My Adobe Solutions are Working… I Think?

It has been a while since Adobe Summit, but something has stuck with me and I wanted to reach out to those looking at getting started with Adobe solutions.

I had a great time at Adobe Summit this year. I spoke with customers, learned about some cool new things coming out, reconnected with old friends, and tried to solve every challenge that came my way.

Of all the things that stood out to me was one customer who was confused about their Analytics implementation. They were struggling with it and felt it was incomplete, but, at the same time, every check they did said it was working. After sitting down with them we headed down the wrong path a few times while we got aligned on terminology. Once we got aligned I realized two things:

1. Yes, Analytics, Launch, and Target were all implemented on the site correctly
2. They were blank! No props, no eVars, no events, no data elements in Launch — nothing.

I was shocked. The libraries were loading on the page but weren’t doing anything because nothing had been configured in Launch other than to record a page view.

I spent a few minutes explaining what should be there and what a data layer was but left them with contact info for someone who handles our Launch Foundation Services (LFS) offered by Adobe Customer Solutions group. LFS is meant to help customers 1) successfully implement our solutions, and 2) make sure they are on a path to business value. Without the second, the first is irrelevant.

In the case above, our customer had correctly implemented each solution and integrated them properly but the solutions weren’t adding any business value because they weren’t capturing any business-related data. Regardless of who is doing the implementation, you should be asking them questions to ensure this from the very beginning.

For Analytics, it would be things like:

“Will I be able to measure abc?”

“Can we segment our traffic by xyz?”

“Can I tell if visitors viewed this section of my site or product?”

For Target it might be, “Can we personalize the site for a specific segment or Analytics event?”

For those of us who are helping the customer, make sure you are asking the questions they should be asking you. It isn’t enough to follow the instructions on how to put the pipes in place, we have to make sure those pipes are being put in the right place, that water is flowing through them, hot and cold water is hooked up properly, etc.

The bottom line is until you can derive business value, you aren’t done. And even when you can, it is only the beginning. Deriving business value is a journey that is ever-evolving, just as your business evolves.

If you would like more info about our LFS program reach out to Jae Lee, head of LFS Consulting, at _<Jaelee@adobe.com_>.