Technology Consulting · Adobe
Adobe Experience Manager:
Expert AEM Consulting from an Adobe Platinum Partner
Adobe Experience Manager (AEM) is one of the most powerful — and most underutilized — platforms in enterprise marketing technology. Most organizations get a fraction of the value they purchased because AEM was implemented without a content governance model, integrated without a strategy, or optimized only once and never again. TPG is an Adobe Platinum Partner with deep expertise across the full AEM product suite and the broader Adobe Experience Cloud, delivering AEM consulting from assessment through ongoing managed services.
This guide covers ten dimensions of AEM consulting — from assessment and implementation through migration, integrations with Marketo and Salesforce, personalization, governance, performance optimization, training, customization, and ongoing support — for organizations at every stage of their AEM journey.
What Is Adobe Experience Manager?
AEM is the enterprise content platform that powers personalized digital experience at scale
Adobe Experience Manager is an enterprise content management system and digital experience platform with two core components: AEM Sites (web content management and digital experience delivery) and AEM Assets (digital asset management). Together they enable organizations to create, manage, and deliver personalized content across web, mobile, and other channels from a unified platform — with built-in integration to the broader Adobe Experience Cloud including Adobe Analytics, Adobe Target, Adobe Campaign, and Marketo Engage.
In B2B marketing, AEM is typically the technical backbone of enterprise web presence, campaign landing page management, and digital asset governance. When it is working well, marketing teams launch campaign experiences without IT dependencies, personalization rules serve different content to different buyer personas and account segments without manual effort, and digital assets are managed from a single governed repository that prevents the version-control chaos and brand inconsistency that plague organizations without a DAM. When it is not working well — which is the more common condition — the platform is expensive, slow, difficult to update, and delivering less value than the license costs justify.
TPG approaches AEM consulting from the perspective of revenue marketing outcomes: the question is not whether AEM is configured correctly according to Adobe documentation, but whether it is enabling the organization to execute the marketing strategy it is supposed to support. An AEM instance that runs cleanly but is not connected to the lead management system, does not support the campaign content strategy, and has no personalization rules active is technically functional and strategically useless. Every TPG AEM engagement is evaluated against revenue marketing outcomes, not just platform health metrics.
The TPG Principle: Platform expertise must serve business outcomes. TPG is an Adobe Platinum Partner because of deep platform expertise. But platform expertise without strategy produces a perfectly configured system that does not advance the business. Every AEM engagement at TPG connects platform configuration to the marketing operations and campaign strategy it is designed to support.
Adobe Platinum Partner
AEM is one component of the Adobe Experience Cloud ecosystem TPG covers
As an Adobe Platinum Partner, TPG has deep expertise across the full Adobe Experience Cloud. AEM consulting is most valuable when it is connected to the broader ecosystem — not implemented as a standalone CMS.
AEM Sites
Web content management, experience delivery, headless CMS via content fragments, personalization with Adobe Target, and multi-site management for global organizations.
AEM Assets
Enterprise digital asset management, dynamic rendition generation, smart tagging, Brand Portal for external asset distribution, and Creative Cloud integration for design teams.
Marketo Engage
Native AEM-Marketo integration for campaign landing pages, lead capture forms, audience synchronization, UTM attribution, and connected campaign execution.
Adobe Target
AEM-native personalization and A/B testing, audience-based content targeting, campaign experience optimization, and Experience Fragments for cross-channel personalization.
Adobe Analytics
AEM page and asset tracking, campaign attribution, content performance reporting, and behavioral signals that feed personalization rules in Adobe Target.
Adobe Campaign
Cross-channel campaign orchestration connected to AEM-managed web and email content, enabling coordinated campaign delivery with a unified content foundation.
Section 01
AEM Assessment and Strategy
How TPG evaluates an existing AEM environment — or designs the strategy for a new one — to establish what is working, what is not, and what implementation or optimization sequence will produce the highest return.
Why AEM assessments reveal the same finding in most enterprise organizations
AEM assessments at enterprise organizations almost universally reveal the same pattern: the platform was implemented according to Adobe technical specifications but not according to the organization's actual marketing requirements. The content model was designed by developers rather than by content strategists, producing a structure that technically stores content but does not support the authoring workflows or personalization rules the marketing team needs. Integrations were built but never maintained, producing data flow failures that are invisible until a campaign attribution report produces unexplained gaps. Governance was planned but never fully implemented, resulting in years of asset accumulation, permission sprawl, and inconsistent brand execution. The platform is expensive and underperforming, but the path to improvement requires a clear-eyed assessment before any remediation work begins.
TPG conducts AEM assessments across five dimensions: content architecture (does the content model support the actual authoring and delivery requirements?), integration health (are all integrations with Marketo, Salesforce, Adobe Target, and Adobe Analytics functioning correctly and completely?), performance (are page load times, caching configuration, and asset delivery optimized?), governance (are user roles, approval workflows, and content standards documented and enforced?), and utilization (which platform capabilities are available but unused, and what is the cost of that underutilization?). The assessment delivers a current-state scorecard, a prioritized gap list, and a phased improvement roadmap that sequences work by business impact rather than technical complexity.
All articles in this section
Section 02
AEM Implementation and Configuration
How TPG approaches new AEM implementations — starting with content architecture and governance design before any development begins — to deliver a platform that supports the organization's marketing strategy from day one.
Why AEM implementations fail when they start with development rather than content architecture
The most common AEM implementation failure is beginning development before the content model is designed. Developers configure AEM based on the initial requirements document, which typically describes what content types the organization currently has rather than what content model will support the personalization, campaign, and governance requirements the organization needs to achieve. The result is a content model that stores content correctly but cannot support multi-variate personalization, does not produce the metadata structure needed for efficient asset retrieval, and requires significant rework when the first campaign tries to use a content type that was not anticipated in the original model. AEM content architecture is not a development task — it is a strategy task that determines how everything else in the implementation is built.
TPG runs a content architecture design phase before any AEM development begins, working with marketing, content, and IT stakeholders to define: the content model (what content types are needed, what fields each type requires, and how types relate to each other), the site structure (the URL hierarchy, multi-site management approach for global organizations, and language copy configuration), the component library (which page components will be built, which will be reused from the AEM Core Components, and which will be sourced from third-party libraries), the workflow model (the approval and publishing workflows for each content type and the user roles involved in each workflow), and the integration architecture (how AEM will connect to Marketo, Salesforce, Adobe Target, Adobe Analytics, and other systems from day one). With these decisions documented before development begins, the implementation proceeds against a clear blueprint and the final environment supports the organization's actual requirements.
All articles in this section
Section 03
AEM Migration
How TPG manages AEM migrations — from legacy CMS platforms or prior AEM versions — minimizing disruption to active campaigns and SEO performance while delivering a clean, well-structured destination environment.
The four migration types and what each requires from an AEM consulting engagement
AEM migrations fall into four categories that each require a different approach. CMS-to-AEM migrations (from WordPress, Sitecore, Drupal, or a custom CMS) require a content audit and mapping phase that translates the legacy content model to the AEM content model, identifies what can be migrated programmatically versus what requires manual remediation, and establishes the SEO redirect strategy to preserve search equity for high-traffic pages. AEM version upgrades (moving from AEM 6.x to AEM as a Cloud Service) require a code and configuration compatibility assessment, a custom component refactoring plan, and a data migration strategy that moves the JCR content repository to the cloud environment. AEM consolidations (merging multiple AEM instances following a merger or acquisition) require a governance decision about which instance becomes the primary environment, a content migration from the secondary to the primary, and a decommissioning plan for the retired instance. AEM decommissionings (moving from AEM to another CMS) require content export, final redirect implementation, and managed shutdown of the AEM environment.
TPG manages all four migration types with a four-phase methodology: content inventory and mapping (document all content assets, pages, and components in the source environment and map them to the destination content model), migration tooling and scripting (build or configure the migration tooling that will move content programmatically, test it against a content sample, and validate output quality), staged migration execution (run the migration in phases starting with archived content, progressing to active content, and concluding with the most trafficked pages to minimize disruption risk), and validation and go-live (verify migration completeness, validate SEO redirect implementation, confirm integration connectivity, and execute the cutover). TPG maintains SEO continuity throughout the migration by implementing redirect maps before content is removed from the source environment and by prioritizing high-traffic pages for migration quality validation.
All articles in this section
Section 04
AEM Integrations: Marketo, Salesforce, and the Adobe Ecosystem
How TPG designs and implements AEM integrations with Marketo Engage, Salesforce CRM, Adobe Target, Adobe Analytics, and other systems to create a connected marketing technology stack.
Why AEM integrations fail and how to build them correctly the first time
AEM integrations most commonly fail for three reasons. First, they are built point-to-point between AEM and a single system without considering the full data flow requirements — the Marketo integration captures form submissions but does not pass UTM parameters for attribution, producing lead records with no source data. Second, they are built but not maintained — API authentication tokens expire, endpoint configurations change, and integrations that worked at launch stop working silently without monitoring in place to detect the failure. Third, they are built without a data contract — the fields being passed between AEM and the connected system are not documented, so when either system is updated, the integration breaks because no one knows which fields are required by the downstream system.
TPG builds AEM integrations with three practices that prevent these failures: a data flow design document that maps every field passed between AEM and each connected system, including required fields, data formats, and transformation rules; monitoring and alerting configuration that sends notifications when an integration fails or produces unexpected data; and integration documentation that is maintained alongside the integration code and reviewed during each platform update cycle. For the AEM-Marketo integration specifically, TPG implements the full native integration including form synchronization, audience segment synchronization for personalization, UTM tracking passthrough, and bidirectional activity logging so AEM content consumption appears in the Marketo lead record. For AEM-Salesforce integrations, we implement the data connector that passes account and contact data to AEM for personalization and passes web engagement signals back to Salesforce for lead scoring and sales notifications.
All articles in this section
Section 05
AEM Personalization with Adobe Target
How TPG designs and implements AEM personalization using Adobe Target — from basic audience-based content targeting through multivariate testing and Experience Fragment-based cross-channel personalization.
Why AEM personalization is underutilized and how to activate it effectively
AEM personalization is one of the most underutilized capabilities in enterprise AEM environments. Most organizations have Adobe Target licensed and integrated with AEM but are using it only for basic A/B testing on landing pages rather than for the systematic content personalization that justifies the investment. The gap between potential and actual personalization is almost always a strategy problem rather than a technical problem: the personalization rules have not been defined, the audience segments have not been built, and the content variants have not been produced — because no one has designed the personalization architecture that would specify which visitor segments see which content on which pages under what conditions.
TPG designs AEM personalization programs from the buyer persona and Revenue Loop stage map, not from the technology capabilities. The first deliverable is a personalization strategy document that defines the visitor segments most worth personalizing for (typically: known accounts from the ABM target list, buyers at identified Revenue Loop stages based on prior content consumption, and buying committee role segments based on firmographic signals), the pages and content areas where personalization will produce the highest conversion impact, and the content variants required for each segment at each personalization point. With the strategy defined, TPG implements the Adobe Target audience configuration, the AEM Experience Fragment variants, and the testing and optimization protocol that measures which personalization rules are producing the intended stage progression outcomes. We also implement AEM's built-in ContextHub personalization for visitor scenarios that do not require Adobe Target's full testing infrastructure.
All articles in this section
Section 06
AEM Content Architecture and Governance
How TPG designs the content governance model that keeps an AEM environment organized, brand-consistent, and operationally functional as the content library and user base grow.
Why AEM governance failures are the most expensive problems to fix retroactively
AEM governance failures compound silently. An unmanaged AEM Assets instance accumulates assets at the rate of content production: after five years without governance, a typical enterprise AEM environment has hundreds of thousands of assets, many of which are duplicates, outdated versions, or brand-inconsistent files that were never reviewed before being added. Author and publisher environments have dozens of users with broader permissions than their roles require because role design was never completed. Content pages that were published for temporary campaigns are still live because there is no retirement workflow. Custom components were built by contractors and are no longer maintainable. The performance of the environment degrades, the security exposure increases, and the time required to find any specific asset or page increases proportionally with the governance debt accumulated. By the time the problems are visible, the remediation cost is multiples of what proactive governance would have cost.
TPG designs AEM governance models with five components: user role architecture (the minimum necessary permissions for each content role, implemented in AEM's permission model and reviewed quarterly), workflow design (approval and publishing workflows for each content type with defined reviewers, SLAs, and escalation paths), content standards documentation (brand guidelines, metadata requirements, and quality criteria that apply before approval), asset governance (folder structure, naming conventions, metadata requirements, and a scheduled DAM hygiene process that identifies outdated or duplicate assets), and compliance processes (regular governance audits, permission reviews, and content health reporting that maintain governance standards over time). For organizations with existing governance debt, TPG runs a governance remediation engagement before designing the forward-looking model — because implementing new governance on top of existing chaos produces governance documents that do not match the actual environment state.
All articles in this section
Section 07
AEM Optimization and Performance
How TPG identifies and resolves the most common AEM performance issues — from caching configuration and asset delivery through custom component efficiency and JCR query optimization.
The five AEM performance issues that account for most enterprise platform degradation
AEM performance issues in enterprise environments cluster into five categories. DAM sprawl: an unmanaged AEM Assets repository with hundreds of thousands of assets degrades query performance and increases storage costs — resolved by DAM hygiene and asset governance implementation. Rendition misconfiguration: serving original-size images instead of dynamically generated responsive renditions inflates page weight and degrades Core Web Vitals scores — resolved by Dynamic Media configuration and proper image component implementation. Dispatcher and CDN misconfiguration: failure to configure the Dispatcher caching layer and CDN correctly means AEM author and publish instances handle requests that should be served from cache, producing unnecessary server load and slower response times for end users — resolved by Dispatcher rules review and CDN cache policy optimization. Custom component inefficiency: poorly written custom components that make excessive JCR queries, perform synchronous operations at render time, or lack proper caching annotations degrade author and publish performance proportionally with content volume. Replication queue bottlenecks: activation delays in the Sling distribution framework producing slow content publication, particularly on high-volume content operations — resolved by replication queue monitoring and configuration optimization.
TPG conducts AEM performance audits that identify which of these five issues are present, quantify their impact on page load times and author productivity, and implement the configuration and code changes that restore and maintain optimal performance. Performance audits include: Lighthouse and Core Web Vitals assessment for all key landing pages, Dispatcher and CDN cache hit rate analysis, JCR query profiler review for the twenty most frequently executed queries, custom component code review against AEM performance best practices, and replication queue latency measurement. Remediation is sequenced by impact per effort, prioritizing the configuration changes that produce the largest performance improvements with the least implementation risk.
All articles in this section
Section 08
AEM Training and Adoption
How TPG designs and delivers AEM training programs that equip content authors, marketers, and administrators to use the platform effectively — reducing support dependency and increasing platform ROI.
Why AEM adoption fails and how training programs close the gap
AEM adoption fails for three reasons that training programs must address. First, authors are trained on the platform rather than on their workflow: they learn how to use AEM's page editor rather than how to execute their specific content creation and publishing process within AEM — which means they can operate the tool but cannot complete their actual job without IT assistance for every non-standard scenario. Second, training is a one-time event at go-live rather than an ongoing capability: new team members join after the initial training is complete and have no structured onboarding, experienced authors drift from correct practices as the platform evolves, and administrators never receive the deeper technical training that would allow them to maintain and optimize the environment independently. Third, no documentation exists to reference after training: when an author encounters a scenario they have not seen before, they submit a support ticket rather than consulting a self-service resource.
TPG builds AEM training programs that are role-specific, workflow-grounded, and accompanied by documentation designed for ongoing reference. Content author training is built around the specific content types, publishing workflows, and governance standards the organization has implemented — not around a generic AEM feature tour. Administrator training covers the technical operations required to maintain the environment: user management, workflow monitoring, replication queue management, Dispatcher configuration changes, and performance monitoring. Developer training covers the component development patterns, AEM API conventions, and integration maintenance practices that reduce custom development technical debt. All training is accompanied by role-specific quick reference guides, documented runbooks for common operational procedures, and a knowledge base of solutions to the most frequently encountered issues.
All articles in this section
Section 09
AEM Customization and Component Development
How TPG designs and builds custom AEM components, templates, and integrations that extend the platform's native capabilities to support organization-specific content requirements.
When to build custom AEM components and when to use Core Components
The most common AEM customization mistake is building custom components for requirements that AEM Core Components already address. AEM Core Components are a production-quality, Adobe-maintained component library that covers the majority of standard content authoring needs: text, image, carousel, teaser, list, embed, container, and dozens of other standard components with built-in accessibility compliance, responsive behavior, and Style System support. Building custom components for these requirements adds development cost, creates maintenance debt when AEM versions update, and typically produces components with worse quality than the Core Components they replace. Custom component development is appropriate when the specific content requirement genuinely cannot be met by Core Components or their configuration options — not when the Core Component is unfamiliar to the developer.
TPG conducts a requirements analysis before beginning any custom AEM component development, systematically evaluating each requirement against Core Components, Core Component Style System configurations, Content Fragment models for structured content delivery, and Experience Fragment templates for reusable experience blocks. Only requirements that cannot be met by these options proceed to custom development. For requirements that do require custom development, TPG follows AEM development best practices: HTL (Sling Models + HTL template language) for server-side rendering, proper use of the AEM Sling resource type hierarchy for extensibility, Style System integration for author-controlled visual variants, editConfig design that enables intuitive inline editing, and AEM Developer Tools integration for automated testing. All custom component code is documented and delivered with test coverage so the organization's development team or future consultants can maintain and extend it without requiring the original developer.
All articles in this section
Section 10
AEM Ongoing Support and Managed Services
How TPG provides ongoing AEM technical support, platform management, and continuous optimization for organizations that do not have the internal capacity to manage AEM effectively after implementation.
Why AEM requires ongoing investment to maintain value after go-live
AEM is not a set-and-forget platform. The environment requires ongoing attention across several dimensions: version and patch management (Adobe releases AEM as a Cloud Service updates continuously and AEM 6.x service packs quarterly — testing and applying updates requires dedicated capacity), integration monitoring (integrations with Marketo, Salesforce, and Adobe Analytics require regular health checks and rapid response when failures occur), performance monitoring (page load times, Dispatcher cache hit rates, and DAM query performance degrade without active monitoring and maintenance), governance enforcement (user permissions accumulate, workflows drift from documented standards, and asset governance requires regular hygiene cycles), and content operations support (authors encounter platform issues, require new component configurations, or need assistance with non-standard publishing scenarios on a continuing basis). Organizations that implement AEM and then reduce their internal technical capacity typically see significant platform degradation within 18 to 24 months.
TPG offers AEM managed services engagements that provide a defined level of ongoing technical support, platform management, and optimization capacity on a retainer basis. Managed services include: AEM update and patch management (testing and applying AEM as a Cloud Service updates or AEM 6.x service packs on a defined cadence), integration health monitoring and incident response (monitoring integration health dashboards and providing rapid response to integration failures), performance monitoring and optimization (monthly performance reporting and proactive optimization of degrading metrics before they impact campaign execution or user experience), governance maintenance (quarterly permission audits, workflow reviews, and DAM hygiene cycles), and a defined hours-per-month capacity for content operations support, minor configuration changes, and component enhancements. Managed services are scoped based on the organization's AEM environment complexity, content volume, and internal team capacity.
All articles in this section
"I have to thank The Pedowitz Group for everything they've done for us — we're better for it and have been able to transform the Sales and Marketing functions."Chief Marketing OfficerIpswitch (now Progress Software)
Adobe Experience Manager: Frequently Asked Questions
Direct answers to the most common questions about AEM consulting, implementation, integrations, governance, and what to expect from a TPG AEM engagement.
What is Adobe Experience Manager (AEM) and what does it do?
Adobe Experience Manager (AEM) is an enterprise content management system and digital experience platform that enables organizations to create, manage, and deliver personalized digital content across web, mobile, and other channels at scale. AEM consists of two primary components: AEM Sites (web content management and digital experience delivery) and AEM Assets (digital asset management). As part of the Adobe Experience Cloud, AEM integrates natively with Adobe Analytics, Adobe Target, Adobe Campaign, and Marketo Engage.
In B2B marketing, AEM is typically used to manage enterprise websites, create personalized campaign landing pages, manage digital assets across global marketing teams, and deliver role-specific web experiences to different buyer personas and account segments.
What does an AEM consulting engagement with TPG include?
An AEM consulting engagement with TPG is scoped based on the organization's starting point and objectives, covering any combination of: AEM assessment (evaluating the current instance against best practices), AEM implementation (deploying and configuring a new environment), AEM migration (moving content from a legacy CMS or prior AEM version), AEM integrations (connecting to Marketo, Salesforce, Adobe Target, and Adobe Analytics), AEM personalization (configuring and activating Adobe Target-driven personalization), AEM governance (designing user roles, workflows, and content standards), and AEM ongoing managed services (continuous support and optimization).
As an Adobe Platinum Partner, TPG has deep expertise across the full AEM product suite and the broader Adobe Experience Cloud ecosystem, and connects every AEM engagement to the revenue marketing strategy it is designed to support.
How does AEM integrate with Marketo Engage?
AEM integrates with Marketo Engage through Adobe's native cloud configuration, enabling AEM-hosted forms that submit lead data directly to Marketo, audience segment synchronization for personalization rules, UTM tracking that attributes AEM page visits to Marketo campaigns, and bidirectional data flow that keeps AEM content consumption signals visible in the Marketo lead record for scoring and segmentation.
For B2B organizations already operating in the Adobe ecosystem, the AEM-Marketo integration enables a unified campaign architecture where campaign strategy, content management, and lead management operate from connected systems rather than parallel environments.
What is the difference between AEM Sites and AEM Assets?
AEM Sites is the web content management component — it manages the creation, editing, publishing, and personalization of web pages, landing pages, and digital experiences, including a visual page editor, reusable component libraries, content fragments for headless delivery, and Adobe Target integration for personalization. AEM Assets is the digital asset management (DAM) component — it manages the storage, organization, transformation, and distribution of images, videos, PDFs, and brand materials, including automated metadata tagging, smart image cropping, dynamic rendition generation, and Creative Cloud integration.
Most enterprise AEM implementations use both components together: AEM Assets serves as the single source of truth for all digital assets, and AEM Sites pulls from the DAM to assemble web pages and campaign experiences.
How complex is migrating to AEM from another CMS?
Migrating to AEM from WordPress, Sitecore, Drupal, or a legacy CMS is a significant undertaking whose complexity is determined by four factors: the volume and variety of content to be migrated, the quality and consistency of the existing content structure, the integration dependencies of the current environment, and the organization's tolerance for a parallel-running period.
TPG manages AEM migrations with a content audit and mapping phase, programmatic migration tooling, a staged migration sequence that minimizes disruption to active campaigns and SEO performance, and a validation phase that confirms migration completeness and redirect implementation before cutover.
What AEM performance issues are most common?
The five most common AEM performance issues are: DAM sprawl (an unmanaged Assets repository degrading query performance), unoptimized image renditions (serving original-size images instead of responsive Dynamic Media renditions), Dispatcher and CDN misconfiguration (failing to cache at the edge layer), custom component inefficiency (components making excessive JCR queries at render time), and replication queue bottlenecks (activation delays slowing content publication).
TPG conducts AEM performance audits that identify which issues are present, quantify their impact, and implement the configuration and code changes that restore and maintain optimal performance — sequenced by business impact per implementation effort.
What does AEM governance design include?
AEM governance design includes five components: user role architecture (minimum necessary permissions for each content role, implemented in AEM's permission model), workflow design (approval and publishing workflows for each content type with defined SLAs), content standards documentation (brand guidelines, metadata requirements, and quality criteria), asset governance (folder structure, naming conventions, and a DAM hygiene process for the Assets repository), and compliance processes (regular governance audits and permission reviews).
For organizations with existing governance debt, TPG runs a governance remediation engagement before designing the forward-looking model — because implementing new governance on top of accumulated chaos produces documentation that does not match the actual environment state.
Get More Value from Your AEM Investment
If your AEM environment is expensive, underperforming, or not connected to the marketing strategy it was purchased to support, the problem is almost always fixable without replacing the platform. TPG is an Adobe Platinum Partner with deep expertise across the full AEM product suite — from assessment and governance design through Marketo integration, personalization, and ongoing managed services. Tell us where your AEM program is breaking down and we'll tell you exactly how to fix it.