Adobe Target Updated for More Visual Website + App Testing

By Anthony Myers (@xanthonysfx)   Sep 11, 2013   

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Adobe Target, the company's testing and segmentation tool, is ready for a major update as Adobe pushes forward with its digital marketing tools, and the added features include things like a more visual approach to A/B testing.

Guided Testing + Visual Composing

Organizations are always searching online for the tools they need to run their businesses, and websites that are fine tuned to capture these information seekers have a better chance of landing actual customers.
Whether bringing in new customers or working to keep existing customers, companies are increasingly turning to more sophisticated websites that have the ability to display more relevant and personal content to their visitors.
Naturally, Adobe hopes to become the go to company to help provide this kind of capability, and while it continues to integrate campaign management features from the Neolane acquisition, it's now ready to upgrade another part of its Marketing Cloud.

For things like A/B and multivariate testing, Adobe Target is now set up to be a more visual tool, and its personalization and optimization capabilities are meant to help companies create more dynamic websites, emails and mobile apps.
Updated targeting workflows like helping companies specify which types of audience to address is a big part of what Target is all about. Creating new tests with very defined goals is another way Target is meant to guide marketers toward aligning marketing and business goals.
Beginning and managing tests from a mobile device is another addition to Target, and all of its capabilities are integrated with the rest of the Marketing Cloud.
Pre defined audience sets can be selected, and appropriate experiences applied to each one.
Once the type of audience that will see the test is selected, the actual types of experience can be created. Defining an experience is done by changing various webpage elements by switching images, editing HTML and CSS code and more. Page elements can be changed altogether, and there are no limits to the number of tests that can be created.
Companies that use A/B testing are simply making more money from their digital properties, and those that test aggressively are seeing the most gains, Kevin Lindsay, director of product marketing at Adobe said in an interview.
"Companies in retail, travel, financial; everyone is transforming their digital strategy," he said.
"Web redesigns and building apps takes time to pay off, and Target helps shorten that time span."
Custom Audiences, Reports + the Marketing Cloud
As the above image shows, customizable visitor segments or pre defined audiences can be selected from a data feed, and stored in what is called the audience library. When a test is created, the parameters of what is being measured are set, and then the groups that need to be targeted selected from the library.
The level of detail here is pretty impressive because the segments can be associated with an activity or experience, and they can also be imported from Adobe Analytics, CRMs or other third party systems. The segments can be saved and even shared to other people within the Marketing Cloud.
Having this level of granularity will allow detailed tests to be run on many different audience targets, and that is clearly what Adobe hopes its customers will do. That way, when a winning formula is found, it can be repeated, and customers may be able to gain more customers or simply see more conversions.
All that testing no doubt needs to be analysed, and Target does provide interactive reporting. Real time results can be viewed on a mobile device, and filters are provided to drill down to whatever level is needed.
Adobe's Marketing Cloud interface now has single sign in for all apps, and allows teams to share reports and centrally manage user permissions and roles.
The updates will go live on September 27, and there are some pricing changes as well. It will be a flat fee based on things like page views instead of metered pricing, Lindsay said. Existing customers won't be forced to upgrade, but it is available to them, and there are currently around 80 companies using a beta of the Target update.
For those customers that do want to upgrade, the pricing change will be negligible, Lindsay said. Adobe doesn't give out pricing details publicly, but Target deals are in the US$ 30,000 to high six figure range, Lindsay said. That would put new customers at right around US$ 2,500 per month to start.
That price would go up for websites that have large traffic volumes, but it sounds like it could be worth it if it allows organizations to provide hyper relevant content to website and app visitors.

Neelu
PGDM 3rd