Adobe Upgrades Ad Capabilities for Real-Time Creative, Mobile and Video

Adobe Systems is practically in a digital arms race to create the best marketing software services around, going up against the likes of IBM, Oracle, Salesforce and other big players. So now, it's announcing a set of upgrades to its Adobe Marketing Cloud that seem designed to battle such formidable competitors, as well as benefit clients like Chegg, eHealth and Redbox. Those brand clients are beginning to leverage a bevy of data-minded features, which the company is revealing today at its Adobe Marketing Summit Europe in London. The following four items seem to be the most intriguing of them all. First, clients can better target at scale, Adobe said, as the Adobe Dynamic Optimization feature is now integrated in the Adobe Marketing Cloud. With the new tools, theoretically, Chegg, an online education products company, could classify people who searched for textbooks online as a high-value audience segment, spend ad money on them accordingly and then deliver custom offers to them. As another example, the retailer could take aim at people who abandoned shopping carts—common retargeting, in other words—but with copy and imagery that reflects their shown interests. Adobe appears driven by its recent research. In March, it surveyed 1,319 consumers, and 85 percent said they prefer personalized ads. "Consumers want relevant ads that have some meaning to them," said Tim Waddell, director of product marketing for advertising solutions at Adobe. "Instead of having to create hundreds or thousands of different ads permutations, you can create simple templates. And then those are feed-driven, and they dynamically input the right elements based on what is known about the consumer." Also of note for this upgrade, after surveying hundreds of companies, Adobe found that nine out of 10 digital marketers believe personalized marketing will be critical in the next year. Adobe's Media Optimizer now allows marketers to buy and optimize standard video display ads on the web, whereas before it could only handle video ads on Facebook. "[Industry research] shows that video is going to be the dominant ad format of the future," Waddell remarked. "This is something we needed to do, actually, and have put into the offer now. The interesting part is advertisers can now test and figure out what the right mix is between, for instance, standard real-time bidding ads or video versus Facebook ads." Adobe is also introducing a feature called Mobile Audience Acquisition, which will enable companies to ramp up consumer downloads for their proprietary mobile apps. Marketers can use data to target prospects that are most likely to install an app, according to Adobe. "Just building an app doesn't drive downloads," Waddell said. "So now we can now run a search and display campaign, and as app conversions come in, the optimizer can be used to improve that campaign." The last improvement from Adobe adds more location data to its Media Optimizer. Like the other enhancements, this item leans on the idea that marketers want to increasingly target ads and then learn from them with real-time data to improve future ROI. "We can now adjust keyword bids based on geographical location and how that location has performed in the past," Waddell explained. "If I am a retailer selling golf clubs and I see viewers coming from California and, say, North Dakota or another cold-weather place, I might adjust the bid up 10 percent for California."

Performance Marketing

Adobe Upgrades Ad Capabilities for Real-Time Creative, Mobile and Video

Clients will be able to better target consumers

Christopher Heine

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Christopher Heine