In its latest round of updates, Adobe Systems Inc. is adding yet another slate of new features to its Adobe Marketing Cloud – this time, building out its mobile services for Adobe Analytics and Adobe Target.
For marketers who want to boost their mobile profile, Adobe’s mobile services feature allows them to use a new user interface, geo-location targeting, analytics, and optimization. It also gives them access to a new software development kit, allowing them to build on top of their app.
The geo-location targeting allows marketers to home in on mobile app users based on their GPS locations. For example, if a user is near a store, sporting event, or concert venue, a marketer will be able to tailor their app to give a user a more personalized experience when he or she is in the app on a mobile device.
The new features also allow for better analytics, allowing marketers to get a better sense of where their apps are being used, and how they’re being used. Through data visualizations and a user interface focusing on the app, it’s also helpful for marketers who want to quickly gauge how they’re doing with their key performance indicators.
And for optimization, Adobe Analytics shows mobile marketers which devices and operating systems their users are running.
Given many smaller businesses often don’t have the budget or resources to build a bigger mobile development team, or to have a manager who oversees a mobile strategy, it’s handy for marketers to be able to point to their apps and show how they’re monetizing them, says Ray Pun, strategic marketing lead for Adobe’s mobile solutions.
“We believe many apps today are built through intuition or gut instinct. We highly recommend that marketers start to use the data that’s available to them to define audiences using mobile criteria,” he says.
For example, he adds that marketers in the retail industry can use Adobe’s mobile services to collect data, and then modify their app to fit their users’ needs.
“You can know if they’re actually in the store, shopping at home, or in a competitor’s store. And based upon that information, you can offer a different experience, or a different offer to engage with that consumer.”
Still, many small businesses often debate whether to build apps, or focus instead on creating Web sites optimized for mobile devices. The answer is businesses should do both, Pun says.
“I get that question on the time – mobile site or mobile app? What we’re saying is that you really need to do both because they’re for different objectives. The mobile site is still a great acquisition and awareness channel … But for all businesses, while there’s a need to attract and acquire customers through the mobile Web, there’s also a need to service customers, especially those who expect a very high-end user experience, and the mobile app delivers that.”
Given that Adobe was attacked by hackers in October, resulting in as many as 38 million stolen usernames and passwords being stolen from its database, marketers may also feel some concern about using Adobe’s mobile services to store customer data.
However, Pun noted marketers using the service will own the data, not Adobe.
Adobe’s mobile services come as a free update for marketers already using Adobe Analytics and Adobe Target, although they can’t be licensed separately from those tools.