What isAdobe Marketing Cloud?
Adobe Marketing Cloud is a comprehensive marketing suite that’s part of the Adobe Experience Cloud. It allows businesses to personalize, optimize, and measure their digital campaigns. The suite includes several products. Adobe Experience Manager helps manage content across multiple channels in a dynamic way. Adobe Campaign provides a unified platform to manage and automate all email, ads, and campaigns. Adobe Target is a personalization engine that uses machine learning to test and optimize across mobile apps and the web. Marketo Engage offers marketing agility at every touchpoint, from lead management to B2B and account-based marketing. These tools work together to create end-to-end digital marketing programs, helping businesses connect from social to email to video.
Key Features
Adobe Marketing Cloud is a comprehensive digital marketing suite with several key features:
Adobe Experience Manager (AEM): AEM is a comprehensive content management solution for building websites, mobile apps, and forms. It facilitates the organization and management of the marketing content and assets of a business. AEM assets, a feature of AEM, is a cloud-native Digital Asset Management (DAM) system that allows businesses to manage their digital content effectively.
Adobe Campaign: Adobe Campaign provides tools for authoring the marketing process, managing and sending email campaigns, and handling marketing data and analytics. It also supports cross-channel marketing, allowing businesses to deliver consistent and relevant experiences to their audiences over both digital and offline channels.
Adobe Target: Adobe Target is a tool for optimizing digital experiences, conducting A/B testing, and personalizing experiences. It allows marketers to easily create, test, and measure personalized digital experiences to maximize customer engagement and conversion.
Marketo Engage: Marketo Engage is a marketing automation platform that helps marketers with lead engagement, email marketing, consumer marketing, customer base marketing, and mobile marketing. It allows businesses to automate, measure, and optimize marketing tasks and workflows.
Asset Management: Adobe’s asset management solutions, such as AEM Assets, provide a platform for businesses to manage, store, and access their digital assets like images, videos, and other content.
Analytical Insights: Adobe Analytics provides real-time, multichannel marketing analytics and detailed segment analysis. It allows businesses to turn insights into action and better understand their customers.
Cross-Channel Marketing: Adobe Campaign supports cross-channel marketing, allowing businesses to deliver consistent and relevant experiences to their audiences over both digital and offline channels.
A/B Testing: Adobe Target provides robust A/B testing capabilities, allowing businesses to test different versions of their digital experiences to see which one performs better.
Real-Time Dashboards: Adobe provides real-time dashboards that display up-to-date information on your Experience Platform data.
Predictive Analytics: Adobe Analytics uses machine learning and advanced statistical modeling to analyze customer data, find patterns, and predict future behavior.
Benefits
Adobe Marketing Cloud is a comprehensive suite of marketing solutions that allows businesses to manage, personalize, optimize, and orchestrate cross-channel campaigns. Here are some key benefits:
End-to-end Digital Marketing: Adobe Marketing Cloud, which now includes Marketo Engagement Platform, allows you to manage, personalize, optimize, and orchestrate cross-channel campaigns across B2B and B2C use cases.
Content Management: Adobe Experience Manager helps you manage content in a fluid and dynamic way, keeping up with every screen and platform. It is a content and digital asset management solution that empowers organizations to seamlessly create, organize, and deliver content across all digital touchpoints.
Campaign Execution: Adobe Campaign gives you a single place to manage and automate all your email, ad, and campaigns. With access to your audience profiles and analytics, you can drive better customer engagement.
Personalization: Adobe Target is a personalization engine that lets you test and optimize with machine learning across mobile apps and the web. It helps in delivering personalized content based on a combination of rules-based and machine-learning approaches.
Marketo Engage: Marketo Engage provides marketing agility at every touchpoint. It transforms customer experiences and powers engagement from consideration to conversion and beyond.
Powerful Segmentation Capabilities: Adobe Experience Platform provides flexible customer segmentation for real-time action. You can build and automatically maintain audience segments based on real-time customer profiles.
Automated Workflows: Adobe Campaign workflows improve the speed and scale of every aspect of your marketing campaigns, from creating segments and preparing messages to delivery.
Advanced Analytics and Reporting: Adobe Analytics lets you mix, match, and analyze data from any digital point in the customer journey. With in-depth analysis, versatile reporting, and predictive intelligence, you get the insightful foundation you need to build better customer experiences.
Integration with Other Adobe Tools: Adobe Marketing Cloud integrates best-of-breed tools for analytics, targeting, web experience management, digital asset management, audience management, campaign management, and other digital priorities for every marketing organization.
Personalization Options: Adobe Experience Manager allows you to create a selection of content, and then specify which audiences see each individual experience. This means that you are targeting your personalized experiences for specific audiences.
Drawbacks
Adobe Marketing Cloud is a comprehensive suite of products designed to enhance various aspects of digital marketing. However, like any tool, it has its pros and cons. Let’s explore some of its drawbacks:
Expensive: Adobe Marketing Cloud is a robust suite of tools, but it comes with a hefty price tag. For smaller businesses or organizations with limited budgets, the cost can be prohibitive. Licensing fees, implementation costs, and ongoing maintenance expenses can add up quickly. Companies need to carefully evaluate whether the benefits justify the investment.
Steep Learning Curve: While Adobe provides support, some users have reported that it can be limited. Complex issues or specific customization requirements might require external consultants or specialized expertise. Organizations should evaluate their support needs and consider additional resources if necessary.
Paywall Restrictions: Certain advanced features or capabilities are restricted behind paywalls. Users might encounter limitations unless they opt for higher-tier subscriptions. This can be frustrating for those expecting a more inclusive experience without additional costs.
While Adobe Marketing Cloud offers powerful tools for digital marketing, organizations must weigh these drawbacks against the benefits. Consider factors like budget, team expertise, and specific requirements when deciding whether to invest in this suite.
Products & Services
Adobe Marketing Cloud is a comprehensive suite of products and services designed to empower digital marketers. Let’s explore some of its key offerings:
Adobe Experience Manager (AEM): AEM serves as a robust content management solution. It empowers marketers to create, manage, and optimize content across diverse channels. Whether it’s crafting web pages, enhancing mobile apps, or engaging on social media, AEM ensures a seamless and consistent experience for your audience. By centralizing content management, AEM streamlines workflows and facilitates collaboration among teams.
Adobe Campaign: This platform provides a unified space for managing and automating marketing campaigns. Whether it’s email campaigns, targeted ads, or personalized communications, Adobe Campaign allows marketers to orchestrate their efforts efficiently. It integrates audience profiles, behavioral data, and analytics, enabling precise targeting and personalized messaging. Marketers can track campaign performance, measure engagement, and refine strategies based on real-time insights.
Adobe Target: Personalization lies at the heart of effective marketing. Adobe Target is a sophisticated personalization engine that leverages machine learning and experimentation. Marketers can create targeted experiences for users across web and mobile platforms. By testing variations, optimizing content, and adapting in real-time, Adobe Target ensures that each interaction resonates with the individual user. It’s about delivering the right message to the right person at the right moment.
Marketo Engage: Marketo Engage caters to lead management, B2B marketing, and account-based strategies. It’s a versatile tool that enables marketers to nurture leads, automate workflows, and drive engagement. From awareness to conversion, Marketo Engage facilitates personalized interactions. It integrates seamlessly with other Adobe Marketing Cloud components, creating a cohesive ecosystem for customer engagement.
Adobe Analytics: Data-driven decision-making is essential. Adobe Analytics provides comprehensive insights into user behavior, campaign effectiveness, and overall marketing performance. Marketers can explore user journeys, identify trends, and optimize strategies. Whether it’s tracking website traffic, measuring conversion rates, or understanding audience segments, Adobe Analytics equips marketers with actionable intelligence.
Adobe Social: Social media plays a pivotal role in modern marketing. Adobe Social allows marketers to manage social campaigns, monitor interactions, and measure impact. From scheduling posts to analyzing sentiment, it covers the entire social landscape. Marketers can engage with their audience, respond to trends, and align social efforts with broader marketing goals.
Adobe Media Optimizer: Effective advertising requires smart allocation of resources. Adobe Media Optimizer optimizes digital ad spend across channels—search, display, and social. It considers factors like audience behavior, ad performance, and budget constraints. Marketers can efficiently reach their target audience by maximizing return on investment (ROI).
Adobe Marketing Cloud seamlessly connects content creation, campaign execution, and data analysis. It empowers marketers to deliver personalized experiences, measure impact, and adapt strategies in a dynamic digital landscape.
How does Adobe Marketing Cloud Work?
Adobe Marketing Cloud is a platform that helps businesses manage all their digital marketing efforts in one place. Imagine it as a command center for your marketing campaigns. It has various tools built-in, like tools for planning email campaigns, managing social media posts, creating content, and even running advertisements.
The key thing about Adobe Marketing Cloud is that it focuses on the customer journey. It helps you understand how your customers interact with your brand across different channels, like email, social media, or your website. This allows you to personalize the messages they see and tailor the content to their interests.
Another important aspect is data. Adobe Marketing Cloud collects information about your customers and combines it all together. This lets you target the right people with the right messages at the right time. You can also use this data to analyze how your campaigns are performing and make adjustments to improve them.
Think of it as having a central hub where you can manage everything, understand your customers better, and deliver targeted marketing that resonates with them. While powerful, it’s also complex and requires some investment to use effectively.
Architecture
Adobe Marketing Cloud, or more accurately Adobe Experience Cloud, thrives on a cloud-based foundation. This means it operates on a vast network of interconnected servers, not on physical hardware you maintain. This architecture offers several advantages:
Scalability: Imagine a balloon inflating. As your marketing needs expand, the cloud infrastructure can automatically scale to accommodate increased traffic or data loads. You won’t experience slowdowns or crashes due to insufficient resources.
Security: Security is paramount, especially when dealing with customer data. Adobe employs robust security measures within the cloud platform to safeguard your information.
Agility: The cloud fosters a more agile environment. Updates and new features can be rolled out quickly without lengthy installations or downtime. This allows you to stay ahead of the curve in the ever-evolving marketing landscape.
Beyond the foundational aspects, the magic lies in the architecture itself. Instead of a monolithic structure, Adobe Marketing Cloud leverages a microservices architecture. Imagine a complex machine built from smaller, independent components – each with a specific function. This approach offers several benefits:
Modularity: Think building blocks. Each microservice acts as a building block, responsible for a specific task like email marketing or campaign management. This modularity allows for easier maintenance and updates. If one component needs fixing, it doesn’t impact the entire system.
Faster Innovation: New features can be developed and integrated much faster with a microservices architecture. Because each service is independent, developers can work on specific functionalities without affecting other system parts. This fosters a more agile development process.
Another key strength is the open architecture. Imagine your marketing ecosystem as a bustling marketplace. Adobe’s open architecture allows various third-party applications and data sources to connect seamlessly through APIs (application programming interfaces). These APIs act as translators, enabling communication and data exchange between different tools. This openness provides businesses with significant flexibility and customization options.
At the heart of the Marketing Cloud lie several crucial components. One example is the Content Management System (CMS), often powered by Adobe Experience Manager (AEM). Think of this as the control center for your website content. AEM allows you to create, edit, and publish content efficiently.
Another vital component is the Digital Asset Management (DAM) system. Imagine a central hub for all your marketing assets – images, videos, logos, etc. The DAM streamlines collaboration and storage, ensuring everyone on your team has access to the latest marketing materials.
Data is the lifeblood of modern marketing. The Marketing Cloud incorporates a Data Management Platform (DMP) that acts as a central repository. The DMP gathers customer data from various channels like your website, social media, or CRM, unifies it into a single profile, and activates it for targeted marketing campaigns.
On top of this foundation lies a suite of powerful marketing tools. Adobe Campaign empowers you with sophisticated email marketing capabilities. Adobe Target allows for personalization across various touchpoints, and Adobe Analytics helps you understand customer journeys and optimize your marketing efforts.
Adobe Marketing Cloud’s architecture is designed to empower businesses. The scalability allows you to grow without limitations. The security keeps your data safe. The agility ensures you can adapt to changing marketing trends. The flexibility lets you integrate the tools you need to create a truly customized marketing experience. Ultimately, this comprehensive architecture empowers you to deliver personalized experiences, optimize campaigns, and gain valuable customer insights to drive marketing success.
When Should You Use Adobe Marketing Cloud?
Adobe Marketing Cloud is a comprehensive suite of tools designed to enhance your digital marketing efforts. Here are some scenarios where you might consider using it:
Large, Enterprise-Level Business: Adobe Marketing Cloud caters well to the needs of larger businesses with complex marketing needs. It offers a wide range of features and robust functionality that can handle sophisticated marketing campaigns across multiple channels.
Omnichannel Marketing: If you’re aiming for a seamless, consistent customer experience across all touchpoints, Adobe Marketing Cloud can be a valuable tool. It allows you to manage and personalize marketing efforts on various channels, from email and social media to advertising and web content.
Data-Driven Marketing: Adobe Marketing Cloud offers powerful analytics that can help you understand your target audience better and optimize your marketing campaigns. It provides insights into customer behavior and journey, allowing for data-driven decision-making.
Personalization: A key strength of Adobe Marketing Cloud is its ability to personalize content and marketing messages for individual customers. This can lead to higher engagement and conversion rates.
Integration with Other Adobe Products: If you’re already using other Adobe products like Photoshop or Premiere Pro, Marketing Cloud integrates well with them, creating a more streamlined workflow.
Challenges with Adobe Marketing Cloud
Adobe Marketing Cloud is a comprehensive suite of marketing solutions, but like any complex system, it can present some challenges:
Providing ROI from Marketing Activities: Adobe Marketing Cloud provides a suite of analytics tools that help businesses measure the impact of their marketing activities. However, quantifying the return on investment (ROI) from these activities can be challenging. This is because the path from marketing activities to financial outcomes is often indirect and influenced by many factors. For example, a customer might see an ad, visit the website, read a blog post, and then make a purchase. In this case, all these touchpoints contributed to the final outcome. Therefore, attributing the revenue to a specific activity becomes complex.
Creating a Unified Customer Profile: Adobe Experience Platform allows businesses to create a unified view of each customer by combining data from multiple channels. However, consolidating data from various sources into a single customer view can be challenging. This is because customer data is often sorted in different systems, in different formats, and with different identifiers. Adobe provides tools like Real-Time Customer Profile and Identity Service to help businesses overcome these challenges.
Creating Experiences Customers Love: Adobe Marketing Cloud enables businesses to create personalized experiences at scale. However, designing and delivering marketing experiences that resonate with customers is not always straightforward. This is because customer preferences can vary widely and can change over time. Businesses need to continuously test, measure, and optimize their customer experiences to ensure they remain relevant and engaging.
Merging data from Disparate Sources: Adobe Experience Platform provides features like merge policies that help businesses combine datasets from disparate sources to create customer profiles. However, integrating data from different systems and platforms can be complex. This is because data from different sources can have different structures, formats, and quality. Moreover, when data from multiple sources conflicts, businesses need to decide which information to include in the unified view.
Implementation Challenges: Implementing Adobe Marketing Cloud can present challenges such as lengthy ramp-up timelines, internal resource alignment, and platform training and adoption. For example, it takes quite a bit of time and effort to configure a platform from scratch following each organization’s unique business requirements. Moreover, implementing a new marketing automation platform requires significant input and coordination across marketing and technology teams.
Pricing and Scalability: Adobe Marketing Cloud provides great support for most of its customers, however, it may not work well enough for small engagements. Adobe could offer multiple price options based on the usage, which is missing at the moment.
Differentiation in the Market: Adobe Marketing Cloud faces the challenges of differentiating its ‘customer experience’ offering from other marketing cloud providers. Adobe Marketing Cloud stands out by offering a comprehensive suite of marketing solutions that allow businesses to manage, personalize, optimize, and orchestrate cross-channel campaigns across B2B and B2C use cases.
Pricing
Adobe Marketing Cloud offers a range of digital marketing tools. You can choose individual applications like Analytics or Campaign, each starting at $600 per month. Alternatively, there are pre-built solutions with bundled apps, beginning at $1,200 per month. The Enterprise Suite starts at $5,000 per month for comprehensive access to all features. Keep in mind that prices may vary based on customization and additional services.
History
Back in 2012, Adobe introduced Adobe Marketing Cloud as part of a strategic move. This move aimed to phase out the Omniture brand, which Adobe had acquired in 2009. The goal was to integrate various online marketing and web analytics products into a unified cloud service hosted on Microsoft Azure.
The initial suite included eight main applications:
- Adobe Analytics: For in-depth data analysis.
- Adobe Target: To personalize user experiences.
- Adobe Social: Focused on social media management.
- Adobe Experience Manager: A powerful content management system.
- Adobe Media Optimizer: For optimizing ad campaigns.
- Adobe Campaign: Used for marketing automation.
- Audience Manager: To manage audience data.
- Primetime: Catered to video content delivery.
But Adobe didn’t stop there! Over time:
- In 2013, they acquired Satellite TMS, which became Adobe Dynamic Tag Management (Adobe DTM).
- Adobe Launch, introduced in 2018, took tag management to the next level.
- The acquisition of Magento in the same year added commerce features.
- Marketo, acquired in 2018, strengthened marketing automation capabilities.
By 2021, Adobe Experience Platform Launch was set to integrate into the broader Adobe Experience Platform. This evolution reflects Adobe’s commitment to meeting the dynamic needs of digital marketing and analytics.
How has Adobe Marketing Cloud Evolved Over Time?
Adobe Marketing Cloud has undergone significant evolution over the years, adapting to the changing landscape of digital marketing. Let’s explore its journey:
In its nascent phase, Adobe Marketing Cloud primarily functioned as an Email Service Provider (ESP). Marketers leveraged it to send targeted email campaigns to their subscribers. During this period, Adobe also made strategic acquisitions, including the purchase of Satellite TMS from Search Discovery in 2013. This acquisition laid the groundwork for further developments.
The acquisition of Satellite TMS led to the birth of Adobe Dynamic Tag Management (Adobe DTM). This platform allowed marketers to manage and deploy tags efficiently across their websites. It streamlined the process of implementing analytics and marketing tags, enhancing overall website performance.
In 2018, Adobe Launch emerged as the next evolution in tag management systems. It replaced Adobe DTM and offered advanced features for managing tags, ensuring data accuracy, and improving website speed. Adobe Launch empowered marketers to take control of their digital properties, making it easier to deploy and manage marketing technologies.
Over time, Adobe Marketing Cloud expanded its capabilities beyond email marketing and tag management. It transformed into an end-to-end digital marketing suite. One of its notable components is the Marketo Engagement Platform, which enables marketers to orchestrate cross-channel campaigns, personalize customer experiences, optimize content, and analyze performance. With features like lead management, account-based marketing, and marketing automation, Adobe Marketing Cloud has become a comprehensive solution for modern marketers.
Adobe Marketing Cloud has evolved from a simple ESP to a robust ecosystem that empowers marketers with tools for seamless campaign execution, data-driven decision-making, and personalized customer engagement.
Competitors
Google Marketing Platform
Adobe Marketing Cloud and Google Marketing Platform are both highly rated in the digital marketing space, with scores of 8.8 and 8.9 out of 10 respectively. They both offer a range of features, with Adobe Marketing Cloud providing a suite of products that includes analytics, social, advertising, targeting, and web experience management. On the other hand, Google Marketing Platform, which combines the former DoubleClick advertiser tools and Google Analytics 360 Suite, focuses on managing advertising campaigns, uploading ads, reporting their performance, and providing forecasting tools to help predict future campaign needs.
When it comes to ease of use, setup, and administration, reviewers have found the Google Marketing Platform to be more user-friendly. However, for ongoing product support, Adobe Advertising Cloud is the preferred option according to reviewers. In terms of feature updates and roadmaps, reviewers have shown a preference for the direction of Google Marketing Platform over Adobe Advertising Cloud.
HubSpot Marketing Hub
HubSpot Marketing Hub and Adobe Marketing Cloud are both robust marketing platforms. When it comes to product rating, Adobe Marketing Cloud scores slightly higher with 8.9 out of 10, compared to HubSpot’s 8.5.
In terms of pricing, HubSpot Marketing Hub has a clear starting price of $50 per month, while Adobe Marketing Cloud does not publicly disclose its pricing.
Each platform has its own strengths. Adobe Marketing Cloud is praised for its centralized team collaboration and Adobe Analytics. On the other hand, HubSpot Marketing Hub is appreciated for its easy-to-use and intuitive platform, offering a complete all-in-one solution.
However, they also have their drawbacks. Adobe Marketing Cloud users have reported a lack of cross-program integration and the absence of an API. HubSpot users have noted a steep price increase as you build your list and the requirement of a 12-month contract.
When we look at the ratings for email and online marketing, HubSpot Marketing Hub outperforms Adobe Marketing Cloud with a score of 8.6 compared to Adobe’s 7.1.
Microsoft Dynamics 365 Marketing
Adobe Marketing Cloud and Microsoft Dynamics 365 Marketing are both powerful marketing solutions. Adobe Marketing Cloud has an overall score of 8.8 out of 10 and a user satisfaction rate of 98%. It’s a comprehensive suite that includes analytics, social, advertising, targeting, and web experience management. It’s made up of several products, including Adobe Experience Manager and Adobe Campaign, which offer cross-channel campaign management and marketing resource management capabilities.
On the other hand, Microsoft Dynamics 365 Marketing has an overall score of 8.0 out of 10 and a user satisfaction rate of 96%. It’s an integrated solution for marketing operation, planning, execution, and analytics across all channels, whether they’re digital, social, or traditional. It offers marketing resource management, multichannel campaign management, lead management, sales collaboration, social marketing, and marketing analytics. One user pointed out that Microsoft Dynamics 365 Marketing is particularly beneficial for organizations that already use Microsoft products, as it’s excellent for maintaining customer information across the entire organization.
When it comes to pricing, Adobe Marketing Cloud’s pricing information is only available on a quote basis. In contrast, Microsoft Dynamics 365 Marketing starts at $1,200 per month.
Salesforce Marketing Cloud
Adobe Marketing Cloud is a comprehensive suite of products that includes Experience Manager, Adobe Campaign, Adobe Target, and Marketo Engage. It’s primarily used by large enterprises that have complex attribution requirements. Some of its strengths include centralized team collaboration and Adobe Analytics. However, it does have some drawbacks such as a lack of cross-program integration, no API, and it tends to be costlier. For pricing, you would need to contact Adobe’s sales team.
On the other hand, Salesforce Marketing Cloud is a flexible platform that’s ideal for small to mid-sized businesses as well as large enterprises. One of its advantages is that features can be added or deleted to suit specific needs. It also offers a comprehensive and complete CRM, and being one of the most popular CRM solutions means it is easier to find sales reps who already know how to use the software. However, configuration and setup can be difficult and time-consuming, the interface is cluttered and can be hard to navigate, and you need to purchase add-ons to get the most out of the software. For pricing, you would need to contact Salesforce’s sales team.
In terms of user ratings, Adobe Marketing Cloud scored 8.8 out of 10, while Salesforce scored 8.2 out of 10.
Oracle Marketing Cloud
Oracle Marketing Cloud and Adobe Marketing Cloud are both highly-rated platforms used by many businesses for their marketing needs. Adobe Marketing Cloud has a slightly higher rating of 8.5 out of 10, compared to Oracle Marketing Cloud’s 8.2 out of 10.
In terms of features, Adobe Marketing Cloud is known for its content analysis, pathing, and customization. However, it might not be the best fit for smaller engagements. On the other hand, Oracle Marketing Cloud is recognized for its powerful program builders and visual flow editors, which are useful for building, maintaining, optimizing, and evaluating cross-channel customer journeys.
When it comes to pricing, both platforms are considered expensive. Adobe Marketing Cloud is primarily used by large enterprises with complex attribution requirements, while Oracle Eloqua, a part of Oracle Marketing Cloud, has plans starting at $2,000 per month.
In conclusion, Adobe Marketing Cloud is recommended if you have a large budget and/or several clients to take advantage of its all-in-one solutions. Oracle Marketing Cloud, however, is a great tool to manage marketing campaigns of even massive-sized firms.
IBM Watson Marketing
IBM Watson Marketing and Adobe Marketing Cloud are both powerful marketing software solutions. When it comes to overall quality and performance, they are quite close, with IBM Marketing Cloud scoring 8.8 and Adobe Marketing Cloud scoring slightly higher at 8.9.
In terms of user satisfaction, IBM Marketing Cloud has a slight edge with a rating of 99%, compared to Adobe Marketing Cloud’s rating of 98%. However, when considering the total cost of ownership, Adobe Marketing Cloud tends to be more expensive than IBM Watson Marketing.
One of the strengths of IBM Marketing Cloud is its ability to integrate with various systems and applications. It can seamlessly work with Microsoft Dynamic CRM, Microsoft Solutions, Beckon, Shoutlet, and even Adobe Marketing Cloud.
Both platforms are multilingual and support various languages including English, Chinese, German, Hindi, Japanese, Spanish, French, Russian, Italian, Dutch, Portuguese, Polish, Turkish, Swedish, and Arabic.
SAS Customer Intelligence
Adobe Campaign and SAS Customer Intelligence 360 are both highly-rated marketing tools. Adobe Campaign has a slightly higher overall rating of 4.1 out of 5 stars, based on 348 reviews, compared to SAS Customer Intelligence 360’s rating of 3.9 out of 5 stars from 13 reviews.
However, users have found SAS Customer Intelligence 360 to be easier to use and set up, and overall, they found it easier to do business with. On the other hand, Adobe Campaign was preferred for its ease of administration.
When it comes to meeting business needs, reviewers felt that Adobe Campaign was a better fit. However, in terms of ongoing product support and future updates, SAS Customer Intelligence 360 was the preferred choice.
In terms of cost, Adobe Marketing Cloud scored higher than SAS Customer Intelligence, but it was also found to be more expensive to implement.
Use Cases
Adobe Marketing Cloud is a comprehensive suite of marketing tools designed to give marketers the ability to manage, personalize, optimize, and orchestrate cross-channel campaigns. Here are some of its key use cases:
Content Management with Adobe Experience Manager (AEM): AEM is a comprehensive content management solution that allows you to create, manage, and optimize digital customer experiences across different channels, including web, mobile apps, and forms. It combines digital asset management (DAM) and content management in a unified solution, enabling businesses to deliver personalized experiences to their customers.
Campaign Execution with Adobe Campaign: Adobe Campaign provides a platform to design cross-channel customer experiences and automate marketing tasks. It allows you to manage and automate all your email, ads, and campaigns from one place. It also enables you to test use cases to increase conversions and revenue.
Personalization with Adobe Target: Adobe Target is a personalization engine that lets you test and optimize with machine learning across mobile apps and the web. It allows you to deliver personalized content tailored to individual preferences and behaviors, leveraging real-time data and enriched customer profiles.
B2B Marketing with Marketo Engage: Marketo Engage is a complete solution for lead management and B2B marketers looking to transform customer experiences and drive engagement. It offers a suite of powerful tools that revolutionize the way marketers engage with their audience and drive meaningful results.
Audience Retargeting with Adobe Audience Manager: Adobe Audience Manager is a data management platform (DMP) that helps you build unique audience profiles so you can identify your most valuable segments and use them across any digital channel. It allows you to retarget first-party data through a Demand-side Platform (DSP), use partner data to create special offers for current customers and run email marketing with on-site behavioral and current customer data.
Customer Conversion Optimization with Adobe Experience Platform: Adobe Experience Platform (AEP) provides a real-time Customer Data Platform (CDP) that brings together all customer data across the enterprise in real-time. It enables businesses to drive customer conversion optimization, among other use cases.
Companies Using Adobe Marketing Cloud
Infosys Ltd.: Infosys Ltd. uses Adobe Marketing Cloud (AMC) to enhance its digital marketing practices and deliver customer-centric advantages. They enrich the customer’s digital experience through high-quality content creation and focused Digital Marketing. This includes offering a rich user experience and interface designing and utilizing the power of digital asset management (DAM).
AMC features allow Infosys to create a unified and engaging experience across all channels, which helps in building trust and enduring relationships with customers. Infosys leverages AMC to provide a personalized experience that drives new revenue options anytime and on any channel.
Infosys has built successful case studies that leverage AMC. For instance, a Global Life Sciences Major set up and ran a Private Cloud to host a Centralized Digital Marketing platform with AMC-based solutions like AEM, Analytics, and Campaigns to cut cycle time by up to 30%.
As Adobe’s long-term Partner, Infosys can align with Adobe Marketing Cloud to drive sales efficiency and increase brand loyalty. In summary, Infosys leverages the power of technologies in the Adobe Marketing Cloud and its deep solution-focused practices in social, content, mobility, and analytics to deliver marketing and customer-centric advantages.
The North Face: The North Face, a retailer of outdoor products, has been using data insights to make its marketing more relevant. One of the key changes they made was to their customer loyalty program, VIPeak. Instead of rewarding customers based on the amount of money they spent, The North Face started rewarding points based on how often customers participated in events organized by the brand.
In addition to this, The North Face started finding correlations within transactional data. For instance, if a customer bought products A and B, they would try to predict if these customers were likely to buy product C.
Sarah Kleinman, the Vice President of Digital Experience at The North Face, has emphasized the importance of understanding the customers and creating experiences for them. She believes that the success of a brand’s ecosystem is determined by the connectivity of its tools.
Nissan: Nissan uses Adobe Marketing Cloud to build long-term, trusted relationships with customers. They do this by improving their understanding of customers through the analysis of online behavior patterns and building customer profiles. This allows Nissan to create custom digital experiences and marketing messages that appeal to the specific needs of different customers.
Nissan also uses Adobe Marketing Cloud to develop a greater understanding of the sales funnel and to identify what content encourages sales. They use Adobe Analytics to analyze this content and its impact on vehicle sales. This has led to increased conversion rates with optimized content, delivered through Adobe Target and Adobe Campaign. These tools allow Nissan to deliver personalized and targeted communications to each customer through a range of digital channels.
In addition, Nissan has deployed Adobe Marketing Cloud globally as a unified digital marketing platform for the Renault-Nissan Alliance. This helps the company deliver an integrated customer experience and a consistent image across its multiple brands. Nissan also aims to optimize cost efficiency through data analytics and asset management while sustaining their brand image.
By leveraging Adobe Marketing Cloud, Nissan has successfully launched a new platform that encompasses four brands across three organizations in major growth markets including South Africa and India.
Hostelworld: Hostelworld, a leading booking platform for hostels, has been leveraging Adobe Experience Cloud to transform the hostel experience with digital marketing. Their primary aim is to engage a niche audience across global markets and build a brand that delivers personalized customer journeys to next-generation travelers. They also strive to develop a social experience and community for travelers.
One of the key tools they use is Adobe Analytics, which provides detailed insight into how customers use its websites and apps. Through real-time metrics, Hostelworld’s marketing team can learn where customers are coming from and where they’re traveling to, what types of information they’re looking at, and how they’re moving through the marketing funnel.
After starting with Adobe Analytics, the company expanded into Adobe Advertising Cloud for search optimization and Adobe Marketing Cloud with Adobe Campaign for cross-channel campaign management. As a result of using Adobe Experience Cloud, Hostelworld has seen a 500% higher engagement across websites and social platforms, a 20% reduction in cost per booking, and increased marketing productivity with automation. This demonstrates the power of Adobe’s suite of tools in driving effective digital marketing strategies.
Garmin: Garmin, a well-known company for GPS navigation and wearable technology, leverages Adobe Marketing Cloud to enhance its digital marketing strategies. They needed a better approach to their Adobe Experience Manager Assets (DAM) architecture, so they implemented a new AEM author instance to handle assets.
To make their Adobe Campaign workflows more effective, they used Adobe Campaign, a part of Adobe Marketing Cloud. This increased their campaign productivity and delivered a compelling customer experience.
One of the significant benefits was cost-saving. Garmin reduced its Adobe licensing spend, saving over $100,000 in unleveraged or duplicate licenses.
When it came to its marketing strategy in China, Garmin pursued a differentiated approach around social media and in-app messaging with the help of Adobe Marketing Cloud.
Before using Adobe Marketing Cloud, Garmin was not using any dynamic features. With the help of Avionos, they started using dynamic features which saved them an additional $100K in licensing fees.
Adobe Marketing Cloud also helps Garmin conduct A/B testing to discover which creative asset leads to conversion. It provides real-time digital analytics as well.
In essence, Garmin uses Adobe Marketing Cloud to manage digital assets, optimize campaign workflows, save costs, and implement effective marketing strategies, particularly in China.
Telegraph Media Group: Telegraph Media Group uses Adobe Marketing Cloud, specifically Adobe Experience Cloud, to deliver personalized news experiences to its readers. They feed audience information from Adobe Audience Manager into Adobe Target, which allows them to target digital offers and experiences to create a one-on-one engagement with readers. This results in more personalized experiences and higher levels of engagement with businesses.
Adobe Experience Manager plays an important role in their content creation and publication workflow. It enables journalists to publish once and then automatically deliver their stories at scale with consistency across all channels. The use of Adobe Experience Cloud has led to an increase in daily acquisitions for registrations, leading to higher revenue and a better understanding of customers. The Telegraph currently has a goal of 10 million active and engaged registered users.
Adobe Marketing Cloud gives them the tools that help them embrace a diverse digital presence and continue their role as news leaders. In summary, Adobe Marketing Cloud enables Telegraph Media Group to deliver personalized, high-quality news to millions of readers daily, across various digital channels.
UBS: UBS, a leading financial institution, leverages Adobe Marketing Cloud to optimize its marketing impact and improve employee communications. They use Adobe Experience Manager for creating and modifying web pages with ease, meeting their requirements for an intuitive user interface and scalability. This tool also provides the flexibility to display 10 different interfaces on UBS.com, depending on visitors’ locations and needs.
In addition, UBS uses Adobe Analytics to gain insights into users’ online activities and to test which versions or portions of its websites are most successful. Adobe Target is used by UBS to deliver more personalized experiences to its users. For centralized campaign management and email distribution, UBS uses Adobe Campaign.
The public website and corporate intranet of UBS are instrumental to the company’s success. The public website attracts new customers by showcasing UBS’s extensive products and services. On the other hand, the corporate intranet pushes out new information to employees and personalizes the content every employee sees based on their work location, roles, and titles. This approach helps improve the overall site experience and relevance.
London Heathrow Airport: London Heathrow Airport uses Adobe Experience Cloud, which includes Adobe Analytics, Adobe Audience Manager, Adobe Campaign, Adobe Target, and Adobe Sensei, to engage customers with relevant, targeted offers. They collect customer data from various sources such as travel bookings, Wi-Fi logins, and purchases from airport retailers. Using Adobe’s tools, Heathrow can determine the best ways to connect with customers across channels. For example, they use machine learning to automatically personalize the home page. Heathrow promotes products and services before, during, and after travel. They engage customers with targeted offers, which has led to a 60% higher average spend per customer. The use of Adobe Experience Cloud has also improved email click-through rates while improving email open rates. This digital initiative aims to connect with passengers before, during, and after their time at the airport, providing a more integrated, end-to-end experience. The ultimate goal is to provide travelers with the absolute best airport service.
Renault: Renault UK, a national network of automotive dealerships in the United Kingdom, uses Adobe Marketing Cloud to create a more interactive customer experience. They leverage the dynamic media capabilities in Adobe Experience Manager to enhance the visual experience online with multiple views, color swatching, and zoom and hotspot functionality. They also create and deliver engaging video content using Adobe Experience Manager’s video capabilities.
In addition, they provide up-to-date brochure information by leveraging the electronic catalog capabilities of Adobe Experience Manager. The results of using Adobe Marketing Cloud have been significant for Renault. They have reduced costs and accelerated the publishing of timely content using in-house resources. They have created and managed a rich gallery of images supporting alternate product views and 360-degree views.
Furthermore, they have enhanced customer experiences by delivering high-impact online images and videos. They have streamlined the creation and delivery of detailed digital brochures to provide customers with easy access to current information. In summary, Adobe Marketing Cloud has empowered Renault to offer customers much more interactive, enjoyable ways to learn about their products.
Dior: Dior, a multinational luxury fashion house, leverages Adobe Marketing Cloud to manage its customer data. This data is collected from every touchpoint, both online and offline, providing Dior with a comprehensive view of its customers. Adobe Marketing Cloud offers end-to-end digital marketing solutions, which Dior uses to manage, personalize, optimize, and orchestrate cross-channel campaigns. This is particularly beneficial for Dior’s U.S. division, which has expanded its usage by managing and executing its own local-level campaigns.
In addition, Dior has constructed an audience framework using Adobe Marketing Cloud. This framework enables Dior to separately address key male and female audiences and target users with an affinity for high fashion and luxury goods. With its audience sorted, Dior has laid the groundwork for expanding its footprint over time with a content strategy that blends seasonal and evergreen messaging.
In essence, Dior uses Adobe Marketing Cloud to manage customer data, execute marketing campaigns, and construct an audience framework for targeted marketing. This digital strategy has enabled Dior to maintain its popularity and competitiveness in the rapidly evolving luxury fashion industry.
Microsoft: Microsoft and Adobe have formed a strategic partnership to help businesses embrace digital transformation and deliver personalized experiences through every phase of their customer relationships. Microsoft has made Adobe Marketing Cloud its preferred marketing service for Dynamics 365 Enterprise edition. This provides customers with a powerful, comprehensive marketing service for Microsoft’s next generation of intelligent business applications.
In addition, Adobe has made Microsoft Azure its preferred cloud platform for the Adobe Marketing Cloud. Azure provides Adobe with a trusted, global cloud and a powerful data platform for intelligent services, including comprehensive machine learning and cognitive capabilities in Microsoft Cortana Intelligence Suite and SQL Server.
The two companies are also collaborating to create standardized data models for their marketing and business applications. These models leverage artificial intelligence, machine learning, and advanced analytics to enable businesses to create new data-driven sales and marketing capabilities.
With Microsoft setting the data foundation and Adobe providing a comprehensive marketing activation layer, organizations can transition from traditional batch marketing to real-time, precise, and timely event-based marketing. This partnership represents a significant milestone in the evolution of marketing technology, enabling businesses to deliver compelling, personalized customer experiences at scale.
Coca-Cola: Coca-Cola effectively uses Adobe’s suite of marketing tools to enhance its customer engagement and achieve real-time personalization. They use Adobe Experience Cloud for real-time customer data management, which is critical for engaging with billions of Coca-Cola consumers around the globe. This has enabled Coca-Cola to deliver personalized marketing, with a 40% open rate for personalized rewards emails and a 63% uplift in click-through rates.
They have also managed to bring together regional customer data platforms (CDP) from across the world to create a single view that delivers real-time insights into global customers. By standardizing on a central martech platform, Coca-Cola’s marketing teams can create custom campaigns for their region, collaborate, and build upon their global colleagues’ ideas to quickly roll out new campaigns, deliver deeper personalization, and increase engagement across all regions.
In addition to marketing, Coca-Cola also uses Adobe Creative Cloud for all its design needs. Global and local design teams use Adobe Creative Cloud apps to create all of the designs for every Coca-Cola brand. Designers handle every aspect of branding, from logos, websites, and billboards, to bottles, labels, and packaging.
In essence, Coca-Cola leverages Adobe’s marketing and creative tools to deliver personalized experiences to its customers, enhance its global marketing strategies, and handle all aspects of its branding.
Hyatt Hotels: Hyatt Hotels Corporation, a global hospitality company, uses Adobe Marketing Cloud to manage and deliver high-quality content across digital properties, channels, and devices. They store approximately 70,000 approved images from properties worldwide in a centralized location. This allows content creators around the world to use only current, approved content on websites, mobile apps, and third-party travel sites.
By combining Adobe Experience Manager with Adobe Creative Cloud, Hyatt has streamlined the image approval and uploading processes. This enables more authors to efficiently create content for faster website updates and more accurate information.
Hyatt has also leveraged detailed metatags to enable content creators to quickly and easily find the assets they need. They have tested and quantified the impacts of website changes, which have led to increased traffic and revenue.
Currently, Hyatt is working on a beta version of its mobile app to expand cross-channel experiences. By using Adobe Marketing Cloud, Hyatt has been able to support customers throughout their journeys—from dreaming to planning and experiencing—delivering excellent experiences at every step.
Lenovo: Lenovo is leveraging Adobe’s full suite of Experience Cloud products to revolutionize its customer journey and optimize its digital marketing strategy. They use Adobe Advertising Cloud and Audience Manager to discover data about their customers and deliver the perfect marketing message. Tools like Adobe Analytics, Adobe Target, Adobe Social, and Adobe Media Optimizer help Lenovo mine through terabytes of data in real-time and put actionable steps in place to amplify ROI.
Lenovo also set up several tactical proof-of-concepts to demonstrate the power of website testing and optimization. For instance, by moving the PC Finder tool from a pull-down menu to the right-hand margin of the page, they saw a 495% increase in click-throughs. They leveraged Adobe Experience Manager to save $11 million in workflow efficiencies.
Furthermore, Lenovo established a Global Business Intelligence Team to harness and dissect data, turning it into a powerful tool for innovative business. Through these strategies, Lenovo aims to double digital sales in three years. The mission revolves around one important question, “How do we get the customer to be in the center of the journey?”.
T-Mobile: T-Mobile uses Adobe Marketing Cloud, a suite of marketing tools that includes Adobe Analytics, Adobe Target, and Adobe Experience Manager, to support its business strategy as an “un-carrier”. Adobe Analytics helps T-Mobile understand its audience and how they interact with digital properties across segments. Adobe Target is used for testing and targeting capabilities with customer data to increase relevancy and help in personalizing an individual customer experience more quickly and precisely. Adobe Experience Manager (AEM) is used by T-Mobile to deliver personalized digital experiences. It provides a centralized repository for corporate assets that can be used on the T-Mobile and My T-Mobile portals. The new websites delivered with AEM have reduced page load times by about 80 percent, leading to increased page views and adoption. By leveraging Adobe Marketing Cloud, T-Mobile has managed to boost click-through rates for phones by up to 16% and average order values by up to 56%. They also achieved a 34% lift in conversion in the first month alone. This approach has helped T-Mobile jump from last to first place among full-service mobile carriers in JD Power & Associates’ Wireless Customer Care Performance rankings.
Ford: Ford Motor Company has been leveraging Adobe Marketing Cloud to deliver a personalized and human connection, akin to the dealership experience. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Ford expedited its digital transformation to create a truly digital-first approach to vehicle launches, sales, and after-care, with customers’ needs at the center. This approach was tested with the launch of its first all-electric SUV – the Mustang Mach-E – which was completely online. Everything from registering interest to purchasing and vehicle customization was carried out online. With test drives on hiatus, customers were invited to virtual showrooms and provided with in-depth content about the vehicle’s functions and features.
Ford also started offering a true ‘online marketplace’, where customers could buy any kind of goods, products, or services from its e-commerce site, including service plans and car accessories as well as the vehicles themselves. Ford’s ambition is to treat customers like family, and by moving to a digital-first model it was able to do just that. For the business, this means being able to predict the needs of its customers and their vehicles, according to where the customer is in the purchasing or ownership cycle, and personalizing outreach accordingly.
In essence, Ford uses Adobe Marketing Cloud to enhance its digital presence, improve customer engagement, and streamline its sales process. This allows Ford to provide a more personalized and efficient service to its customers.
Travelocity: Travelocity uses Adobe Marketing Cloud, specifically Adobe Analytics and Adobe Campaign, to manage its content delivery system. They had to manage 50 campaigns each week and send 3.5 billion emails annually. To handle this volume, variety, and velocity of content, they migrated to Adobe Analytics and Adobe Campaign.
With Adobe Campaign, Travelocity’s marketing teams can create custom emails and “My Deals” alerts without any coding experience or additional IT support. For instance, instead of creating a custom cruise deals landing page, the Travelocity email marketing team built a custom dynamic landing page in Campaign. Each week, Campaign automatically refreshes deal content and deploys a targeted email that drives to the page. This automation has been a boon to their cruise sales.
This approach has saved the team countless hours while generating significant benefits to their bottom line, by delivering the right content — and a significant volume of content — to the right audience, quickly. In summary, Adobe Marketing Cloud has enabled Travelocity to deliver personalized content to its customers more efficiently and effectively.
The Home Depot: The Home Depot has been leveraging Adobe’s suite of products to enhance its customer experience and omnichannel strategy. They use Adobe’s tools to deliver personalized campaigns, which used to take seven to ten days, but now can be accomplished within 24 hours. The business intelligence team at The Home Depot uses Adobe Analytics and Adobe Audience Manager to unify various groups of data into a singular customer profile.
In addition, The Home Depot has developed a mobile app that improves customer engagement with the store. Customers can input their lists into the app, and once they are in the store, the app guides them to the right aisle and bin number to find their items.
The Home Depot uses a variety of Adobe products, including Photoshop, InDesign, XD, Spark, Adobe Analytics, Adobe Audience Manager, Adobe Customer Journey Analytics, Adobe Real-Time Customer Data Platform, Adobe Sensei, Adobe Target, Adobe Workfront, Adobe Creative Cloud for enterprise, and Adobe Stock.
This approach has positioned The Home Depot as one of the largest e-commerce sites in the world, offering millions of products and achieving significant annual revenue.
Starwood Hotels & Resorts: Starwood Hotels & Resorts utilizes Adobe Marketing Cloud in a variety of ways to bolster its digital marketing initiatives. They use Adobe Analytics to better align with their business needs and to take advantage of the wide range of options that Adobe Analytics offers. This enables them to analyze complex international traffic across their 12 branded, multilingual websites.
In addition, Starwood employs Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium to create a rich, highly tailored experience for each hotel with interactive content that engages customers across a range of media, from online to mobile. This software aids Starwood in creating and delivering high-impact content to attract travelers worldwide.
Adobe Marketing Cloud Activation, powered by dynamic tag management, is another core service that Starwood added to better align its Adobe Analytics implementation with its business needs.
Furthermore, Starwood uses Adobe Marketing Cloud to create a unique online experience and brand message for each of its ten brands. This strategy helps in increasing online bookings, revenues, and customer satisfaction.
By leveraging these tools, Starwood Hotels & Resorts has been successful in driving online reservations and revenues, enhancing the company’s image as a choice provider of accommodations worldwide, and delivering unique, immersive online experiences for each of the company’s ten brands.
Verizon: Verizon uses Adobe Marketing Cloud in a variety of ways to enhance its customer experiences and drive engagement. They use Adobe Analytics and Adobe Target to test and analyze web traffic. To further enhance experiences, Verizon increased its use of Adobe Marketing Cloud solutions by adopting Adobe Experience Manager. This tool allows Verizon to optimize, manage, and deliver assets across desktop and mobile devices to drive customer engagement.
Verizon also deploys video and dynamic media across its sites to help customers reach their goals quickly and easily. This could be finding the right phone or changing their account information. They saw a 16% increase in conversion on product pages featuring video. Using video in the help center has empowered customers and reduced call center traffic.
By dynamically resizing assets, a single master asset can be reused across web pages and devices without extra costs. The file size was reduced by more than 60% on average, decreasing load times on websites. These tools and strategies help Verizon to meet rising consumer expectations and drive innovation in real-time consumer experiences.
Technologies, Languages, and Frameworks Used
Adobe Marketing Cloud is a comprehensive suite of marketing solutions. Here are some of the key technologies, languages, and frameworks used:
Technologies
Adobe Audience Manager: Adobe Audience Manager is a data management platform that helps you build unique audience profiles so you can identify your most valuable segments and use them across any digital channel. It uses both anonymous and known identifiers from first- and third-party sources to build a data management program without third-party cookies. It also uses streaming data to build real-time consumer or account profiles that update automatically while maintaining privacy-ready status.
Adobe Experience Manager: Adobe Experience Manager is a comprehensive content management solution for building websites, mobile apps, and forms. It combines digital asset management and content management into a unified solution for delivering timely, relevant, and personal experiences. It is built on open-source Java and developers can use open-source React and Angular Core components too. It is built using Sling, a Web application framework based on REST principles that provides easy development of content-oriented applications.
Adobe Analytics: Adobe Analytics helps you understand your customers by giving you deep insights into customer behavior. It lets you mix, match, and analyze data from any digital point in the customer journey. With in-depth analysis, versatile reporting, and predictive intelligence, you get the insightful foundation you need to build better customer experiences.
Adobe Target: Adobe Target is a personalization engine that lets you test and optimize with machine learning across mobile apps and the web. It allows you to easily test everything through every channel every time and improve every experience with AI-powered automation and scale.
Adobe Campaign Manager: Adobe Campaign Manager provides a platform to automate and manage all your email, ads, and campaigns. It allows you to take full control of your marketing initiatives by easily segmenting audiences and orchestrating cross-channel marketing campaigns using a drag-and-drop visual workflow canvas.
Languages
While specific languages used in Adobe Marketing Cloud are not explicitly mentioned, Adobe Experience Manager (AEM), a key component of the suite, is known to use a rich Java API.
Frameworks
Adobe Experience Manager exposes a core set of REST APIs directly provided by Apache Sling, an open-source, JCR-based, RESTful Web application framework. In addition, when working with Adobe’s official SDKs, libraries such as UIKit, SystemConfiguration, WebKit, UserNotifications, libsqlite3.0, libc++, and libz are used.