Adobe Takes Real-Time Personalization to Another Level

By Centific Editors

Adobe Summit 2022 is rocking! We’re impressed as always with the amazing content firehose that the event unleashes upon an audience of business executives and industry leaders. One presentation from March 15 that jumped out at us: the Day One keynote, “Make the Digital Economy Personal.”

During the keynote, Adobe business leaders rolled out what’s new with Adobe’s Real-Time Customer Data Platform (CDP). Adobe discussed how the platform is delivering more speed, trust, and relevancy through a personalized experience. For instance, Adobe introduced Real-Time CDP Connections, which makes it possible for businesses to act on real-time customer data faster than ever before – without the need for third-party cookies.

Adobe noted that via Real-Time CDP Connections, brands can now streamline data collection, enrichment and distribution with a fast, low-code implementation to drive accelerated time-to-value for real-time personalization based on behavioral events. Real-Time CDP Connections offers real-time performance with Adobe Experience Platform Edge Network’s geographically distributed servers. This enables the fast distribution of data with high fidelity while also allowing brands to send data from Adobe’s servers to Adobe and non-Adobe destinations.

For example, Major League Baseball (MLB) is reimagining the fan experience with Adobe. Real-Time CDP’s unified customer profile will make it possible for MLB to provide fans with a tailored experience. Fan-friendly features may include personalized promotions or notifications tailored to the individual fans at the ballpark, potentially highlighting which entrances will offer the fastest journey to their seats, VIP parking promotions or discounts on grab-and-go concessions. Fans who live outside their favorite team’s locale will also be able to receive alerts when their favorite club or player is in town or get free trials for MLB.TV so they can watch games from the comfort of their couch or on the go.

As Anil Chakravarthy, president, Digital Experience Business and Worldwide Field Operations at Adobe, said, “Personalization does not happen without content velocity.”

The ability to personalize experiences faster with first-party data matters especially as consumer privacy initiatives from Apple and Google make it harder for businesses to use third-party cookies to create personalized content. Businesses are under more pressure now to find imaginative ways to personalize content and experiences through the data they collect about customers from their own sites (first-party data). This is where Adobe plays such a crucial role.

Adobe also create a unified view of the customer that makes it possible for businesses to accelerate the development of new products and services online, or as we like to call it at Centific, speed to market. Customer data platforms accelerate speed to market while providing the flexibility to meet the evolving needs of customers.

For example, as Adobe noted, General Motors (GM) is transforming the future of personal mobility, committing $27 billion to the development of electric vehicles. Over the lifetime of vehicle ownership, consumers expect high-touch and personalized experiences for a product that many are investing in for the first time. GM is activating its digital channels to support this and is leveraging Real-Time CDP to bring together customer data across multiple touchpoints to personalize the online experience.

The Role of the Customer Data Platform Tomorrow

At Centific, we see CDPs playing an exciting and even more essential role as experience ecosystems become predictive (anticipating what a customer will want tomorrow and being there to meet that unexpressed and unmet need they didn’t know they had) and adaptive (customizing the experience to have the right product at the right place at the right time). To help businesses understand and respond to customer preferences tomorrow, CDPs will provide an end-to-end view of the customer, regardless of channel or behavior.

For example, some businesses have the means to do extensive in-store behavioral tracking, such as using location data to understand consumer preference trends at the store level. Some have the means to study supply chain data in real time. But few businesses are marrying all this data to match supply with demand today and tomorrow as effectively as they could.

The key is to rethink the role of the CDP as a customer visibility platform. And that visibility needs to encompass not only who the customer is and what their preferences are, but how those factors influence the entire business, ranging from supply chain to customer loyalty management.

What’s Next, Adobe?

We are excited to find out what’s in store as the Adobe Summit continues. Meanwhile, to learn how to succeed with CDPs such as Adobe’s Real-Time Customer Data Platform, contact Centific.