author is finished building the site, the editor receives a notification that the page requires review. And once the review is complete and the page is ready for publishing, the site administrator is notified so that they can activate the page. At any step, a participant can roll back to previous steps or leave comments for the next participant.

Workflows can be customized in terms of participants, priority, timeline and number of steps, and they can be saved into workflow models that can be used for other projects.

CRXDE Lite

CRXDE Lite is an easy-to-use development interface that shows a project's entire repository in a folder tree structure. Developers can use CRXDE Lite to edit individual files, entire folders, nodes, and properties of all three. With this interface, developers build the components, templates, scripts and styles that your project will use and edit them to create the custom feel your design team needs.

Experience League

Experience League is Adobe's online community for anyone using Adobe Experience Cloud products to create digital experiences. It offers guided learning modules, thorough documentation on its various products, user forums and product support. You can also build your own user profile to get the best learning experience according to your role and preferences.

With so many unique tools and features, Adobe Experience Manager can seem overwhelming, but AEM is designed to make the role of a marketer simpler and more efficient. Adobe helps streamline the process of creating dynamic content and delivering it to your customers in a way that makes sense to them.

Rich Media is all about creating personal digital experiences. Let us help you integrate Adobe Experience Manager into your website, interactive tool or other digital application so that you can provide content and services that your customers really want.