Options for managing content spots after moving to Management Center

If your store pages contain content spots created in WebSphere Commerce Accelerator, you cannot manage those content spots in Management Center because the Marketing tool does not support content spots. In this situation, you have several options for dealing with existing content spots on your store pages.

Content spots were introduced in WebSphere Commerce Version 6 as a way to display static content on a store page without the performance overhead of an e-Marketing Spot. In Management Center Version 7, e-Marketing Spot performance has been improved, making content spots redundant; you can now achieve the same result on a store page using an e-Marketing Spot with default content.

Comparison of content spots and e-Marketing Spots

Both content spots and e-Marketing Spots reserve space on a store page to display marketing information according to a schedule. An e-Marketing Spot can perform the same function as a content spot if you set it up to do so. The following table highlights some relevant differences:

Content spot E-Marketing Spot
A content spot can display only static content, that is, the content spot shows the same content to every customer who views the page. An e-Marketing Spot can display either static or dynamic content:
  • To display static content, specify default content when setting up the e-Marketing Spot in Management Center. Used this way, an e-Marketing Spot performs the same function as a content spot.
  • To display dynamic content, create a Web activity that references the e-Marketing Spot, and include targets in the Web activity.
On a store page, you create a content spot using the following JSP sample:ContentSpotDisplay.jsp On a store page, you create an e-Marketing Spot using the following JSP sample: WebServiceeMarketingSpotDisplay.jsp

Options

If your store pages have existing content spots, you have two options for dealing with the content spots after moving to Management Center:
  • Option 1:
    1. On store pages, leave the content spots as they are.
    2. Continue to use WebSphere Commerce Accelerator to manage content spots.
  • Option 2:
    1. On store pages, change content spots to e-Marketing Spots, that is, replace the content spot JSP code with e-Marketing Spot JSP code. For instructions, see Adding an e-Marketing Spot to a store page (Management Center).
    2. In Management Center, create new e-Marketing Spots to support the updated store pages. In each e-Marketing Spot, specify default content to display the same data that was formerly displayed using the content spot. For instructions, see Creating an e-Marketing Spot.

Option 2 requires more work up front; however, the advantage is that business users can manage what customers see in the e-Marketing Spot using Management Center going forward.