The business impact of Adobe’s connected advertising solution

Today’s digital consumers are more empowered than ever. They demand meaningful engagements from brands, value, and above all, connection. These demands have clear impacts on the consumer decision-making process, further stressing the importance of a cohesive and personalized customer experience.

Despite this, a majority of brands (over 50 percent, according to a 2019 Forrester Consulting survey) have not created a holistic view of their customers and as a result are unable to reach them on a personalized level. This failure results in inconsistency and disruption of the customer’s experience as well as inefficiency within the company’s internal operations.

Cohesion is also vital to the experience of the consumer and in order to deliver a cohesive experience, companies need tightly integrated technology solutions. Forrester Consulting found in 2019 only 7 percent of brands surveyed had implemented DSP, DMP and customer analytics tools from a single vendor, yet the prospect of future implementation was expected to rise to 40 percent within the next 36 months.

To explore the value of connected advertising with Adobe, where brands combine Adobe Advertising Cloud, Adobe Analytics and Audience Manager, we commissioned Forrester Consulting to conduct a study titled, The Total Economic Impact Of Adobe Advertising Cloud, Adobe Analytics, And Adobe Audience Manager.

The goal of the research was to better understand our connected advertising customer needs and challenges, so that we can develop an even more cohesive solution. From the research it is clear that traditional models of siloed channel and tactic management fall short when it comes to meeting the needs of the modern consumer. The research also points to increased investment industry-wide in creating a more cohesive, omnichannel approach to marketing.

The transition to Adobe connected advertising

Forrester explored the pain points of five organizations who adopted Adobe connected advertising. These organizations previously used various point solutions to plan, execute, optimize and measure cross-channel advertising campaigns. The limited features and lack of integration among these point solutions negatively impacted the ability of these organizations to execute their resources effectively.

For these organizations, the lack of a holistic view of the customer meant there were missed opportunities across channels and the organizations were limited in their ability to precisely target prospects and optimize their digital marketing. This meant a great deal of time and money was exhausted through ineffective digital advertising spend and operational and workflow inefficiencies.

Profit growth

With Adobe connected advertising, organizations saw better performance across the customer lifecycle—with staggering results. A clear indicator of the benefits of the integrated system that allows organizations to finetune and maximize their marketing and advertising efforts: A total profit growth of $13.4 million was seen.

• $2.8 million from increased site traffic
• $6.6 million from increased conversion rate
• $2.4 million from an increase in average order value
• $1.6 million from more effective upselling

“We now have everything tied together and a single unified view of the customer, enabling us to build better audiences. We can utilize segmentation and personalization across all channels and all platforms,” shared one participant of the study.

Savings

The inefficiencies around multiple solutions had a significant impact on budget allocation. Using Adobe Connected Advertising, companies saw a cost savings of $6.2 million from reduced ineffective digital advertising spend as a result of better audience development and segmentation.

• Cost savings of $6.2 million from reduced ineffective digital advertising spend
• Cost savings of $2 million from sunsetting legacy technologies
• Marketing and IT internal labor savings of $1.4 million

Unquantified benefits

Other benefits of Adobe connected advertising are more abstract and difficult to measure, yet just as impactful. Through a unified view of the customer, companies benefit from improved targeting of qualified, more engaged and deeply informed audiences and leads. This is achieved through campaign optimization, personalization and segmentation across all channels and platforms.

Brands are aware of the meaning and value customers are seeking made possible through a personalized and cohesive cross-channel experience. One study participant made it clear this was a driving force behind their organization adopting an integrated solution when they said: “Our goal was to create personalized journeys at scale.”

Click here to get the full Forrester Consulting report commissioned by Adobe.