Adobe Analytics Sneaks: A Must-See Look Into the Future of Analytics

Here at Adobe, we love to hear our customers’ reactitons to product-innovation ideas. This year’s experimental Adobe Analytics session titled “Too Hot for Main Stage: Peek Inside the Future of Adobe Analytics” was a great opportunity for us to discover which product features organizations would benefit the most from.

To accomplish this, we decided to hold a mini primary election at Summit for six “candidates.” The candidates (product-innovation ideas) were represented by research scientists, engineers, and product managers. Once the presentations were given, the audience voted on the most valuable features in the group.

These features are ideas we could build but are not necessarily on the roadmap. The intent of showing these features was to gauge the business value of each so that we continue to deliver the capabilities you need most to achieve success.

Here’s a review of the six features presented at this year’s event.

1. Auto Segmentation

Analytics gives us the ability to segment data and run analysis on different visitor types. Sounds easy enough, but if you’re the one asked to manage and create these segments, then you already know the process can be a bit overwhelming. There are literally thousands of metrics, dimensions, and dimension values to choose from when creating a segment.

Enter Auto Segmentation: a program that automatically groups people based on common behaviors. You can start with all of your visitors and then review the auto-segmentation results screen to view detailed, segmented highlights; this allows marketers to differentiate between high-value, window-shopping, and bouncing customers. Segments are found automatically and can be shared with Adobe Audience Manager as well as other places in the Marketing Cloud.
2. Activity Map

Activity Map lets users display a variety of Adobe Analytics metrics to determine which content should be prioritized on your website — and which content is doing little to convert. The time-spent-onsite metric, featured in Activity Map, details the elements that are producing the longest time onsite, so users can determine which elements should be displayed in the most prominent website locations. Thankfully, all other metrics are available, including conversion rate, clicks, unique visitors, revenue, and custom-built metrics.

Activity Map Live Mode allows users to track website traffic down to the minute. This feature is perfect for analyzing the effects that other marketing channels — such as currently running television commercials — are having on related web properties in real time. Activity Map helps enterprises understand how different audiences engage with their online content.

3. Customer Journey

Visualizations of funnel fallout exist today, but users rarely know what’s happening once visitors leave the funnel. So, what if users could identify key customer journeys within the funnel?

That’s exactly what Customer Journey is all about. With Customer Journey, users can see who drops out of the funnel midstream and who makes it through to a touchpoint such as a mobile-apps page. Customer Journey also helps marketers get people who fell out of the funnel to jump back in via indicators, directing marketers to the channels that would benefit most from future marketing efforts.

4. Content IQ

Producing unique and engaging content with the right wording and tone is a difficult task, especially when targeting specific audiences with nuanced tastes and interests.

This is why we’ve come up with Content IQ: a powerful content- and audience-exploration tool. Content IQ knows your segments and analytics, and it’s able to help you produce ideas designed to engage your target audiences by grabbing content off your own site and processing it to determine which content resonates with audiences and which content is yesterday’s news.

Content IQ doesn’t just recommend articles to influence your next big piece; it also gives users insight into expected article performance when using certain keywords. Another great feature is Average Lifespan Estimation, which reveals how long users can expect their articles to be popular with their audiences.

5. Classifications Reimagined

Classifications Reimagined simplifies the management of classification sets, allowing users to upload metadata once and apply data to any number of reports or leads users require. Classifications also make it easier to upload large amounts of metadata, and auto-identify the relevant metadata classifications that are most important, while speeding up the traditionally arduous task of importing data from beginning to end.

6. Virtual Analyst

Imagine receiving notifications across any device informing you when there’s been a sudden change in data. Such notifications wouldn’t be the result of an alert you’ve set but would be based on what Virtual Analyst has learned about your tastes, behaviors, and preferences.

Virtual Analyst not only notifies users of significant data changes, but also prepares an analysis workspace detailing data changes based on the metrics you care about. Virtual Analyst is your virtual intern, working overtime to save you a significant amount of time and money.

Who Won Our Primary?

So, you want to know who was the big winner? Auto Segmentation took home the gold during this year’s “Too Hot for Main Stage” primary, but that doesn’t mean other programs featured by Adobe Analytics won’t be making a debut in the future.

At Adobe Analytics, focusing on developing new features that will increase revenue for your business, and/or significantly cut costs, is what drives us. The discussions you are willing to have with us have helped Adobe Analytics rank consistently as the best analytics tool in the world. Thank you very much for helping make that happen.