A range of updates to Adobe‘s Marketing Cloud announced this morning aim to add mobile devices and mobile data to the marketer’s toolbox by integrating in-app mobile messaging, location-based audience profiles and beacon-triggered push notifications.
“Every time a consumer launches a mobile app with one of our key brands, we’re collecting data about their engagement,” said Ray Pun, strategic marketing manager at Adobe, in a press demo on Monday. All that interaction adds up to about 2.5 trillion data points each year. The new features are designed to help marketers make use of their mobile data to drive more effective and personalized direct messaging.
“We’re really driving a tremendous amount of value for customers as they make a shift from a digital marketing world that was focused on PCs and desktop to a world where many of our clients have over 50% of their traffic coming from mobile,” Pun said.
A big focus of the updates is on integrating mobile beacon technology. Adobe’s survey data suggests 18% of U.S. marketers are already using beacons, and that percentage will double in 2015. Major retailers like HBC and Macy’s have begun large-scale testing of beacon messaging at their big-box retail locations, and others are sure to follow.
Updates to Adobe Campaign intend to simplify the process of creating in-app messages that trigger with certain user behaviours, such as when a user comes in close proximity to a beacon inside a store. Using templates and a simple graphic interface, marketers can build mobile campaigns that notify users of promotions or give more info about products when they’re nearby, either with offline push notifications or less intrusive in-app messages (which only trigger if the user is already running the app).
“What we’re saying here is, instead of spamming users with these messages, use intelligence about their behaviour, time of day, or location,” Pun said. “Use that intelligence to trigger messages when they make sense, so that the user receives highly relevant, engaging communication, and is more likely to read your message and receive your offer.”
Changes to Adobe Target also make it possible to build, test and share audience segments based on a wide range of mobile data, including location and beacon data. That lets marketers target their CRM campaigns at users who have recently used their app, or who’ve spent a lot of the time at their store.
With advanced app usage analytics, marketers can gauge how shoppers reacted to in-app messages or location-targeted emails they’ve received, and optimize their creative messaging for better ROI.
Other updates included a mobile app for Adobe’s social media management tools, so real-time marketers can access social analytics and scheduling wherever they are, as well as responsive email design, to ensure that CRM email campaigns designed with Marketing Cloud are fully readable and optimized for mobile users.
