As a follow-up to a previous article that described four KBWEB Consult focus areas for 2021, this article will explore the third focus area, supporting integration with other Adobe Experience Cloud products. Specifically, it will discuss how Adobe Target overcomes the limitations of isolated testing, and personalize testing for every visitor to every channel.

The marketing challenges that Adobe Target solves

Adobe Target addresses three key marketing challenges.

One challenge that marketers face is the need for personalization. Savvy customers access a firm’s marketing via multiple methods—and have high expectations. If your firm is providing the same static message on all marketing channels, customers will not respond. In other words, one size doesn’t fit all.

Adobe Target provides marketers with the necessary tools to accomplish omnichannel personalization, in which each customer can receive a targeted message regardless of the marketing channel the customer uses.

A second challenge faced by marketers is the need for testing its messaging. Many marketers are familiar with the concept of A/B testing, in which a marketer tests two versions of a message to determine which version yields the best results.

Adobe Target includes a visual experience composer that supports A/B testing of a message through multiple channels including web, mobile, IoT, and single-page apps. But Adobe Target’s visual experience composer also provides an easy-to-use way to support multivariate testing, in which multiple elements such as image, layout, background color, and copy can be tested in any combination.

A/B and multivariate testing have a cost, however. While your firm is still in the midst of running an A/B or multivariate test, some customers are being redirected to a less successful marketing message until the test is complete. For firms who want to optimize their messaging quickly, Adobe Target also supports multi-armed bandit testing, in which customers are automatically allocated to the most successful marketing method, accelerating a firm’s return on investment (ROI).

A third marketer challenge is the large amount of decision-making when supporting marketing message needs. Marketers need to support personalization, testing, and optimization all at once, at the same time that customer preferences may be changing. As your firm’s business continues to grow, it becomes harder and harder for your marketing organization to keep track of changes to all of the channels and all of the variables.

Adobe Target doesn’t require marketers to support all of these decisions manually. Adobe Target incorporates artificial intelligence and machine learning capabilities, powered by Adobe Sensei. A marketer can easily automate testing, personalization, and product recommendations.

All three of these marketing challenges are expertly met by Adobe Target, allowing a marketer to customize each end user’s experience and increase ROI.

The technical challenges of implementing and integrating Adobe Target with Adobe Experience Manager

For Adobe Target to positively impact your Adobe Experience Manager (AEM) implementation, marketers need to turn to technical specialists to implement and integrate Adobe Target with AEM.

The first step to integrate Adobe Target into an existing AEM implementation is to integrate Experience Platform Launch and AEM. Once this is done, a technical specialist can use Experience Platform Launch to enable Adobe Target within your AEM web site. This allows Target calls to be loaded properly.

From this point, the technical specialist has three options on how to integrate Adobe Target and AEM.

• One scenario is to use Visual Experience Composer to personalize part of a web page.
• Another scenario is to use AEM Experience Fragment Offers for personalization.
• A third scenario is to redirect site pages to personalize a full web page Experience.

Which scenario is best for your firm? The decision on which option to pursue depends upon a number of technical and business factors, including the knowledge of the technical specialist and the needs of the firm and its marketers.

If a firm decides to engage a technical consultant to assist with an Adobe Target implementation, the firm should engage a consultant who understands what is necessary to successfully complete an implementation project, the key roles that are required for a successful implementation project, and the best ways to take advantage of Adobe technologies such as reusable Experience Fragments.

KBWEB Consult is an experienced Adobe Experience Cloud consulting firm, with expertise in AEM, Adobe Target, and related technologies, and a proven track record of implementations for multiple firms.

If you need to improve your marketing, personalize your communications to your customers, and automate your processes for better ROI, please contact us and request a free consultation.

---