Comparing Marketing Features in BigCommerce vs. Adobe Commerce: Which Is Right for Your Business?
In this article, we discuss the differences between Adobe Commerce (formerly Magento 2) and BigCommerce in relation to marketing. You will see how each system behaves so you can determine which is a better fit for your needs.
Marketing
Product discounts
How would you configure 10% off for an entire category of products? Or products by a specific brand? How would you limit this down to a unique customer group?
Adobe Commerce
This feature is called Catalog Price Rules. Category or any attribute (that is configured for this) are applicable filters. These rules apply to the website scope and customer groups. Administrators can apply a discount percentage, fixed discount or reset the prices (an unusual application). Rules affect price indexes, thus, it may take a few minutes for these updates to appear.
BigCommerce
BigCommerce's rule engine is very powerful. One place manages discounts before and after adding to the cart. Storefront and customer groups are both filters. Configuring the pre-cart rule is easy (select a Custom Rule template). You can filter to a given category or a custom field.
Buy X, Get Y Off
How do you configure a Buy 1 Get 1 Free promotion?
Adobe Commerce
Adobe Commerce requires that this applies to all of the same product (otherwise a performance-affecting module must be used). The "Get Y" product must be added by the customer. The discount is reflected in the Discount area of the totals.
BigCommerce
BigCommerce's rule engine is very powerful. One place manages discounts before and after adding to the cart. Storefront and customer groups are both filters.
Configuring the pre-cart rule is easy (select a Custom Rule template). You can filter to a given category or a custom field.
Custom Coupon Codes
Creating custom coupons can help determine how effective coupons are to achieve sales.
Adobe Commerce
Administrators can choose from no coupon (automatically apply), fixed coupon code and a generator. They can generate batches of codes. The DotDigital email platform integrates for further utilization of this feature. They can export this list for further analysis. Administrators can limit the number of uses per code or per logged-in customer.
BigCommerce
BigCommerce allows for a set coupon code (no generator). Administrators can limit the number of uses per code or per customer.
Sorting promotions
Some promotions need to be applied in a specific order, while, perhaps, preventing further promotions from being applied.
Adobe Commerce
Administrators can specify a sort order for each catalog/cart price rule. They can also select for a rule to be the last one applied.
BigCommerce
Administrators are given a convenient panel to drag/drop promotions into a preferred order. They can also select to stop evaluating rules.
Discount scheduling
What would you think about getting up at midnight after Thanksgiving to enable your promotions? I wouldn't like it. The good news is there are options for scheduling promotions.
Adobe Commerce
Scheduled Updates are utilized for this purpose. Administrators can configure the start and end date. They can change every field for a promotion, for both catalog and cart price rules.
BigCommerce
BigCommerce has second-to-none scheduling capability. Administrators can set a start and end time. But, they can also set exclusions for particular days or weeks.
Notification banners
How do you notify customers if the phones are down? Perhaps an exquisite promotion?
Adobe Commerce
Administrators can create a CMS Block and assign it to locations on the frontend with a Widget. Developers can add new locations for the widget. The content of the CMS Block can be adjusted with Content Scheduling.
BigCommerce
Two features provide this functionality. Administrators can leverage the Marketing > Banners tool to register content at the top of the page. This feature is limited to the home page, a specific category, brand or a search results page. This content can be scheduled.
However, we would recommend that you contact SwiftOtter to add a Global region to the top of the page so Page Builder can leverage this space.
Personalizing Content
How would you target repeat customers? What if a customer is interested in a specific line of products?
Adobe Commerce
Administrators can leverage Dynamic Blocks. These are essentially CMS Blocks that are associated with a customer segment. These can be injected into pages by utilizing PageBuilder or by building a new Widget. Below is a rough example of a new Dynamic Block on the home page.
BigCommerce
There is no native functionality in BigCommerce.
Search
What controls are there for customizing search capabilities? How intuitive is the search engine? Is there autocomplete?
Adobe Commerce
Adobe has built a product called Live Search on top of their Sensei AI platform. This system is quite powerful. Products can be promoted or demoted for searches. Synonyms can be created to ensure accurate results. There is also a fast-loading autocomplete menu which will boost your website's conversion rate. Live search also has detailed reporting of search results (unique, zero results and popular).
BigCommerce
While there are native BigCommerce search capabilities, it is comparatively limited. There is no capability to configure synonyms. There is no autocomplete.
However, BigCommerce can provide corrections for misspellings.
Redirects
How can a store administrator accommodate a no-longer-sold product by redirecting to another page?
Adobe Commerce
While Adobe Commerce has the capability to create redirects in Marketing > Redirects, we do not recommend that a store administrator uses this. These redirects are very slow. Instead, they should be added in the Commerce Cloud admin or on the web server.
BigCommerce
Administrators can create 301 redirects (manually/one at a time, or through the REST API). These are fast and have no impact on site speed.
Email customization
Adobe Commerce
Administrators can create any number of email templates. Every email has an associated default template. They then configure which template to be used in Store Configuration. Emails are configured per domain name (store view scope).
BigCommerce
Every core email is customizable, all the way down to the HTML level. They can be disabled or reset back to defaults.
Abandoned Cart Emails
Reminding customers that products are still in their cart can boost your conversion rate.
Adobe Commerce
Email reminders can be associated with cart price rules to incentivize purchases. The benefit is each email has a unique coupon code, which allows administrators to see how effective a campaign is. Administrators can configure rules to target specific types of abandoned carts.
BigCommerce
Administrators can configure emails to be sent at a particular interval (one interval per email). Templates are easily configurable. No rules or filtering is possible. Emails can feature a coupon code.
Loyalty features
The goal of these is to incentivize users to keep coming back. As they accrue points (value), they are more likely to become loyal to the brand.
Adobe Commerce
Adobe Commerce provides an extensive loyalty program. Customers are rewarded with points when they take actions, like registering, signing up for a newsletter, etc. Store administrators can establish conversion ratios to convert from a currency to points and vice-versa. Points can be redeemed with minimum and maximum thresholds.
BigCommerce
This capability does not exist natively in BigCommerce. However, SwiftOtter can assist in identifying an ideal solution given your needs.