Making 2 material layers appear at different heights

Lets say I have two materials and I want to make a crack(using some kinda alpha) in a wall like in the picture bellow. What would be the easiest way to make the top material appear higher than the lower one?

This is the closest solution that I was able to find Cracked wall material ~ Yet Another Developer's Blog but it seems really complicated/much work for this one effect. Now I might be wrong and it does require that much work, but my only reference for comparison is substance painter and in it all you have to do is change the “height position” slider to get this kinda effect.

substance painter does exactly that - generating/adjusting a normal map. you just don’t see any of it. something slightly easier but as a result not as decent looking would be to add a fake shadow with a tweaked mask to darken the lower layer around the edges.