Adobe adds Customer Journey Analytics, designed to be accessible to all marketers

The company said the platform was inspired by Photoshop.

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Adobe has released Customer Journey Analytics as part of its Adobe Analytics platform. The new analytics offering is powered by Adobe Experience Platform and is touted as an easy-to-use, interactive analytics interface that enables “anyone in an organization” to work with data, not just data scientists.

“From the start, the team developed the Customer Journey Analytics interface with cues taken from Photoshop,” writes Adobe Analytics Product Marketing Manager Nate Smith, “Both are rooted in the concept of layers…In Customer Journey Analytics, the layers are data sets.”

According to Smith, brands can pull together metrics around orders, conversions, visits and more across different channels using a drag-and-drop model. With Customer Journey Analytics, teams can bring in data sets from point-of-sale systems and call centers, for example, to gain product insights that are better aligned with how consumers interact.

Why we should care

Getting as comprehensive view of the customer journey across online and offline campaigns and channels as possible is a key challenge for marketers. With more avenues for customers to engage with companies than ever and data sets in far-flung systems, the amount of data to wrangle and make sense of is overwhelming. Adobe is attempting to make both the stitching together of disparate data and the analysis much more user-friendly for the average marketer.

Further, it aims to help marketers act by giving them recommendations derived from predictive modeling.

More on the news

  • The Customer Journey Analytics platform includes pre-built AI and ML models from the Adobe Experience Platform that offers predictive analytics attached to the customer journey and suggest recommendations on best next steps.
  • Adobe Analytics also released Cross-Device Analytics as part of the Journey IQ. The technology leverages private device graph and data from Adobe Experience Platform to analyze behavior from different devices and merge into a “single stream” of information.
  • In May, Adobe Experience Platform announced an integration with Qualtrics to help customers identify gaps in their consumer-facing digital experience.

Customer journey orchestration: A snapshot

What it is. Customer journey orchestration lets marketers connect real-time data points from across channels, touchpoints and systems, allowing users to gain insights into the customer journey over time. This allows marketers to explore the customer journey using data.

Why it’s hot today. Businesses know they need to be customer-focused in each aspect of their marketing operations. As a first step, brands need to understand how consumers are finding them. Whether it be via search, advertisement, or word of mouth, the medium used will set the trajectory for the rest of their journey.

Meanwhile, the average person uses many devices to access the internet, and Cisco forecasts that the number of devices connected to IP networks will increase to more than three times the global population by 2023. With so many devices, people shift back and forth depending on the task at hand and their current environment. Consumers and business buyers turn to an average of nine channels to browse product inventory, look for advice, and make purchases.

Capturing their interactions post-discovery, such as communication with a call center or visit to a retail outlet, helps brands see which of their assets are helping them along their path. What’s more, brands need to know what those who convert do post-purchase–this information helps companies win repeat business and encourage customer advocacy. Customer journey orchestration tools do just that.

What the tools do. The majority of vendors offer one or more of the following capabilities to give marketers an understanding of the customer journey: data gathering from a wide variety of channels and touchpoints; analysis using artificial intelligence and machine learning, and customer journey visualization.

Many vendors also offer customer journey orchestration (CJO) capabilities, which allow users to act upon the insights and actually deliver the next step in the customer journey in real-time.

Why we care. Customers expect to have consistent experiences at each of these touchpoints. They want personalization, a trend that continues to grow. Tools like customer journey analytics software give brands the ability to gain insights from their audience and act on them.

Dig Deeper: What is customer journey orchestration and how are these tools helping marketers?


Opinions expressed in this article are those of the guest author and not necessarily MarTech. Staff authors are listed here.


About the author

Amy Gesenhues
Contributor
Amy Gesenhues was a senior editor for Third Door Media, covering the latest news and updates for Marketing Land, Search Engine Land and MarTech Today. From 2009 to 2012, she was an award-winning syndicated columnist for a number of daily newspapers from New York to Texas. With more than ten years of marketing management experience, she has contributed to a variety of traditional and online publications, including MarketingProfs, SoftwareCEO, and Sales and Marketing Management Magazine. Read more of Amy's articles.

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