The Importance of Data for GenAI
In the ever-evolving landscape of technology, generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) stands at the forefront of innovation. Its ability to create original content has brought about revolutionary changes across industries, including marketing. This blog will delve into the crucial role of data in the realm of generative AI and the incredible implications it holds for intelligent marketing.
The Rise of Generative AI in Modern Technology
Generative AI, a branch of artificial intelligence, has gained immense prominence due to its advanced deep learning algorithms and increased computational power. This technology has made a profound impact by revolutionizing various sectors. It can create highly realistic images, compose music that rivals human creativity, and even generate written articles that are indistinguishable from those crafted by humans.
In essence, generative AI is at the forefront of innovation, offering transformative solutions across a wide range of fields, from art and entertainment to content creation and beyond. Its remarkable ability to generate content that is both novel and high-quality is propelling it to the forefront of technological progress, making it a powerful tool for businesses and industries seeking innovative solutions.
The Future of Intelligent Marketing
Generative AI is poised to redefine the landscape of marketing. By harnessing this technology, marketers can streamline their processes and envision a data-driven future. It automates key marketing tasks such as content creation and personalization, freeing marketers to focus on strategy and creativity.
“The Intersection of Generative AI and Productivity (Marketing: Envisioning a Data-driven Future)” refers to the point at which generative artificial intelligence (AI) and productivity meet within the context of marketing, while simultaneously looking ahead to a future centered around data-driven strategies.
Generative AI, with its content creation and data interpretation abilities, has the potential to enhance productivity in marketing significantly. Automating tasks like content creation and personalization empowers marketing professionals to allocate more time and energy to strategic and creative aspects of their work.
Simultaneously, this integration of generative AI in marketing represents a forward-looking perspective. It emphasizes the importance of data in shaping marketing strategies, emphasizing that a data-driven approach is the way forward. By leveraging GenAI, marketers can anticipate and adapt to market changes more effectively and create personalized experiences for their target audience, ultimately driving better business results in the digital age.
Future of Marketing, Powered by AI
Leveraging GenAI for Data Management
- Importance of Data Quality and Quantity
Data is the lifeblood of AI and quality matters. High-quality data ensures the reliability and accuracy of AI models. Generative AI thrives on vast quantities of well-curated data, which empowers it to generate valuable insights and content. Inaccurate or insufficient data can lead to biased or flawed outcomes. Therefore, investing in data quality is key to maximizing the potential of generative AI. - The Role of Generative AI in Data Interpretation and Analysis
Generative AI goes beyond automation; it interprets and analyzes data in once-impossible ways. It extracts patterns, generates insights, and provides a deeper understanding of complex datasets. This ability to interpret data in a human-like manner is invaluable for businesses seeking to make informed decisions, drive innovation, and stay ahead in a data-driven world.
Incorporating generative AI into your data management strategy can elevate your organization’s capabilities, ensuring data is not just collected, but truly harnessed for success.
Three Foundational AI Principles
Responsible and ethical use of GenAI necessitates adherence to three critical principles:
- Integrity in AI Development: Developers must ensure fairness, transparency, and accountability in generative AI models, including the evaluation and mitigation of any biases present in the training data.
- Transparency in Data Usage: Users should be informed about how their data is used and have control over its usage. Clear communication and transparency in data collection build trust between businesses and their customers.
- Security and Privacy Considerations: With generative AI heavily reliant on data, robust data protection measures are paramount to safeguard sensitive information and maintain customer trust.
Unlocking ROI with Real-time Data
Real-time data is a game-changer for businesses. GenAI aids organizations in harnessing the power of real-time data by processing and interpreting it swiftly. This enables businesses to adapt rapidly to market changes, optimize their operations, and unlock higher returns on investment.
Key Business Benefits of Immediate Data Access
Generative AI offers several benefits for businesses seeking immediate data access:
- Data-Driven Decision-Making: Immediate access to data allows businesses to make decisions based on real-time information. This enables them to respond swiftly to changing market conditions and make more informed choices.
- Optimized Operations: Real-time data access helps organizations optimize their processes and operations. By continuously monitoring data, businesses can identify areas that need improvement and take corrective actions promptly.
- Improved Marketing Strategies: In the context of the content you provided, immediate data access is particularly valuable for marketing. Marketers can use real-time data to adjust and refine their strategies, ensuring they are effectively targeting their audience and adapting to changing consumer preferences.
- Enhanced Customer Experiences: With immediate access to data, businesses can provide more personalized and responsive customer experiences. They can quickly address customer inquiries and adapt their services based on customer behavior and feedback.
- Higher Returns on Investment (ROI): Timely access to data helps organizations optimize their resources, reduce wastage, and make investments that are more likely to yield higher returns. This ultimately leads to improved financial performance.
- Optimizing Business Decisions: Swift real-time data analysis and interpretation empower businesses to make data-driven decisions promptly. This optimization enhances marketing strategies, enabling more effective audience targeting and improved business outcomes.
- Large Language Models: Large language models, like OpenAI’s GPT-3, exhibit remarkable text generation capabilities, transforming marketing efforts in content creation, chatbots, and customer interactions.
What is a Data Cloud?
The data cloud is a network of interconnected, scalable computational resources designed for data processing and analysis. Leveraging large language models, such as GPT-3, it uncovers insights, patterns, and trends in vast textual data. This powerful tool enables businesses to harness the potential of generative AI algorithms for data analysis and interpretation.
Harnessing the Power of GenAI for Salesforce
Generative AI offers Salesforce Developers exciting advantages across various areas.
- In text generation, Natural Language Understanding (NLU) models, like GPT-4, can craft human-like responses and even generate articles based on prompts, streamlining content creation for customer interactions, chatbots, and marketing campaigns.
- In graphics, Generative Adversarial Networks (GANs) with computer vision capabilities create impressive visuals, such as fashion designs or realistic human faces, enhancing user experiences by automating the creation of dynamic visual assets for applications.
- For software development, Generative AI simplifies the process by generating functional code snippets, templates, or application scaffolding from large code repositories. This accelerates development and allows developers to focus on strategic and creative aspects.
Generative AI revolutionizes the development workflow, enabling rapid prototyping, intelligent data analysis, personalized user experiences, and enhanced productivity. Developers can quickly prototype and refine ideas, analyze vast amounts of data for insights, create dynamic user experiences, and automate repetitive tasks, leading to more efficient and innovative application development.
Experience our proven personalized marketing campaigns.
Why Choose NextRow?
- NextRow excels in ensuring the integrity, transparency, and security of AI implementations, aligning perfectly with ethical AI principles.
- Our proficiency in integrating real-time data access with large language models like GPT-3 opens the door to rapid adaptation and competitive advantage.
- In collaboration with us, companies can unlock the transformative power of generative AI, elevate their marketing strategies, and drive business success in the digital age.
- We take pride in being honored twice in the Inc. 5000 list as one of the fastest-growing companies in the United States.
In Conclusion
The importance of data for generative AI in marketing is undeniable. By embracing generative AI, businesses can unlock the potential of real-time data access, optimize decision-making, and gain valuable insights into customer behavior and preferences. Integrating generative AI with data management practices presents new opportunities for marketers to enhance productivity, deliver personalized experiences, and drive business success in the digital era. Take the next step in revolutionizing your marketing strategy with Salesforce Service and experience the transformative power of generative AI.
What is Salesforce-Adobe Campaign Connector?
Adobe Campaign is a marketing automation tool that helps your business to simplify and manage all the marketing campaigns. Using Automation rules in Adobe campaign, you can implement various email marketing strategies for your leads to increase the conversion rate of your campaigns.
Salesforce CRM is a marketing technology that helps you build more meaningful and lasting relationships with your customers. The goal of this solution is to improve business relationships with potential leads and close deals faster.
A good CRM software gathers information from end points across your business to provide you insight into how your customers feel about your product or services and what they are saying about your organization — this helps you improve your offerings, catch issues early, and identify any gaps in business process or technology.
What is Salesforce CRM Connector for Adobe Campaign?
Adobe Campaign provides a Salesforce.com CRM connector for linking your Adobe Campaign platform to your Salesforce.com CRM environment. This CRM connector enables you to synchronize contacts, accounts, purchases, etc. for better integration with Salesforce CRM. Adobe Campaign provides a dedicated wizard for collecting and selecting data from the tables available in the CRM. This provides bidirectional synchronization to make sure that the data is up to date at all times.
What can you do with Adobe Campaign and Salesforce CRM?
- Create new Salesforce leads with Adobe Campaign
- Create new Salesforce contacts with Adobe Campaign
- Create new Salesforce cases with Adobe Campaign
- Create new Salesforce opportunities with Adobe Campaign
- Create new Salesforce accounts with Adobe Campaign
- Secure Integration with Salesforce and Adobe Campaign Standard with encrypted Customer data
- Full Sync or Partial and Bi-Directional sync of data between Adobe Campaign and Salesforce
- Custom Mapping of Salesforce to Adobe Campaign Standard Fields
Conclusion
Adobe Campaign and Salesforce CRM address key challenges for businesses looking to build relationships with their customer base and drive profit. Adobe Campaign provides a Salesforce.com CRM connector that allows you to connect, automate, and sync leads and contacts with Salesforce CRM.
Reference Links:
Workday Journey Towards Interoperability: The Power to Adapt
In today’s fast-changing business world, constant adaptation is key. However, many organizations struggle to keep up due to complex tech setups and outdated systems that don’t play nice together. This forces employees to resort to manual workarounds and deal with clunky interfaces and scattered data.
The solution?
Interoperable technologies that let applications seamlessly communicate with one another. This is becoming a top priority because when your software tools work well together and share data effortlessly, your business can move with agility. Departments like finance and HR no longer waste time wrestling with data compatibility issues, allowing them to focus on what really matters.
Now, you might be wondering – how artificial intelligence will transform business. Well, Workday, led by its CTO Jim Stratton, is at the forefront of unlocking interoperability to make this happen. They’re harnessing the power of generative AI, and it’s poised to shape the future of work for the better.
What’s Next from Workday Generative AI?
Workday is taking big strides with its AI! Their main aim? To boost your capabilities and help to make swift, informed choices, letting you concentrate on what truly counts. They’re not just making big promises; they’re delivering.
Soon, they’ll introduce tools like planning for career growth, simplifying job descriptions, drafting offer letters, summarizing financial deals, and even spotting unusual patterns. All of this ensures you will get real value, not just buzzwords.
And guess what? A sneak peek of these amazing AI tools will be showcased at Workday Rising. But the full reveal? Stay tuned for the exciting stuff!
What does integration vs. interoperability mean, technically?
Imagine a busy intersection in a city where traffic from all directions meets. If each vehicle could communicate with the others, sharing their routes and speed, the intersection would work smoothly, without jams. In the world of business, this is what we call interoperability.
Think of each business tool or application you use as a vehicle. Interoperability ensures that all these tools can ‘talk’ to each other seamlessly, sharing vital information in real time. It’s like having a single, unified language that every tool understands and speaks. This ensures that everyone in the organization is on the same page, creating an atmosphere where decisions are made faster and better.
While many might mix up ‘interoperability’ with ‘integration’, there’s a key difference. Integration is like ensuring two vehicles fit together. Interoperability, however, is about what happens after they’re connected: How they work together, the routes they take, and the goals they achieve. It doesn’t just focus on the connection but encompasses the entire journey, ensuring everyone and everything works harmoniously.
Workday redefines the way we work, making things smoother, faster, and more efficient.
How Workday Unlocks Interoperability
Picture a world where all your business systems speak the same language, working together seamlessly. This dream can become a reality with Workday Generative AI.
Interoperability is the ability of systems to work together. And, while it’s a buzzword in the tech world, it’s a goal for many businesses. Enter Workday: a solution designed to help businesses reach this ideal state. With its roots in the cloud, Workday promises adaptability, scalability, and flexibility. It goes beyond just connecting different departments in an organization. Workday ensures that the entire company, be it customer-facing or back-end operations, is united, creating an environment where meaningful collaborations flourish.
But what sets Workday apart is its intelligence. Instead of having information scattered across different sections of a company, Workday gathers everything – from financial and employee data to planning metrics. It’s a central hub where all essential data comes together, removing the hassle of juggling between different databases. This centralization not only streamlines data collection but also offers valuable insights, making decision-making swifter and more informed.
And, if you’re thinking about the future, Workday is one step ahead. By integrating cutting-edge technologies like artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML), it transforms the way businesses operate. Imagine a system that detects irregularities before they become issues, offers smart suggestions, and even helps in refining your talent strategies. With Workday, these aren’t mere fantasies. While it employs these advanced tools, it ensures the power remains in human hands, removing tedious tasks but keeping decision-making with the people.
Workday interoperability and AI: less artificial, more intelligence
Meet software that not only understands your business needs but also proactively suggests solutions. By weaving in cutting-edge Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) right from the foundation, Workday Generative AI ensures that these smart technologies are an integral part of its system. This isn’t just a last-minute add-on; it’s a deep-rooted feature.
Why does this matter?
Well, this integration means that whether you’re using apps originally built for Workday or tools crafted by its extensive network of customers and partners, you’ll benefit from this intelligence. At the heart of this system lies the intelligent data core. This element ensures that the AI and ML technologies are always working with the best quality of data. This precision ensures that you’re always getting the most accurate insights and suggestions.
Some of the standout features powered by this integration include the ability to spot unusual patterns, smart suggestions tailored to your unique needs, and advanced methods to nurture and retain talent based on their skill sets. But, what’s truly remarkable is that while Workday handles the intricate details, users remain firmly in the driver’s seat. It streamlines processes, removing the tedious tasks that once consumed so much time, and giving humans the freedom to focus on what truly matters.
Moreover, Workday understands the importance of using AI and ML ethically. They champion the cause of using these powerful tools responsibly. Their Responsible AI Governance program is a testament to their commitment. It ensures that while they harness the power of AI to serve businesses better, they never lose sight of the values of transparency and responsibility.
Propel your business growth with Workday.
Reality Check: Compressed transformation
Navigating today’s rapidly evolving business landscape, it’s clear that the pace of change is unlike any other. During the pandemic, half of all enterprises experienced a rapid shift, adapting faster than they ever imagined possible. This wasn’t just about speed, but also managing several changes at once. This fast-paced transformation, often powered by seamless connectivity and interoperability, is the new norm.
“Value Untangled” sheds light on how this accelerated pace of change is crucial for success in our fluid business world. And it’s not just about keeping up; it’s about thriving. Research confirms that when businesses achieve this seamless connectivity, positive and measurable results follow, across all industries. Embracing this new reality is essential in the form of Workday Generative AI. After all, in today’s world, adaptability and swift action are the difference between merely surviving and truly thriving.
How NextRow help automate business processes?
NextRow Digital is a leader in enterprise application managed services, cloud hosting, and consulting services. NextRow provides ongoing functional, technical, and administrative support to customers in production with Workday Financial Management and Workday Human Capital Management (HCM), providing clients with real-time operational visibility along with the speed and agility to adapt to business growth and change.
Harness the power of Nextrow’s seasoned Workday implementation consultants. From managing intricate projects to ensuring seamless training and support during go-live phases, we’re here to stand alongside your organization. Whether it’s introducing fresh Workday modules or amplifying your current setup with enhanced features, our expertise, built on years of industry experience, transforms complex challenges into straightforward solutions.
Trust in our tried-and-true methodologies to carry the weight of the process, guiding you meticulously at each juncture. Choose Nextrow and ensure a robust Workday implementation, you can book a meeting with our Workday Expert.
Boost Your User-Generated Content (UGC) Production With Experience Manager Livefyre
The cutthroat competition of online marketing has made it mandatory for businesses to meet the surging demands of contents by audiences. The delivering of the individualized content to each and every user based on their preferences and personalization is the utmost need of time. Not all companies at this moment are capable enough to deal with this, and the one who is executing this, are deploying content at higher content production costs. In this situation, the only solution is to incorporate user-generated content (UGC) into the marketing mix.
Livefyre is the latest Experience Manager tool added in AEM, which helps you to investigate everything shared on the web and to create a constant flow of high-quality content on your website. It can be used to share the real experiences of real people, increase engagement and to build loyalty and drive business impact. Adobe’s UGC platform comes with the
Experience Manager Livefyre, that can be integrated into the Adobe stack. This integration of the Livefyre can meet the content production demands by injecting authentic and personalized UGC across the entire customer journey.
Let’s understand the working of this Livefyre Integration To The Adobe stack:
1.
Direct integration between Livefyre and AEM Assets
The direct integration between Livefyre and AEM Assets provides the creative teams a holistic view of all available content within the Assets interface. The integration with AEM Sites makes it possible to publish contents on various web pages. Also for both online and physical locations, the Livefyre and AEM Screens integration makes it possible for visitors to experience a consistent brand experience.
2.
Finding And Curating Content By The Use Of Machine Learning
The machine learning and automation features in Livefyre enables businesses to efficiently manage what’s happening on different web pages. One can take content to market at a much faster rate and drive down costs by the streamlined workflows that speed up the process of getting rights to publish content. Further, Livefyre comes with the Smart Moderation features which automatically flags questionable content at the beginning itself. This enables the moderators to review the contents and with the help of machine learning, the software continuously refines and find explicit and offensive content.
The integration of the Smart Tags, in the Adobe Experience Manager, powered by Adobe Sensei in Livefyre can take content curation to a whole new level. The Smart Tags has made it possible to automatically tag images with attributes, enabling users to easily find whatever they are searching.
3.
Personalize UGC Experiences With Adobe Target
The Adobe Target and Livefyre integration enables the delivery of free-flowing relevant user-generated images, videos, and comments, which are personalized for each and every user. This feature has many alluring aspects, like:
a) Personalized Commenting In Communities
By adding Livefyre’s sidenotes and comments to the communities, one can create an interactive community, where readers can ask questions and make comments, making it a very useful and relevant experience to website visitors.
b) Create Real-Time Buzz With Your Contents At Conferences
One can create dynamic press room or blog to highlight the features of product or company announcements in real-time by the use of Storify2 and Livefyre’s live blogging app. Furthermore, AEM Sites integration can quickly and automatically deploy live blogging to multiple web pages. This very feature was used by Intel at the CES 2017 (Consumer Electronics Show) to demonstrate their products.
c) Personalized Experiences To Drive Revenue
The pairing of UGC with relevant calls to action, so as to guide customers during their purchasing journey, can improve conversion and revenue. Also, with the help of Adobe Target, the UGC experiences for each audience segment can be personalized. One can check this webinar by T-Mobile, in which they used UGC to power their winning switcher campaign.
These are only some examples stating how powerful marketing tool UGC is. And as an online business owner, one must have the right knowledge of marketing tools along with the right implementation methodology. The correct selection can keep you stress-free while executing personalization and automation to meet the user demand. In your marketing voyage, the Adobe stack that comes with Adobe Experience Manager having Livefyre can be a great assistant.
NextRow is a renowned Adobe Solution partner and can help you in integrating Livefyre with other Experience Cloud solutions. Contact us at +1-847-592-2920, to learn more about Experience Manager Livefyre and for more details visit our website.
CJA Positioning & Key Use Cases
Customers engage in many online and offline touchpoints during their purchasing experience, which has evolved into a complicated and non-linear process. Due to this, there is a growing demand for sophisticated analytics solutions that can capture and analyze data from numerous sources. And leading the charge is Adobe’s revolutionary Customer Journey Analytics (CJA).
Customer Journey Analytics (CJA) is a powerful tool that helps organizations enhance the customer experience. It enables anyone responsible for customer engagement to visualize the complete customer journey across various data channels in real-time. By understanding the customer’s journey, organizations can make informed decisions and influence the crucial moments that shape customer experiences.
So, prepare for a revolutionary change as NextRow Digital unravels the mysteries of the customer journey and utilizes the power of Customer Journey Analytics (CJA) to redefine the future of marketing.
Evolution of Journey Analytics
The journey of customer journey analytics has been marked by three distinct waves, each contributing to a deeper understanding of customer behavior:
- Standalone Web Analytics Platforms: Standalone web analytics platforms pioneered the initial generation of customer journey analysis, which observed and evaluated visitors’ activities on a company’s website.
- Integration into Cloud-Based Solutions: The second wave enabled firms to break down data silos and evaluate cross-channel consumer journeys by incorporating journey analytics into cloud-based systems like Adobe Experience Cloud.
- The Rise of Powerful Platform-Based Solutions: The current wave ushers in a new era of customer journey analytics characterized by powerful platform-based solutions. No longer limited to online channels, these solutions have boldly expanded into the realm of offline marketing and omnichannel journeys.
With the advent of first-party identifiers and device graphs, businesses now have the power to deliver accurate and personalized experiences to their customers. But it doesn’t stop there. These solutions have cracked the code of seamless data movement, allowing organizations to collaborate effortlessly and share valuable insights. And let’s not forget about the magic of AI and Machine Learning.
Customer Journey Analytics (CJA) by Adobe
Adobe’s Customer Journey Analytics (CJA) disrupts the analytics landscape by expanding into offline channels, offering a complete picture of the customer journey. Powered by the Adobe Experience Platform, it establishes open standards for marketing data, facilitating seamless integration across platforms.
While Adobe CJA takes the lead, alternatives like Oracle CX Cloud and SAS Customer Intelligence 360 bring their own strengths and unique features. Even amidst fierce competition, Adobe CJA shines as a powerful solution, unleashing the potential of offline channels. It empowers businesses with actionable insights and advanced analytics capabilities, enabling them to make informed decisions and drive meaningful customer experiences.
Journey Analytics Market Positioning
In the realm of analytics, two powerful forces emerge: Digital Intelligence (DI) and Enterprise Business Intelligence (BI).
DI thrives on automation-driven workflows, leveraging AI and machine learning to unlock actionable insights. It empowers businesses to uncover hidden patterns, track real-time trends, and understand customer behaviour at a granular level, enabling agile decision-making in the digital age.
On the contrary, BI takes a human-centered approach, emphasizing data analysts’ expertise. It combines vast information with human insights to drive strategic decision-making, providing a comprehensive platform for analyzing and visualizing data. This empowers organizations to gain deep operational and customer understanding.
NextRow: Unleashing the Power of Code and Content Complexity Analysis
By fusing automation-driven workflows with human ingenuity, organizations unlock a new level of analytics prowess, transforming data into valuable insights that drive success.
Key Use Cases for Journey Analytics
Let’s delve into the pivotal use cases that epitomize the transformative potential of journey analytics:
- Call Center Analytics: By seamlessly merging call center data with online interactions, telecom, and financial services industries gain profound insights into customer preferences, behaviors, and satisfaction levels. This invaluable intel paves the way for superior service delivery and propels customer-centric strategies.
- Click-to-Brick Analytics: Uniting the realms of physical and online experiences, retail and pharmaceutical sectors can revolutionize customer journeys. Scrutinizing the path from initial clicks to in-store purchases unveils untapped opportunities, optimizing touchpoints to elevate the overall customer experience.
- Augmented AI: Bestowing AI/ML capabilities upon citizen data analysts, telecom, media & entertainment, and high-tech industries unlock actionable insights from the vast ocean of customer data. Advanced analytics techniques fuel hyper-personalized experiences and foster a culture of data-driven decision-making.
- Journey Intelligence and Management: By centralizing insights gleaned from CRM systems and documents, pharmaceutical, high-tech, and media & entertainment sectors supercharge their email marketing and A/B testing prowess. This unlocks invaluable intelligence that heightens campaign effectiveness and nurtures customer relationships.
- Cross-Channel Attribution: Journey analytics proves its universal relevance by accurately tracking campaign conversions across all channels. Businesses gain the prowess to astutely select visitor identifiers, unravel the true impact of marketing endeavours, and masterfully optimize their omnichannel strategies.
In the quest for the ideal journey analytics solution, three vital factors command attention:
- Real-time Engagement Data Capture and Management: Embrace a solution that captures and manages data in real-time, empowering agile analysis and swift response to customer interactions.
- Seamless Customer Data Collection: Seek a solution that effortlessly aggregates data from multiple touchpoints and channels, offering a comprehensive view of the customer journey analytics.
- Advanced Profiling and Identity Capabilities: Opt for a solution with cutting-edge profiling and identity features, enabling meticulous customer profiling and comprehensive tracking across the entire journey.
Final Words
Harness the game-changing potential of Customer Journey Analytics (CJA) to propel your business forward. With CJA, dive deep into the multi-channel customer journey, extracting invaluable insights and paving the way for data-driven decision-making. Embrace the transformative capabilities of CJA, empowering your organization to confidently navigate the ever-evolving market landscape.
Let NextRow be your guiding light, unlocking the secrets to growth and elevating your customer experiences. Embrace the revolution of CJA and chart your path to success.
Step into the future of data-driven decision-making, where every move is fuelled by insights that drive success.
Engage with NextRow Digital
When selecting a journey analytics solution, prioritize reports and insights automation for streamlined analysis processes, customization, and interoperability to integrate with existing systems seamlessly. With NextRow Digital by your side, you can confidently navigate the journey analytics landscape and unlock the power of CJA for your organization’s success.
NextRow Digital’s seamless support for both IT teams and analysts can navigate the complexities of CJA implementation with ease. Their unrivalled expertise in implementing Adobe technologies will unlock the true power of CJA, propelling your business toward unprecedented growth.
Building Blocks and Use Cases for CJA (Customer Journey Analytics)
A crucial step in realizing the full potential of your analytics projects as the digital landscape changes is the switch from Adobe Analytics (AA) to Customer Journey Analytics (CJA). Enter a world where the Adobe Experience Platform creates the foundation for a revolutionary analysis workspace experience.
Learn the essential foundational elements CJA needs to revolutionize your perception of multi-channel analytics. CJA transforms how you decode customer journeys, from user-friendly data definitions to sophisticated data manipulation.
Join us on an exciting journey through data-driven insights with our blog, “Building Blocks and Use Cases for CJA (Customer Journey Analytics).”
Overview of CJA
CJA distinguishes itself from Adobe Analytics by combining the strength of Analysis Workspace and a new dataset with the Adobe Experience Platform as its foundation. Years’ worth of data can be broken down, filtered, queried, and visualized using this cutting-edge analytics capability, and the Experience Data Model’s (XDM) flexibility ensures uniform representation and organization.
Traditional analytics are broadened by CJA, which provides cross-channel capabilities across web, mobile, call centres, and CRM. Get ready to start a transformational journey as CJA unearths the mysteries buried in your data.
Building Blocks and Use Cases
- Combining data from call centers, POS systems, and online properties, you can view and analyze customer data in the context of their customer journey.
- Democratize data access and allow more employees to use data to drive decisions based on thorough analysis.
- Give data scientists and analysts the tools to conduct sophisticated analyses and uncover deep insights.
- Investigate data from the Adobe Experience Platform by using on-demand reporting to visualize and interact with datasets.
- We broaden the scope beyond web data by utilizing unique schemas and gaining control over data manipulation.
- To create comprehensive data views that completely understand the customer journey, combine datasets, and define connections.
Prerequisites
- Customer Journey Analytics add-on and an active Adobe Analytics Select, Prime, or Ultimate subscription are needed.
- Customer Journey Analytics must be provisioned for Adobe Experience Platform in order to be seamlessly integrated.
- Without Adobe Analytics, Customer Journey Analytics is also available as a standalone product.
- Consult your Adobe Account Team to confirm the Customer Journey Analytics add-on’s availability and contract type.
Terminology Updates
- In Customer Journey Analytics, segments are now referred to as ‘Filters.’
- To comply with industry standards, virtual report suites are referred to as “Data views.”
- For better communication, classifications have been renamed as “Lookup datasets.”
- In Customer Journey Analytics, customer attributes are now referred to as ‘Profile Datasets.’
- In the context of Customer Journey Analytics, hit containers are referred to as ‘Event’ containers.
- ‘Session’ containers have taken the place of visit containers.
- To improve clarity and consistency, visitor containers are now referred to as ‘Person’ containers.
Why Choose NextRow Digital for AA to CJA Migration Journey?
For a smooth and successful transition from Adobe Analytics (AA) to Customer Journey Analytics (CJA), NextRow Digital is your ideal partner. Here’s how we differ:
Extensive Experience: Our team has years of experience as an Adobe Gold Partner and is well-versed in the intricacies of migration, resulting in a seamless transition.
Proven Success: We guarantee a smooth migration process and foster business expansion with our tried-and-true methodologies and strategies.
Comprehensive Support: From assessment and roadmap development to implementation and beyond, NextRow Digital provides end-to-end support.
Industry Best Practices: Our migration strategy adheres to validated best practices, guaranteeing accuracy, dependability, and industry compliance.
Third-Party Cookies: Why CNAME in Adobe Analytics?
Do you frequently stumble upon the term ‘CNAME’ when browsing the Adobe Analytics Forum? Especially in discussions around third-party cookies or cross-domain tracking. You might be under the impression that a CNAME implementation for Adobe Analytics will magically bypass all the issues associated with third-party cookies and enable cross-domain tracking. But is that always true?
The short answer: perhaps not always. Let’s dive deep to understand what CNAME truly means, why you should consider implementing it, and when it’s best to do so.
Third-Party Cookies and Cross-Origin Requests: A Brief Overview
Third-Party Cookies: These are cookies stored in your browser by domains other than the one you’re visiting.
Cross-Origin Requests: These are requests made from your browser to domain servers other than the one you’re visiting.
Book a call with an expert to have a clear picture!
Breaking It Down: A Practical Example
Imagine you’re browsing a website – let’s call it “nextrow.com”. You click on a blog post link from Twitter, and your browser begins to fetch the page content. During this process, the server for “nextrow.com” delivers the webpage content and determines whether to set cookies in your browser. For instance, a cookie named ‘visitor id’ might be placed with a unique identifier for visitor tracking.
In this scenario, your browser requests content from “nextrow.com” and receives cookies from the same domain. This is a classic example of a Same-Origin Request, and the cookies in this case are termed First-Party Cookies.
Now, let’s add a twist. Suppose “nextrow.com” uses images hosted on another website, let’s name it “nextrow.net”. Even though you’re on “nextrow.com”, your browser fetches a picture from “nextrow.net”. During this process, “nextrow.net” might also set its own cookies in your browser. Here, the image request to “nextrow.net” is a Cross-Origin Request, and the cookies set by “nextrow.net” are Third-Party Cookies.
Fast forward to your next visit. Your browser remembers and sends the cookie information to “nextrow.com” and “nextrow.net”, helping these sites offer personalized content. However, cookies remain domain-specific. This means that “nextrow.com” can’t access cookies set by “nextrow.net” and vice versa. It’s crucial to remember this domain specificity, as it plays a significant role in digital tracking and personalization.
Potential Concerns with Third-Party Cookies and Cross-Origin Requests
- While third-party cookies benefit organizations by allowing them to target users effectively, there are privacy concerns. Even if cookies for personalization are harmless, some websites might expose sensitive user data to external parties. Given these vulnerabilities, browsers like Safari, Brave, and Firefox have grown increasingly wary of third-party cookies. Google Chrome has even announced that it will phase out third-party cookies by 2023.
- Similarly, cross-origin requests face scrutiny. Secured browsers and browser extensions are increasingly blocking these requests, especially if they’re primarily for tracking, rather than essential page content like images.
- As the digital age continues its rapid expansion, understanding visitor behaviors is critical. This understanding is hinged on the accuracy of tracking methodologies employed by analytics platforms. Adobe Analytics, a titan in the world of analytics, has two key methods for identifying visitors. Let’s dissect them to grasp the intricacies involved.
Tracking without Experience Cloud ID Service
Imagine NextRow has implemented Adobe Analytics on its website. When a visitor lands on the website, a flurry of interactions begins:
Request & Response:
Upon page load, the browser communicates with NextRow’s domain server. Almost simultaneously, Adobe sends a request to its servers, which may be adobedc.net, 2o7.net, or omtrdc.net. Adobe’s primary goal here? Visitor identification. The system then sends back a visitor ID.
Storage:
This visitor ID is stored in a cookie (‘s_vi’) within Adobe’s tracking domain. This ensures that when you return, Adobe recognizes you.
Third-Party Cookies & Cross-Origin Requests:
The process introduces us to the world of third-party cookies and cross-origin requests. When you, the visitor, access NextRow’s website, your browser reaches out to Adobe’s domain server for required tracking information. While you’re on NextRow’s domain, cookies from Adobe’s domains (like adobedc.net) are set. These are third-party cookies.
The catch? Browsers may block these third-party cookies. If they do, every visit to NextRow feels like the first time – there’s no digital memory of you. Worse, if the browser blocks cross-origin requests, tracking is entirely disabled. Adobe does have a backup plan: a fallback cookie (‘fid’). If the primary cookie is blocked, this backup cookie is placed on NextRow’s domain, becoming a first-party cookie. However, cross-origin requests remain a conundrum, and so does identifying visitors across multiple domains.
And for those wondering, this remains true if tags are loaded via a Tag Manager. Any prevention of cross-origin requests hinders tag rendering.
Tracking with Experience Cloud ID Service
The Experience Cloud ID Service changes the game. Here’s how:
Domain-Based Cookies:
With the Experience Cloud ID Service, cookies are set on NextRow’s domain, not Adobe’s tracking domains. The browser sends a request to Adobe’s Data Collection Server (DCS) at dpm.demdex.net, which responds with a visitor ID. This ID, stored in an ‘AMCV’ cookie, now rests on NextRow’s domain.
Cross-Domain Tracking:
Adobe also sets an additional ‘dpm’ cookie on dpm.demdex.net. This is essential for tracking a visitor across different domains. While the primary cookie ensures that Adobe recognizes the visitor on NextRow, the ‘dpm’ cookie allows Adobe to regenerate the same visitor ID even across varied domains.
First-Party vs. Third-Party:
As visitors browse NextRow’s website, they communicate with Adobe servers. Now, the cookies are first-party, being set on the same domain they’re browsing. This guarantees accurate visitor identification. But, if the ‘dpm’ cookie (a third-party cookie in this context) on dpm.demdex.net is blocked, cross-domain tracking is off the table.
To clarify, when we discuss cross-domain tracking, we’re talking about distinct domains, not subdomains under a parent domain. For instance, if NextRow had subdomains like blog.nextrow.com, Adobe’s Experience Cloud ID Service can set the ‘AMCV’ cookie on the main domain, ensuring uniform accessibility across all domains for visitor identification.
NextRow can assist you with your learning, get our training service!
In Nutshell
While CNAME offers promising solutions within Adobe Analytics, it’s crucial to grasp its underlying mechanisms and potential limitations. This knowledge empowers organizations to make informed decisions that not only optimize their analytics strategies but also respect user privacy.
Both methods—CNAME and traditional third-party cookies—come with their own set of advantages and drawbacks. As we navigate this complex terrain, adapting and employing the right strategies becomes increasingly vital.
NextRow can serve as your trusted partner in navigating this complex terrain. With decades of experience in personalized MarTech solutions, we blend creativity with strategy to offer tailored content strategies that align with your unique business goals, strengthening customer connections along the way. Our track record of assisting numerous organizations demonstrates our expertise and updated skills, making us the ideal choice to help your organization thrive.
Join hands with NextRow to unlock the potential of Adobe Analytics and chart your path to success. Our commitment to innovation and client satisfaction has earned us a spot on the Inc 5000 list, a testament to our dedication to helping businesses like yours excel in the ever-evolving digital world.
CNAME Concepts Beyond Third-Party Cookies Limitations
In our previous blog, we delved deep into the intricacies of CNAME in Adobe Analytics and highlighted the importance of grasping third-party cookies and cross-origin requests.
With the digital sphere becoming increasingly complex, it’s paramount for businesses to be well-acquainted with the pros and cons of available tools and methods. As we journey through this ever-evolving digital era, the expertise and seasoned skills of NextRow’s professionals stand out as a beacon, guiding countless organizations in making astute decisions. Let’s continue this exploration and see how your organization can benefit from a deeper understanding and strategic implementation.
In today’s era of data privacy and security, it’s imperative to understand the nuances of Adobe Analytics and the impact of CNAME on tracking. Let’s delve deep into the concept and see how it interacts with the challenges posed by third-party cookies and cross-origin requests.
What is CNAME in Adobe Analytics?
Simply put, a CNAME is a mechanism to mask Adobe’s Data Collection Server (DCS) with a domain of our own. Rather than directing requests to Adobe’s domains (like adobedc.net, 2o7.net, or omtrdc.net), the data goes to a custom domain server first. This server then forwards the data to Adobe’s domain servers. Essentially, the Adobe domain servers are concealed behind our own, making it appear as if requests are coming from a single domain to the browser.
For instance, if we wanted to set this up for nextrow.com, a subdomain such as stats.nextrow.com or metrics.nextrow.com would be created. This is then linked to Adobe for data routing. Adobe provides comprehensive documentation for CNAME configuration.
And if you’re ever in doubt, NextRow expert is just a call away!
Beyond Third-party Cookie Limitations
Without Experience Cloud ID Service:
On loading a webpage, the browser sends a request to our domain server for processing and returning an HTML page. Concurrently, Adobe also sends a visitor identification or tracking information request. But now, this request goes to our domain (like stats.nextrow.com) instead of Adobe’s DCS. Since both requests are from the same domain, they’re treated as the exact origin. This allows for setting first-party cookies. Hence, with CNAME in place, issues with third-party cookies and cross-origin requests are sidestepped by keeping everything in a first-party context.
Yet is cross-domain tracking possible with this method? For distinct domains, the answer leans towards no. If someone were to visit another domain after nextrow.com, Adobe could access previous cookies since they’re tied to stats.nextrow.com. However, in reverse scenarios, complications arise.
Adobe suggests using domain-specific CNAMEs if managing multiple domains. This way, every domain can operate within the first-party context. Yet, cross-domain tracking remains elusive without third-party cookies.
With Experience Cloud ID Service:
The Experience Cloud ID Service sets cookies only on the organization’s domain. With a custom tracking domain, Adobe doesn’t rely on its default DCS, thereby dodging cross-origin request limitations. While there are methods to redirect domains for cross-domain tracking, they don’t entirely address the core issue.
However, there’s a provision to share visitor IDs between domains using ‘appendVisitorIDsTo’ when third-party cookies face browser restrictions. But for this, navigation must occur between domains and not in isolation.
CNAME Implementation: The Summary
Implementing CNAME in Adobe Analytics without the Experience Cloud ID Service combats issues with cross-origin requests and third-party cookies.
With Experience Cloud ID Service, CNAME only tackles cross-origin requests since the cookies are inherently first-party.
Using CNAME doesn’t enable seamless cross-domain tracking across unique domains.
Important Side Note: Don’t fall into the trap of believing that a first-party context is a panacea. Apple, in November 2020, updated its policies to apply restrictions on cookies set through CNAME or Experience Cloud ID Service, categorizing returnees after a day or a week (based on ITPs) as new. Always be aware of the evolving landscape of digital privacy!
In a nutshell, while CNAME does offer certain advantages, a comprehensive understanding of its limitations is essential. As technology advances, one must continually adapt and stay informed.
Pro Tip: Harnessing the power of first-party data is paramount in a world moving beyond third-party cookies. A Customer Data Platform (CDP), like AEP, proficiently captures unique visitor profiles, collecting crucial details such as email addresses and phone numbers. Elevate your business insights with CDP, and dive deeper into the Adobe Analytics blog for better understanding.
How NextRow is helping Businesses?
Organizations need trusted partners like NextRow to effectively navigate the complexities of Adobe Analytics and harness its full potential, ensuring optimal data-driven strategies and maximized ROI. From implementations to hourly remote consulting to fixed monthly packages, we offer seamless workflow setup and integrations.
With our Adobe Analytics Managed Services, you can scale up the performance of your Adobe Analytics application with confidence. Let us know whenever you need emergency support; we have a global team with 24*7*365 support centers. Get started today or book a call for a free consultation.
Next-Gen Mobile App Analytics: Step-by-Step Guide
We’ll delve into the vital realm of mobile analytics, addressing common implementation challenges businesses face. Moreover, by highlighting these pain points and then exploring the key role played by the AEP Mobile SDK in enhancing analytics capabilities. Additionally, we’ll track the evolution of the AEP Mobile SDK over time and guide you through a seamless migration process.
Discover how extending analytics with the Edge Network can further empower your mobile app analytics. Real-world success stories will provide practical insights, and we’ll conclude by offering actionable strategies to elevate your mobile app analytics with NextRow’s expertise.
The Importance of Mobile Analytics
- Customer First Preferences
In the age of customers, where customer expectations are at an all-time high, businesses need to prioritize delivering personalized and seamless experiences. Studies show that 54% of customers have higher expectations from brands than they did a year ago. Mobile analytics provides valuable insights into customer preferences, enabling businesses to meet and exceed these expectations. - Informed Data Decisions
Data is the driving force behind decision-making in the business world. Having a robust understanding of data is essential to make informed decisions that lead to cost savings and improved ROI. Mobile analytics provides businesses with the necessary knowledge to effectively analyze and utilize data collected from mobile apps. - Mobile App Stickiness
With a staggering 7.1 billion mobile app users worldwide, the revenue generated by mobile apps is projected to reach over $935 billion by 2023. To maximize app usage and engagement, businesses need to ensure app stickiness. Mobile analytics helps identify factors that contribute to app retention and loyalty, enabling businesses to improve user experiences and drive revenue. - Cross-channel Interactions
In an interconnected digital landscape, understanding customer behavior across multiple channels is crucial for success. Mobile analytics offers a unified view of the customer, creating a comprehensive customer profile that helps businesses tailor marketing efforts and deliver personalized experiences.
Ready to overcome these challenges with seamless mobile analytics implementation?
Challenges in Mobile Analytics Implementation
- Data Standardization
With data coming from various sources, ensuring data standardization becomes a challenge. The presence of cluttered data sources and the need for proper data governance and modeling can make it difficult to extract meaningful insights from mobile analytics. - Cross-platform Support
Different mobile platforms have specific features and frameworks. Dealing with these variations and anticipating future frameworks can pose challenges in implementing mobile analytics that work seamlessly across platforms. - Consensual Library Version
An average mobile app has 14-17 Software Development Kits (SDKs), each with its own development and validation cycles. Coordinating these SDKs and maintaining a consensual library version can be complex and time-consuming. - Unified and Real-time Experiences
In a customer-centric approach, businesses need to deliver consistent experiences across self-service channels. Achieving this level of consistency and real-time responses requires robust mobile analytics capabilities.
AEP Mobile SDK’s Role in Enhanced Analytics
To address these challenges and enable businesses to harness the power of mobile analytics effectively, Adobe has developed the Adobe Experience Platform (AEP) Mobile SDK. Let’s explore why this SDK is the ideal solution for next-gen mobile app analytics:
- XDM-Based Data Collection
AEP Mobile SDK ensures the standardization of customer experience data by collecting data based on the Experience Data Model (XDM), a publicly documented specification. This ensures consistency and compatibility in data collection and analysis. - Cross-Platform Implementation
The AEP Mobile SDK offers support across popular mobile platforms such as React, Flutter, and Roku. This cross-platform compatibility simplifies the implementation process and provides flexibility for developers. - Solitary Library Version
The SDK powers end-to-end engagement with high performance and extensibility, minimizing the need for multiple 3rd party solutions. This results in a streamlined implementation process and ensures continued compatibility and support. - End-of-Support
Adobe provides ongoing support for AEP Mobile SDK, ensuring compatibility with evolving technologies and customer needs. This support includes dedicated forums and customer care, offering peace of mind to businesses implementing the solution.
Pro Tip: Enhance your analytics with AEP Mobile SDK’s XDM-based data collection, cross-platform support, and unified library version for optimal performance. Watch NextRow’s certified expert-tailored strategy!
Seamless Migration to AEP Mobile SDK
To transition from existing mobile analytics solutions to AEP Mobile SDK, businesses can follow a structured migration process:
- Initial Configuration
Create schemas and set up data streams to establish the foundation for data collection and analysis. - Data Collection Tags
Configure tags and install the required extensions to collect the specific data needed for analysis. - Install Mobile SDKs
Implement the Adobe Experience Platform Mobile SDK into the mobile app to enable data collection and analysis. - Collect App Data
Track lifecycles data and events such as page views and user actions within the mobile app to gather valuable insights. - Analytics Validation
Validate the server calls made by the mobile app using assurance methods to ensure accurate data collection and analysis.
Extending Analytics with Edge Network
To further enhance mobile app analytics capabilities, businesses can leverage various extensions within the AEP ecosystem. Some key extensions include:
- Mobile Core and Profile
Enrich customer profiles by capturing cross-channel interactions and integrating them with the AEP Real-Time Customer Data Platform (RT-CDP). - Consent for Edge Network
Ensure compliance with data privacy regulations by implementing consent management for data collection and processing. - Identity for Edge Network
Enable seamless user authentication and identification across various touchpoints. - AEP Edge Network
Leverage the power of edge computing to deliver real-time experiences and reduce latency in data processing. - AEP Location Service
Utilize location-based analytics to gain insights into customer behavior and optimize targeting strategies. - AEP Assurance Extension
Validate analytics implementation, ensure accurate data collection, and troubleshoot issues in real time.
Helpful Hint: Understanding your customers’ preferences and using data insights to make informed decisions are key drivers for success in today’s customer-centric world.
Real-World Business Success Stories
- Unified Profiles and Segments
Capturing cross-channel customer interactions and unifying customer profiles with AEP RT-CDP enables businesses to deliver personalized experiences consistently. - Location-based Analysis and Targeting
Analyzing in-store and in-branch visits without purchase helps businesses understand customer interests and behavior. Location-based targeting provides insights into customer preferences and enables effective competitor analysis. - Embrace AI/ML Capabilities
Leveraging AI and ML models on data from different sources allows businesses to score visitors based on their behavioral and transactional data. This enables personalized targeting and predictive analytics, resulting in enhanced customer experiences.
Insights and Actionable Strategies for Your Business
- Bring Your Mobile App Data into the Marketing Mix
Leveraging mobile app data through analytics is essential for businesses to make data-driven marketing decisions and deliver exceptional user experiences. - Adobe Mobile SDK Evolution
Understanding the evolution of Adobe’s Mobile SDKs provides businesses with insights into the advanced capabilities and future-proof solutions offered by AEP Mobile SDK. - Establish Process and Navigate Technical Landscapes
Collaborating with partners and focusing on customers’ needs helps navigate the complex technical landscapes involved in implementing mobile app analytics effectively. - Explore and Innovate Marketing Techniques
Embracing futuristic approaches with Customer Data Platforms (CDPs) like AEP expands marketing capabilities and enables innovation in targeting, personalization, and customer experience delivery.
Elevate Your Mobile App Analytics with NextRow
Next-gen mobile app analytics is no longer optional; it’s essential for success in today’s digital picture. NextRow, with its global offshoring delivery centers and flexible engagement models, is your partner of choice.
By teaming up with NextRow, you’ll:
- Unlock Full Potential: Leverage the power of mobile app analytics for data-driven insights.
- Reduce Costs: Save 50-60% on IT development expenses.
- Stay Ahead: Stay at the forefront of innovations in analytics.
- Enhance Customer Experiences: Deliver tailored experiences that keep customers engaged.
- Navigate Complexity: We’ll guide you through implementation challenges.
Boost your mobile app analytics with NextRow and stay ahead in the digital world. Take the step towards success and transformation. Contact us today to start your journey to excellence!
Adobe Analytics to Customer Journey Analytics Migration Considerations
In this article, we’ll explore the reasons why businesses might consider making the switch from Adobe Analytics to Customer Journey Analytics and the key considerations that need to be considered to ensure a smooth migration.
Adobe’s Customer Journey Analytics & Its Positioning
Top Advantages of CJA over Adobe Analytics
- Analyzing Data from Any Channel: Customer Journey Analytics empowers you to analyze data from any channel, providing a comprehensive view of customer behavior across online and offline touchpoints. Unlike Adobe Analytics, CJA stitches data at a visitor level, creating separate data views that accurately represent your customers’ journey.
- User-Friendly Data Definitions: Say goodbye to complex variables like eVars and props! CJA simplifies data definitions by leveraging simple, standardized key-value pairs built on the Adobe Experience Platform. This eliminates complexity, facilitates data consistency across your organization, and allows for unlimited variables.
- Field-Based Stitching (Cross-Channel Analytics): CJA enables seamless integration of cross-channel data through field-based stitching using first-party IDs like customer ID and email ID. This unlocks person-based analysis, surpassing traditional web and visit-based approaches. Customize sessionization logic, define different session timeouts, and compare attribution across various session durations.
- Altering Historical Data: Customer Journey Analytics empowers data analysts to modify historical data using “Data Views.” With this powerful feature, you can change components, use strings as metrics, and correct or remove data retroactively without affecting the underlying dataset. This ensures accurate analysis and eliminates limitations imposed by data collection timing.
- Advanced-Data Manipulation: Designed with marketers in mind, CJA offers an intuitive interface and streamlined workflows that minimize the learning curve. Marketers can now extract advanced insights from web and cross-channel data without relying on IT teams or implementation changes. This marketing-centric approach enables agile decision-making and empowers businesses to derive valuable intelligence.
- Change Variable Persistence: CJA applies variable settings at report time, allowing for effortless adjustments within Analysis Workspace projects. Similar to visits logic, these retroactive settings facilitate easy comparison of different configurations. This streamlined approach simplifies data collection, eliminates redundant variables, and provides marketers with a comprehensive understanding of the data schema.
Customer Journey Analytics Migration Considerations
About NextRow
How To Plan And Migrate To Marketo
Migrating your current marketing automation to Marketo is an easy decision to make, but there is a huge volume of data, growing daily, that makes the transition tricky. Moreover, marketers need to keep up with the many channels’ customers use to remain relevant. Marketo steps in as one of the best B2B marketing automation software options around, simplifying this work, helping you manage your marketing process with ease, and giving you more opportunity to engage with you clients.
This platform is trusted by millions, in businesses across the globe. Choosing the right marketing automation software for your company might seem daunting, until you learn more about Marketo.
Why you should consider migrating to Marketo
Marketo incorporates the latest techniques and technology to provide programs capable of solving modern marketing problems and simplifying a marketer’s work. Here are a few reasons why Marketo is recognized as a leader in the market by renowned technology research firms like Gartner and Forrester:
- Supports multiple channels and has configured templates, so campaign replication becomes faster and easier
- Easy Salesforce cloud integration (and MS-Dynamics)
- Better analytics and reporting tools
- Simplified campaign creation
- Offers a rich ecosystem for marketing technologies and partners
- With partitions and workspaces, you can keep everything separated
All in all, Marketo redefines marketing efforts by nurturing marketing campaigns; it aligns your marketing campaigns to achieve your marketing goals in a simpler and faster manner.
Let’s look at the process of migrating to Marketo.
Initiation of Marketo Migration
It is true, Marketo migration from your existing marketing software is complex and requires heavy lifting. You’ll need to consider:
- What to do with your existing marketing data;
- Safety measures that you need to follow during migration to avoid any losses;
- How you can migrate the data to Marketo, and more.
This article explains everything, including preparing yourself for migration. Let’s start with the preparation steps for migration.
Planning and Preparation
Preparation, planning, and strategy are key to a successful Marketo migration. You need to understand the current scenario, your requirement for migration, your marketing goals, etc. Here are a few tasks to complete before starting the migration process:
- Mark it as an important project
Consider it a major project and assign a manager to oversee the process. It will require involvement of the sales, marketing, and IT teams to make the migration process faster and easier. So, identify the right person from each team to spearhead his/her department’s side of the project.
- Define your goals
What you are expecting from migration? What do you hope to accomplish in the future with Marketo? Consider the differences between automation terminology and Marketo’s terminology, and document everything. This will help you redefine your marketing capabilities and approaches, and thus produce effective results.
- Plan your activities
Create a timelinefor all the activities required in Marketo migration, andplan for sunsetting your current marketing automation tool. Based on your current marketing automation tool’s sunsetting time, schedule a date for migration. Define your day-to-day activities, assign and delegate accesses to the marketing team, and define your budget.
- Prepare your Legacy Systems
Now, it is a good time to clean up your assets, such as database, files, and campaigns. Consider which of these should be migrated and those that should not be. Prioritizing them for migration and focusing on ridding your database of junk will make your migration faster.
Next, you will need to upload all your assets and share them in a team folder, creating a central repository of assets that can easily be migrated to Marketo.
Now you’re ready to migrate
You have developed a strategy, perspective, and goals. It’s time to start phasing out your current marketing automation software for Marketo.
- Replicate and integrate your assets
In this phase, you need to organize your inventory. It is necessary to work on what files should migrate, how they should migrate, and how to prioritize the migration. Export files in a suitable format and map them in Marketo.
Here are the most important contents that must be addressed accordingly:
Database
- Clean up the prospect database, so you can start your Marketo journey with more valuable data.
- Export the current database in Excel or CSV.
- It is especially important to export the unsubscribe list so that anyone who has unsubscribed from your marketing emails in the past will not be included in the list again.
- Remove custom fields, or columns, that you have marked to not include in import into Marketo from your prospect’s spreadsheet. Make a list of used and unused fields in a separate Excel sheet to replicate those fields in Marketo faster. Later, once you sync with CRM, you will map the respective fields to the corresponding fields.
- Import your list of unsubscribed users into the Marketo instance and choose global unsubscribe. This will ensure that the respective prospects are immediately unsubscribed from Marketo and are not present in the email database. This should be done as soon as possible to avoid any impact on Marketo’s IPs.
- Inventory all email templates in the previous marketing automation tool. Decide which ones should be migrated to Marketo, and then inventory all your sent email contents.
- For a personalized email template, you can create custom email templates in Marketo using HTML / CSS and a text editor.
- Copy Email content from the shared folder and paste it into new Marketo templates.
Landing Pages
- Decide which landing pages you want to recreate in Marketo. Define their purpose based on the traffic to the pages. This will help you to prioritize them for migration.
- Use Marketo Landing Page Builder and the default template to create the personalized landing pages that will include your business branding. The template will be responsive and works with mobile devices as well.
- Developers can create a personalized landing page template by using custom templates in Marketo with HTML / CSS and a text editor.
Forms
- Forms play a major role when migrating to Marketo. Write down any form you want to migrate to Marketo. List the notes on all the fields used in each form and the automatic responses will appear after the form is submitted.
- Recreate the forms using Marketo’s Form Builder. Add all the fields needed to create the form that will generate the same information about potential prospects as your old forms.
- Add necessary completion actions, autoresponder emails, and thank you messages. Then, these forms will have a similar function to your old system.
Lists
- Make a note of any valuable list or smart list that you want to move to Marketo.
- Take detailed notes on the Default/Custom fields.
- The segmented lists will be processed based on the criteria a prospect must meet to fall into your smart lists.
- Target lists and segmentation of the audiences are crucial to create personalized emails and other content.
- Process and workflows will be your new smartlist.
Files
- List all files from the old marketing automation tool. Make a backup of all white papers, images, or gated contents that you want to import to Marketo.
- Upload all the fields you saved in the Shared Drive to Marketo Design Studio.
Scoring Criteria
- Take a backup of all scoring criteria from the previous marketing automation tool, along with the total points allocated for each section.
- Include the sales team to align sales and marketing with the lead scoring criteria. This will ensure that all lead scores are normalized in Marketing and Sales with Marketo.
- Add custom scores or change Marketo’s default rating system to match your rating criteria.
Automation
- Make detailed notes on any triggers in your automated tasks and logic in the engagement program, if you want the same process.
- Recreate Marketo’s automated programs into marketing activities using the same logic including actions, triggers, and rules.
CRM Integration
- Now that the fields are already created in Marketo, you just need to map them to the corresponding Salesforce field. Choose the sync behavior for each custom field created to determine whether Salesforce, Marketo, or the most recently updated record takes precedence.
Add a section somewhere for workflows, and segmentation, personalization.And also write about training the team on Marketo
Test and train
This step will help you and your team understand the new marketing approach and tools available with Marketo. Everything comes together in this step, so remember to:
- Test landing pages with respect to forms and auto-response functions.
- Check out how the data is appearing in CRM.
- Check out new reports for format and accuracy.
- Keep every department in the loop.
Once you have completed the few steps above, get ready for the first campaign launch by making sure your team receives Marketo training. As with any other tool, it doesn’t matter how valuable the tool is if you don’t know how to use it correctly. After putting so much time into migrating to Marketo, you should also plan for training everyone that will use Marketo.
Begin Your New Journey
Once you are done with all the processes, you are ready to begin your journey with Marketo. This is a complex and time-consuming project, depending upon the complexity involved in your old process, but the return on investment will be palpable. As you know, migrating from one MA platform to another can be trying, but with proper planning and Marketo experts around, you can minimize the risks and maximize the benefits of Marketo from day one.
If you want to train your team or aren’t sure whether you’re getting the most out of Marketo, NextRow Digital can help. We provide company specific training and show your team what Marketo can do. If you have experience in Marketo but would like to expand upon your skillset, we also offer training options to take you to the next level.
If you need any assistance in Marketo Migration, contact us at info@nextrow.com. Our Marketo experts will help you every step of the way, from pre-migration – no matter what your previous marketing automation system was – to training.
Marketo Engage Latest Update- Changes To Design Studio URLs
Adobe released details about the upcoming changes in Marketo Engage. Marketo Engage will gradually begin provisioning new subscriptions with the new URL structure from Jan. 21, 2021. By March 5, 2021, all new Adobe Marketo subscriptions will be provisioned with the new URLs. For all existing users, the changes will be effective from April 1, 2021.
Let’s learn more about the update- what it is all about, what the benefits are, what you should do, and how it will affect you if you ignore the changes.
What will change?
Marketo Engage will make changes in the URL structure of the landing pages, Images, Forms, and other file assets. The URL will include CNAME, so each Marketo Engage subscription/instance will have a unique hostname.
Who will be affected the most?
Subscriptions that are already using CNAME for their Landing Pages, Forms, or File assets will be least affected. However, one who is using a generic URL without a custom CNAME has to make changes in the existing URL structure of Landing pages, Forms, and File assets.
Why is this change required?
In the earlier case, Design Studio uses a common hostname to be shared by all customers if there is no custom CNAME configured with the Marketo subscriptions. In such a case, a phishing attack is common since the destination of the URL being accessed is not clear to users.
Now, the destination of URLs will be clear to users by having a unique Hostname for each instance. Also, CNAMEs used in the new URL structure represent company name and thus help in branding and gaining trust from the customers.
Before Vs After the Update
Adobe Marketo users can add the CNAME at the time of initial implementation for a friendlier URL for Assets in the design studio. Check out the changes that will be applied to the URLS of the assets with and without CNAME:
What users need to do?
- If you have not added CNAMEs to your Landing Pages yet, assign a CNAME ASAP by following the instructions here – https://docs.marketo.com/display/public/DOCS/Customize+Your+Landing+Page+URLs+with+a+CNAME.
- List all your landing page URLs, images, and Design Studio file elements. Update their URL structure using CNAMEs required by the Marketo engage URL updates.
- Make sure to update all the URLs where it has been used earlier on an external website, landing pages, CTAs, etc. This will lead you to audit all your assets making it the perfect time to clear all unwanted / unused / test landing pages, images, etc.
- Last, but not least – If you have not yet set up the SSL, Do it now. You can follow the instructions here: https://docs.marketo.com/display/public/DOCS/Add+SSL+to+Your+Landing+Pages