Profile Management in Adobe Marketing Cloud: Where It All Comes Together

We often hear about today’s changing consumers and the challenges they present to marketers. This is only half true. Take a step back and it’s clear that consumer expectations haven’t changed much, even over centuries_._ No matter the time, place, or specific need, consumers want meaningful, relevant experiences—this could be from a website in 2014, or a local merchant 100 years ago. It’s still the same core expectation, but there’s an added layer to today’s needs: marketers now must navigate the diverse and fragmented technology landscape to deliver experiences across a host of devices and platforms. One hundred years ago there was one channel—seems pretty simple in comparison.

Knowing the consumer is the central piece of effective interaction. Simple enough, right? What if I said you have to know whether the consumer is authenticated or anonymous? Not so easy now. But that’s what consumers want or, more accurately, demand_._ Seven in 10 consumers expect personalization on websites they frequent, and more than half say they buy more when a brand successfully integrates cross-channel relevance. This even holds true for advertising—nearly half agree that “advertising tailored to my needs is helpful” because it enables them to find what they’re looking for quickly. This, understandably, can prove a major stumbling block for organizations and, not surprisingly, this challenge grows exponentially when those consistent, relevant experiences are needed across multiple channels. Another hurdle? Marketing data often exists in a siloed state, despite the ongoing demand for omnichannel brand messaging.

Recently I touched on Adobe Marketing Cloud’s platform and core services, which were designed to provide a technology foundation along with complementary services—and as a unified force can do the heavy lifting that comes with breaking down these silos. From these user-friendly platforms and interactive extensions, marketers can efficiently and effectively engineer, test, and optimize these relevant consumer journeys, and generate immediate, measurable, sellable results for their team and their organization as a whole.

Profiles and audiences—one of these critical core services—is often the starting point for marketers within Adobe Marketing Cloud. And it’s been getting a lot of buzz lately. Here are the basics: Adobe Marketing Cloud sets up and manages one shared visitor ID, which can be utilized across Adobe solutions— Analytics and Target today and, soon to come, Social, Experience Manager, Campaign, and Media Optimizer.

But it’s much more than that. The ability to set an Adobe Marketing Cloud-wide shared visitorID is one thing (and certainly not trivial), but the real magic is in the second piece of this core service: these shared IDs cull from and inform cross-solution activity and, out of these ever-evolving profiles, marketers can create and share audiences or unique segments across Adobe Marketing Cloud. Very simply, one visitorID “works” across all integrated solutions. The data can then be used to target at the individual or audience level, no matter what platform, device, or channel the consumer winds up on. This core service can even flag desired experiences and pull them cross-channel and cross-platform, on virtually any device, integrating new, real-time metrics and engagement points along the way. It’s that all-important relevance, whether the consumer is known or not. And—bonus—it couldn’t be simpler or more user friendly.

Think about what I said earlier—seven in 10 consumers expect personalized experiences from your brand, and they’re willing to reward brands that comply with loyalty, conversion, and increased engagement. Individually, many of the Adobe solutions enable organizations to create those relevant experiences, but marketers need to focus on pushing the envelope, since the relevance stakes are so high. Profiles and audiences is that next step.

The success of your branded experiences and touchpoints—your website, apps, email marketing, social media, and much more—rests almost entirely on your ability to deliver high-level relevant connections. And that task is deeply rooted in profile management, including your organization’s ability to collect, connect, and leverage consumer patterns, behaviors, preferences, and demographics in real-time. Profiles and audiences is the game changer—it’s the “home” for everything a brand knows about me, along with my unmistakable fingerprint that signals to the solutions I’ve arrived and what to connect me with now that I’m here.

If you’re interested in taking advantage of the profiles and audiences core service, please contact your account manager, or make a provisioning request here.