Adobe Expands Voice Capabilities in Adobe Experience Cloud

These days, marketers have good reason to feel a little paranoid. With so many different ways to reach consumers, brands fear missing the boat on the next major trend — as some did when smartphones suddenly became ubiquitous. Look around these days, and it is becoming clear which next big trend is taking hold: people are speaking to their devices a lot more. A new Adobe survey of over 1,000 U.S. consumers showed that 76 percent of smart speaker owners increased their use of voice assistants in the last year.

Adobe can help brands capture this opportunity. Adobe Experience Cloud provides the tools to deliver compelling, consistent and continuous experiences, and we were first to introduce voice analytics for brands to better understand how customers engage using voice-activated devices. Adobe customers including ESPN, CVS Health, MetLife, Marriott Hotels, PGA Golf, Newsquest (UK), and others are all thinking about the experiences they deliver on voice as it relates to other channels, and we have begun to work with them here. Today, we are expanding voice capabilities across Adobe Experience Cloud to further advance the customer experience.

Advanced voice data analysis

Attribution IQ within Adobe Analytics will now be expanded to include voice. Marketers know the critical nature of attribution in driving strategy and securing resources. This process has long been done with blinders on however, with a focus on first-touch (i.e. a brand’s website) and last-touch (i.e. cart purchase) attribution. Everything in-between is cut out, such as social media. With Attribution IQ for voice, voice interactions on any device can now be given fair credit. A hotel chain for instance, can now show how research on an Alexa skill and use of Amazon Echo devices in-room helps drive overall conversion and loyalty — increasingly more important when you consider that 16 percent of consumers now report using a voice assistant for hotel and flight research (Adobe survey).

Key Adobe Analytics capabilities are also being expanded to cover voice as well, to give brands deeper, more actionable insights, and going beyond vanity metrics. Voice data can be leveraged in flow analysis, mapping voice against other channels and identifying where consumers fall out. Contribution analysis, powered by Adobe Sensei, Adobe’s AI and machine learning framework, can now help identify contributing factors behind anomalies such as user drop-off or a sales surge. Lastly, Segment IQ (powered by Adobe Sensei) will use voice data to better formulate target segments — an especially critical effort for engaging younger groups of users who tend to use voice more. Adobe’s survey showed that 40 percent of those between 18 and 34 own a smart speaker.

Better voice content

Many of world’s largest brands manage their content with Adobe Experience Manager. Brands are able to create one piece of content or customer experience and quickly deploy it on any channel. Called fluid experiences within Experience Manager, capabilities now extend to emerging channels including voice. Marketers have the agility to roll out fresh content to voice activated devices, preventing duplication and experiences from being disconnected. A retail customer for example, who begins their shopping experience on the desktop, will get the same updated product details, promotions and blog content when they engage the brand on a voice interface like an Amazon Echo or via their smartphones. This seamless cross-device experience in retail is increasingly important as we see more consumers initiating the shopping journey through voice assistants, with 47 percent conducting product research, 43 percent creating shopping lists, and 32 percent doing price comparison (Adobe survey).

Enhanced personalization

Marketers that capture voice data with Adobe Analytics have more insights now around how customers engage with the brand, especially when you consider that 71 percent of smart speaker owners report using them at least daily, with 44 percent using multiple times a day (Adobe survey). While the data itself is aggregated and anonymous, it does provide rich signals into preferences and behaviors—much of which can inform how brands engage elsewhere. In Adobe Target, the personalization engine in Adobe Experience Cloud, we are delivering new capabilities that leverage voice insights to drive more personalization on other channels like desktop web and mobile. Take a travel company for instance, who sees a segment of voice users doing research on Iceland trips in the winter. With Adobe Target, they can leverage this insight to promote more Iceland-related content and promotions across the website and mobile app.

For all the tools you need to deliver great voice experiences to your customers, see what Adobe Experience Cloud has to offer.