Adobe Edge Delivery Services: Essential Features and Benefits for Your Business

In ecommerce, speed, efficiency, and smooth content delivery are critical for business success. A slow-loading website may frustrate your customer experience, hurt SEO rankings, and ultimately impact revenue. Adobe Edge Delivery Services (EDS) can solve these issues. 

EDS is a composable set of services within Adobe Experience Manager (AEM), which can help you enrich your website with images, forms, and digital screens quickly and efficiently. It acts as a universal tool for managing the look and performance of digital content across different Adobe products.

As a certified Adobe Solution Partner, we at Elogic have had a heavy focus on all Adobe-related solutions and helped 500+ brands build, integrate, and innovate their stores taking away the headaches of ecommerce management. And if you’re still wondering whether EDS is worth investing in, we’re definitely your guys to answer that question. 

Read on to learn what Adobe Edge Delivery Services is, how it works, and how your can leverage it to enhance your operations.

What Is Adobe Edge Delivery Services?

Adobe Edge Delivery Services (EDS) is a cloud-based content delivery system designed to optimize website performance, speed up content updates, and simplify development. Originally known as Project Franklin, then Helix, it has evolved into a CDN-powered solution within Adobe Experience Manager (AEM) that now integrates with Adobe Commerce.

Unlike Static Site Generators (SSG), Edge Delivery Services renders content on the fly, allowing for instant updates without a lengthy rebuild process. This makes it an ideal solution for ecommerce businesses that need to rapidly adjust content and scale their online stores.

EDS can function as a headless CMS, but it also has the capability to render full HTML pages. With its support for Excel, Google Sheets, Word, and JSON formats, businesses can easily integrate structured content into their sites within the shortest time possible.

How Does Adobe Edge Delivery Work?

Unlike traditional content management systems, Adobe Edge Delivery Services works at the edge of the network and uses CDN (Content Delivery Network) technology to cache content at multiple locations worldwide. This enhances site speed and efficiency, resulting in faster load times for users. 

Here’s how it works:

Authors can use their favorite editing programs such as Google Docs, Word, or SharePoint to create and modify content, which is then synchronized with the website. With that, content authored in Word and Google Docs can be aggregated into indices and delivered as JSON, making it easier for businesses to manage structured data.

Note that content is not stored in AEM by default. Project XWalk enables Universal Editor functionality, integrating it with AEM as a Cloud Service for more flexibility. A mix of pages can be delivered to Edge Delivery Services and AEM CS instances simultaneously, which makes it a perfect choice for hybrid deployments.

What Are the Benefits of Edge Delivery Services?

Let’s explore the key benefits that make Adobe Edge Delivery Services a must-have tool for ecommerce businesses looking to scale and optimize their online presence.

Enhanced performance

Every second is crucial in ecommerce. With Adobe Edge Delivery Services, websites can reduce page load times from 3-4 seconds to ~ 1 second, improving both SEO rankings and customer retention rates.

Improved customer experience

Faster pages lead to improved customer experience and higher conversion rates. With Adobe Edge Delivery, product pages, blog posts, and landing pages load instantly. In addition, built-in personalization features enable you to update the content dynamically, offering tailored experiences to different customer segments.

Fast content-driven website creation

Marketers and content teams can update web pages instantly without involving developers. You can also enable the Universal Editor to support collaborative editing of web pages in real time. Just like in Google Docs.

Easy development with zero learning curve

Developers no longer need to work on complex backend setups. Changes in GitHub, Google Docs, or SharePoint go live within seconds! This significantly reduces reliance on AEM’s traditional development architecture, allowing you to make frontend enhancements much easier and quicker.

Cost-effective scaling

As there is no need for extensive development resources to manage content changes, you can reduce infrastructure and server costs. This results in improved ROI for businesses investing heavily in marketing-driven content strategies.

Enhanced security 

With Edge Delivery, security risks are minimized since the content is delivered from edge locations instead of a central server. This reduces exposure to DDoS attacks, unauthorized access, and other cyber threats. 

Scalability for high-traffic events

Edge computing ensures that even during high-traffic periods, like Black Friday sales, your website will remain stable. If your brand relies on seasonal promotions, you will definitely benefit from Adobe Edge Delivery’s ability to handle spikes in traffic without downtime.

Real user monitoring (RUM) for performance insights

Adobe Edge Delivery Services includes Real User Monitoring (RUM) to analyze how fast a site loads for visitors. Unlike lab results from tools like Lighthouse, RUM provides accurate, real-time performance data to help you optimize your content strategy.

Extensible Sidekick features

Adobe has made Sidekick capabilities extensible, allowing integration of Assets and Generative Variations. Sidekick is an AI-powered plugin inside Adobe that helps you create, edit, and manage content faster. This saves time for content teams on repetitive tasks, ensures easier access to branded assets, and delivers content more efficiently across devices and platforms.

How Do I Integrate Adobe Edge Delivery Service on My Website?

Integration with Adobe Commerce or AEM is straightforward and follows a content-first approach.

Integrating Adobe Edge Delivery Services into your website involves several key steps:

1. Set up your content repository

Establish a content repository that EDS can access. Adobe supports integration with platforms such as SharePoint and Google Drive:

• SharePoint: Configure SharePoint as your content repository to manage and deploy content seamlessly.
• Google Drive: Alternatively, you can set up Google Drive and ensure the folder containing your content is shared appropriately to allow EDS access.

2. Choose your authoring method

EDS provides two primary authoring approaches:

• Document-based authoring. Ideal for users familiar with Microsoft Word or Google Docs, this method enables content creation directly within these tools. Changes are reflected on your website without requiring a rebuilding process, streamlining the publishing workflow.
• WYSIWYG Authoring with the Universal Editor. This approach offers a live, in-context editing experience, allowing authors to see changes in real time. It’s suitable for those who prefer a visual interface for content creation.

3. Set up your development environment

Developers should establish a GitHub repository to manage and deploy code:

• Repository creation. Fork the Adobe boilerplate repository to set up your project structure.
• Configuration. Adjust the fstab.yaml file in your repository to point to your chosen content source, whether it’s SharePoint or Google Drive. This configuration ensures that EDS can retrieve and publish content from the correct location.

4. Integrate with Adobe Experience Manager

Within AEM, create a new site using the WYSIWYG authoring template designed for EDS. Then, input the URL of your GitHub repository. This linkage allows AEM to sync with your codebase, facilitating seamless updates and deployments.

5. Publish and monitor your content

After authoring and configuring your content, you can make it live using the publishing workflows within AEM or your chosen authoring tool.

Leverage Real User Monitoring (RUM) tools provided by Adobe to continuously assess site performance and make data-driven improvements.

You can also utilize GraphQL API to dynamically deliver product information, personalize user experiences, and optimize ecommerce performance

Real-World Use Scenarios: How Brands Can Use Adobe Edge Delivery Services

Adobe Edge Delivery Services is gaining traction across various industries for its ability to reduce latency, optimize performance, and enable real-time responses. 

Check three real-world cases illustrating the benefits that EDS brings to the table:

1. Ecommerce brand improves page speed and conversion rates

For an online retailer, every second counts. But theirs were adding up—3 to 4 seconds of load time per page, which might as well be an eternity in ecommerce. Customers got impatient, bounce rates climbed, and conversions took a hit.

The brand needed speed. And so they went all in on Adobe Edge Delivery Services.

Instead of relying on slow, traditional CMS pipelines, they switched to a GraphQL-based API that optimized content delivery in real time. The result?

• Page load times were reduced to under 1 second, improving user experience.
• Higher Google Lighthouse scores, leading to better SEO rankings.
• Increased conversions, as faster load times led to fewer cart abandonments.

2. Enterprise SaaS company speeds up content publishing

For an enterprise SaaS company, every content update is a nightmare. Whether you update a blog post, product page, or announcement, long deployment cycles are unavoidable. And every delay is a missed opportunity to engage customers.

By switching to Adobe Edge Delivery Services, they embraced Google Docs and GitHub integration for faster publishing. Suddenly:

• Content updates went from hours to minutes.
• Reliance on backend developers was reduced.
• Real-time preview allowed teams to see changes instantly before publishing.

3. Global media company enhances multi-site management

Managing multiple regional websites across different markets is often a logistical headache. A leading global media company struggled to keep content consistent while giving local teams the flexibility to tailor it for their audiences.

They needed a scalable solution to balance control with customization.

By adopting Adobe Edge Delivery Services with Universal Editor, they unlocked:

• Faster content syndication across global websites.
• Improved collaboration between international teams via cloud-based authoring tools.
• Consistent branding while allowing regional teams to tailor content for their audiences.

See more Adobe Commerce success stories

How Do I Know EDS Is the Right Fit for My Business?

Adobe Edge Delivery Services is a powerful solution that may perfectly fit your business if: 

you have basic content management needs	EDS is ideal for teams that do not require advanced CMS capabilities like WordPress or Drupal.
your authoring team has limited CMS experience	The document-based editing interface allows teams to manage content without requiring extensive CMS knowledge.
your authors don’t need layout controls	If your team focuses on content rather than intricate design elements, EDS is a great fit.
your development teams lack AEM experience	Edge Delivery Services simplifies content deployment without the need for deep AEM expertise.
you have many landing pages	Businesses with a large number of marketing-driven landing pages can benefit from EDS’s fast and easy content updates.
your content is mostly static	If your website consists of relatively unchanging content, using EDS can enhance performance with edge caching.
your development team is front-end-focused	EDS is developer-friendly, especially for teams that primarily work on the frontend.
you are building a brand-new website	If you’re developing a site from scratch, starting with EDS ensures you leverage modern, performance-driven architecture from day one.

On the other hand, Adobe Edge Delivery Services may not be the best fit if you have complex authoring needs and need advanced content capabilities like Multi-Site Management (MSM), annotations, versioning, or content workflows. If your development team is backend-heavy, EDS also might not be the most optimal choice.

Afterthought

Adobe Edge Delivery Services is a fast, flexible, and efficient solution for businesses that need high-performance content delivery without complex CMS overhead. Its customizable authoring options, seamless content integration, and robust performance optimization make it an invaluable tool for enhancing digital content delivery.

At Elogic, we are committed to helping businesses integrate the best Adobe Experience Manager and Commerce solutions to elevate their online presence. If you’re ready to future-proof your ecommerce strategy, get in touch with us today, and let’s make your site faster, smarter, and more dynamic!