Adobe is a Leader for 7th Year in Gartner Magic Quadrant for Web Content Management

Web Content Management is the foundation of a brand’s digital transformation. Brands who are winning, regardless of industry/B2B/B2C, are those that take advantage of digital to craft new product/services and business models. At the heart of this is a new generation of customer experiences made possible by companies who are able to source the most compelling content, harness meaning from vast pools of data and have powerful tools and machine learning algorithms to deliver personalized experiences in the context of the customer in the moments that matter.

For a 7th year, Adobe is a leader in Gartner’s Magic Quadrant for Web Content Management we believe because of our relentless focus on product innovation, partner ecosystem and the success of companies who have invested in Adobe Experience Manager (AEM).

Over the past year, the demands on web content management have exploded. I’ve quickly seen companies who originally used AEM for their responsive websites now expand their use across mobile and IoT channels, and beyond marketing to other parts of the customer journey where digital experiences have become paramount.

On a personal level, 2017 is also the year I think consumers are feeling the impact of these trends. My parent’s entire irrigation system is connected to the Internet and they can control the water timing from their iPhones. A visit this weekend to a birthday party was orchestrated by an Amazon Echo playing the music and keeping track of a pie in the oven for 15 min. All these screens, voice activations, integrations between digital and physical are seeping into our lives…and the pace is accelerating. A marketing moment, a customer service moment, a sales moment all are blurring. The traditional functional lines defined by organizational structure is being disrupted by the worldview of empowered consumers who see everything as part of relationships that bring greater joy and value, or pain and inconvenience.

Simple to Start Now, Scales to Meet Future Needs
While Adobe continues to innovate AEM as a digital experience platform that can source compelling content from greater sources and serve contextually relevant content to any owned, earned and paid touchpoint, we continue to make foundational experiences such as responsive websites and landing pages simple. The UX and engineering teams continue to push the limits of AEM’s user interface to make it evermore intuitive — an area that Gartner has noted in this latest MQ. A web content management solution is only as valuable as the number of people who are able to use it across business and IT developers. In the last several years we have also introduced the ability to preview and edit on a responsive grid, business user template authoring, initiative UI to define targeted experiences to an audience and core components. These innovations included in our AEM Managed Services offering, paired with customization services offerings by partners and Adobe Global Services, make it highly accessible for companies to get started quickly with AEM and have the confidence in a foundation that will continue to adapt to the growing needs of the business for years and decades.

You don’t want to start with a web content management foundation that is “good enough”. If there is anything this disruptive digital era has shown is that the transformation is accelerating and, in the long-run, most of our estimates on the scale of technology impact is grossly underestimated. As Amara’s law states, “We tend to overestimate the effect of a technology in the short run and underestimate the effect in the long run.”

Engaging Content Fuels Great Experiences
Given Adobe’s heritage, we have a strong culture and appreciation that it takes great content to fuel great experiences. Each time I visit an art gallery or peruse a portfolio on Behance, I am reminded of the powerful nature of content that presents new ideas, invites strong emotions and tells memorable stories. Digital now makes historical and current content much more accessible and engaging. Adobe has invested to ensure AEM is able to source and curate the necessary content across both brand-created assets, such as images and videos through the Adobe Creative Cloud, to user-generated content from social networking sites such as Instagram or Facebook. With content insights, organizations are able to understand the most impactful content to further optimize a content and personalization strategy.

Fluid Experiences, the Modern Answer to Headless CMS
According to Gartner there are 8.4 billion connected things in use worldwide as of 2017. This is up 31 percent from 2016, and will reach 20.4 billion by 2020. Brands are already using AEM as an omnichannel content hub today. For instance, Hyatt uses AEM to manage their loyalty program (World of Hyatt) through central booking engine and combines the traditional workflow of researching hotels with editorial content to augment to traveler’s experience on their digital channels. In this case, AEM provides a flexible way to manage the content for the primary web channel yet supports the ability to push content out to parts of the site that are more customized and less traditional.

We continue to make it easier to use AEM as a content hub for emerging channels and applications including single-page apps. Adobe enables organizations to realize this vision with Fluid Experiences, which supports both developer and marketing/business needs: content that flows and adapts to the interaction context. Investments in content fragments, experience fragments and content services, in addition to the machine-learning framework, Adobe Sensei, make this possible at an even greater scale. This is not your grandfather’s headless content management system that only provides APIs. AEM has always had APIs to deliver content as a service. However, with APIs alone, organizations will quickly face the same IT bottlenecks of the past. Fluid experiences is Adobe’s innovation that gives IT developers and business users the ability to address the goals of headless, in a way that meets the demands across business operations and goals.

Adobe’s investment in web content management is focused on helping companies become leaders in digital transformation, now and well into the future. We’re fortunate that we are in a unique position to do this, not only because of our leadership in web content management, but also our leadership into a family of solutions, as part of the Adobe Experience Cloud. We have received Gartner leadership recognition in other critical components of an Experience Business including Multichannel Campaign Management, Digital Marketing Hubs and Digital Marketing Analytics.

Yes, digital transformation is a journey, not a destination. I’m proud to work with leading companies and partners who have been on the journey with us for over a decade, and to welcome the new companies who have invited us on their journey. The vision is clear, the commitment is strong. Adobe’s leadership in Gartner Magic Quadrants, including this latest one for web content management, only underlines Adobe’s commitment that we will continue to work to make sure all of you continue to be leaders in your respective industries.

I invite you to take a look at the latest Gartner MQ for Web Content Management and understand how Adobe Experience Manager can be the foundation of your digital transformation.

Gartner Magic Quadrant for Web Content Management, Mick MacComascaigh, Jim Murphy, 26 July 2017.

Gartner does not endorse any vendor, product or service depicted in its research publications, and does not advise technology users to select only those vendors with the highest ratings or other designation. Gartner research publications consist of the opinions of Gartner’s research organization and should not be construed as statements of fact. Gartner disclaims all warranties, expressed or implied, with respect to this research, including any warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose.

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from Digital Marketing Blog by Adobe https://blogs.adobe.com/digitalmarketing/customer-experience/adobe-leader-7th-year-gartner-magic-quadrant-web-content-management/

From Trash to Treasure: Paint Marketing Success With Creative Email Design

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from Digital Marketing Blog by Adobe https://blogs.adobe.com/digitalmarketing/digital-marketing/trash-treasure-paint-marketing-success-creative-email-design/

Ranking your local business at Google: part 2 of 8

Advance Your Bot Filtering Powers

Bots have been driving added frustration amongst companies lately, and across more teams. IT puts up with the additional server load, Operations often worries about proprietary data that bots are collecting, and Marketing deals with increased data noise. The good news for marketers using Adobe Analytics is that we have enabled our customers with several options for dealing with this influx of bot traffic that may be significantly affecting data quality. As described in this blog post, our built-in IAB Filtering plus manual bot rules are ideal for staying on top of the most recently identified bots and removing them from your report suites. Unfortunately, bots are advancing quickly and it’s become somewhat of an arms race to get rid of them.

The good news is that we have several powerful features that when combined properly, can help drive the removal of these enemies of data quality. Those features are: Marketing Cloud ID Service, Segmentation, Data Warehouse, Customer Attributes, and Virtual Report Suites.

Now let’s unplug some bots!

1 – Pass your visitors’ Marketing Cloud ID into a new declared ID:

To start, you’ll want to create a new declared ID in the Profiles & Audiences core service. You’ll need to pass your visitor’s Marketing Cloud ID into this new declared ID, which can be done quickly and easily with Adobe DTM. I’ve used the name “MCID” for my declared ID.

Here’s a screenshot of how this ID can be captured via Data Element. Be sure to populated your Adobe MCOrg ID into the Data Element correctly.

returnVisitor.getInstance(“REPLACE_WITH_YOUR_MCORG_ID@AdobeOrg”).getMarketingCloudVisitorID();

Once this Data Element is set up, follow the instructions on this post to pass declared ID’s into the MCID Tool in DTM.

2 – Use segmentation to identify pesky bots

Now that you have your visitor’s MCID passed into a declared ID, it’s time to use segmentation in Analysis Workspace to identify visitors that are acting bot-like. Bots are often defined by their behavior: single access visits, unusual user-agents, unknown device/browser information, no referrers, new visitors, unusual landing pages, etc. Use the powers of Workspace drilldowns and segmentation to identify the bots that have snuck through the IAB filtering and your report suite bot rules. For example, here’s a screenshot of a segment that I am using:

3 – Export all the MCID’s from the segment via Data Warehouse

Now that you’ve identified the bots using segments, the next step is to leverage Data Warehouse to extract all the Marketing Cloud ID’s associated with this segment. Here’s how I set up my Data Warehouse report:

Remember to use Marketing Cloud Visitor ID as your dimension and apply the Bots segment.

4 – Pass this list back to Adobe as a Customer Attribute

Once the Data Warehouse report arrives, you’ll have a list of MCID’s that need to be filtered from historical data. Copy and paste these MCID’s into a blank CSV file with just two columns, MCID and Bot Flag:

Make sure the first column header matches the name you gave to the new declared ID above.

Use this CSV as your Customer Attribute import file, then subscribe your report suite(s) to the Customer Attribute as described in this previously mentioned post.

5 – Create a segment that leverages the new Customer Attribute

Once your data set has been processed and integrated into Analysis Workspace, create one more segment that leverages your new “Bot Flag” customer attribute dimension:

6 – Use this segment as your Virtual Report Suite filter

Finally, you’ll want to create a Virtual Report Suite (or edit one you’re already using) that leverages this segment to filter out the identified bots:

This newly-segmented Virtual Report Suite will now be a significantly cleaner set of data with the identified bots completely removed.

7 – Repeat steps 2, 3, and 4 regularly

I recommend setting at least a monthly reminder to identify and filter new bots, perhaps prior to regularly scheduled analysis.

Enjoy your improved data accuracy! If you have questions, comments, or ideas, don’t hesitate to reach out via the Adobe Analytics Community Forum.

The post Advance Your Bot Filtering Powers appeared first on Digital Marketing Blog by Adobe.

from Digital Marketing Blog by Adobe https://blogs.adobe.com/digitalmarketing/analytics/advance-bot-filtering-powers/

4 Test Ideas That Tap into the Concept of Relative Value

What if you could predict how your customers were likely to respond to a specific offer? The book Predictably Irrational by behavioral economist Dan Ariely examines the forces that cause people to behave in ways that seem irrational, but are oddly predictable. I recently discussed one of the concepts presented in the book—relative value—with my colleague in digital optimization consulting, Ivy Portwood.

Ivy has a wealth of experience and knowledge from working closely with Adobe Target customers every day. She shared some thoughts about tests and experiences that apply this concept that I wanted to capture for you. I hope these ideas inspire you to come up your own activities to run in Adobe Target, the optimization and personalization solution of the Adobe Experience Cloud.

But first—what exactly is the concept of relative value?

Relative value explained
As a consumer you’re always weighing your options when considering spending your hard-earned cash. You might do that methodically or through gut feel. Relative value plays more into that latter approach—when one option just feels like the best deal compared to the others. For example, let’s say you have a $1 off coupon for a $3.50 ice cream cone. Will you use the coupon? Highly likely. But what about a $1 coupon for a $2000 refrigerator? Even a $45 shirt? Will you use the coupon then? Probably not. A $1 off coupon for an ice cream feels more valuable.

At what point does the perceived value of a discount relative to the item cost entice you to purchase? Similarly, how does the perceived value of an item relative to other options make it feel more valuable? How can you play around with this idea in your testing and experience targeting?

Here are just a few ideas Ivy and I discussed (note that pages of sites shown may have changed since this was posted or may appear differently for you):

Test idea 1: Test different discounts and discount methods
If you’re like most consumers, you expect a discount when you shop online for the first time with a company—sign up for a newsletter and get 20% off, free shipping with an order over $50, $10 off your next purchase, and so on. But how can you discover the sweet spot for the discount relative to the price of your item or the total purchase amount?

Research what others are doing, but don’t just blindly follow; consider your brand and what differentiates it. Then determine what approach makes the most sense and test to find out. Don’t just vary discount amounts, vary the language you use in the offers. Try different combinations of perks, too, like testing a discount of 20% off plus free shipping, as the example below shows.

After running your test, remember to consider your results in the context of business goals. Making money is often a main goal, but many companies have other goals—like cost savings. For example, a company may try to shift typically more expensive interactions with customer service representatives on the phone to online self-service. Measure success by how a test or targeting activity contributes to your organization’s specific KPIs, which may be a combination of revenue, units sold, social media goodwill, and customer experience.

Once you’ve zeroed in on the sweet spot for a particular discount method—percent off, cash off, or free shipping—test those winners to see which discount method works best. Take it further by analyzing the characteristics of visitors who respond best to a specific discount method so you can target the right method to the right audience.

Not in retail? The root concept is the same. Credit card companies offer perks like 0% APR on transfers of funds, no annual fee, and miles or cash back. Media and entertainment companies offer various plans, including paying up front for a year for a discount or covering family and friends. All types of companies give discounts for paperless billing, signing up for auto pay, or using self-service features.

Testing allows the customer to tell you through their clicks and purchases what feels most valuable to them.

Test idea 2: Test how you display the offer
How you display the offer can impact its perceived value. The travel and hospitality industry has played around with this a lot—from slash-through pricing of the original price (see the image below), a discount % banner, comparisons to prices on other sites, reviews of the hotel and ratings, and a browse mode with a “View Price” or “View Deal” call to action (CTA).

Another example? The New York Times offers three subscription options (shown below)—two are digital only, and one is digital with print. Do any of the elements that differ across options influence you, for example, their order, background color, or size of the rectangular box around the offer? Think about where your eye travels along the page. Many retailers consider the fact that we read from left to right, so display options horizontally. The New York Times recommends the middle offer as the “best value.” Are you convinced that it is? Why or why not?

Looking at the DIRECTV screenshot below, what might they do to their packages page to steer you toward a specific package?

Test idea 3: Test offering fewer choices (in rare cases, adding one or two more)
Looking at the Delta Airlines screenshot that follows, you can see the company’s relatively new Basic Economy ticket. This ticket is a step below its “Main Cabin” economy ticket in perks, but also price. Providing another choice may attract customers who might not otherwise purchase a ticket, but it’s worth testing to discover the right number of options. Too few and you miss opportunities, but too many and customers experience the paradox of choice—they have difficulty identifying the option that feels most valuable.

Ideally, the more a customer browses a site and indicates his or her preferences, the more you can personalize and narrow down to the options that truly resonate. If you offer health insurance plans or financial investments, how might you use this idea to help potential customers feel confident in their choices.

Test idea 4: Test payment methods
As you can see in the top right of the previous Delta screenshot, Delta also lets its customers purchase with cash, miles (loyalty points), or a combination of miles and cash. Put yourself in the mindset of the customer (after all, we’re all consumers): Would you be more willing to commit to a purchase when you use loyalty points rather than all out-of-pocket cash? And if you’ve invested in accumulating loyalty points, would you be more apt to stick with the Delta brand?

Use your individual experience to practically guide you in forming hypotheses for what might work on your site, but then test to validate. By the way, you could apply this test idea to almost any industry with a loyalty program—retail, telco, technology companies, media and entertainment, and even wholesale distributors.

Get out there and test and target
I hope this has you thinking about additional A/B tests and targeting activities you can run in Adobe Target that use the concept of relative value. By the way, Predictably Irrational is a fascinating, fun read that could trigger some new, creative test ideas. It’s available as an audio book, so I recommend just listening to it on your commute in to work. Just as we think we know how our visitors will behave online, we think we know how we’ll behave in a given situation. You’ll often be surprised to discover that the data says otherwise.

The post 4 Test Ideas That Tap into the Concept of Relative Value appeared first on Digital Marketing Blog by Adobe.

from Digital Marketing Blog by Adobe https://blogs.adobe.com/digitalmarketing/personalization/4-test-ideas-tap-concept-relative-value/

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