Overheard at Adobe Summit 2024
This year I had the absolute pleasure of attending Adobe Summit 2024 as an Adobe Analytics Champion. This offered me the opportunity to connect with my fellow Adobe Champions – cheering them on as they presented their favorite tips and tricks at Analytics Rockstars and Skill Exchange sessions, or just enjoying a meal together. It was the perfect setting for getting to know one another and comparing our Adobe Analytics / Customer Journey Analytics (CJA) wish lists.
At the Adobe Summit Peer-to-Peer Connection Space, we tapped into our collective powers to help Adobe clients come up with ideas they could take back to work on Monday.
Being a Champion is a bit like having an insider’s view of the product roadmap, and it gives you some influence over the features and improvements that go into these tools throughout the year. This year, there was a heavy emphasis on Adobe Customer Journey Analytics.
One of my favorite things about attending Adobe Summit 2024 as an Adobe Analytics Champion was working at the Peer-to-Peer Connection Space in the Adobe booth. We had the chance to talk with Adobe clients about their needs and concerns, and we tapped into our collective powers to help them come up with ideas they could take back to work on Monday.
Adobe Customer Journey Analytics: To Switch, or Not to Switch?
One of my favorite questions asked – whether at the Adobe booth, at the BlastX Consulting booth, or even just in casual conversations throughout the week – was “Why should I switch to Adobe Customer Journey Analytics?”.
There are a lot of reasons why this switch could help your organization, but it’s important to clear up any confusion over what Adobe Customer Journey Analytics actually does.
What Adobe Customer Journey Analytics is Not:
Despite the somewhat misleading name, Adobe Customer Journey Analytics is not a CDP (Adobe has Real-Time CDP for that). It could be considered a Business Intelligence tool, like Tableau or PowerBI, but it’s so much more. It won’t take the place of your data warehouse, though it’s entirely possible to integrate your system of choice with Adobe Customer Journey Analytics.
What Adobe Customer Journey Analytics Is:
I like to think of Customer Journey Analytics as a bigger, badder, better Adobe Analytics. It does all the things you wish you could do in Adobe Analytics, plus some things you likely haven’t even thought of yet. Features like component customization, derived fields, and combining external and web datasets give your analysts a clearer picture of how you’re engaging with your customers both on- and offline.
Easy to Learn, Fool-Proof, and Super Fast
The Adobe Customer Journey Analytics interface employs the same Adobe Analytics Workspace tool you know and love, so there’s very little (if any) learning curve when making the switch.
If you change your mind or make a mistake in Adobe Customer Journey Analytics, you just undo it, and the changes are immediately reversed.
Because the data is all processed at report run-time (and not at collection time), your team can transform the data easily – correcting typos, creating an unlimited number of list variables, breaking out substrings in your values to create other dimensions, or even creating new metrics out of dimensions on the fly. The changes are immediate and retroactive (including changes to Marketing channels).
But what if you change your mind while working in Customer Journey Analytics, or, heaven forbid, make a mistake? The solution couldn’t be easier: you just undo it, and the changes are immediately reversed. And when I say immediate, I mean immediate. You make the change, save it, return to your workspace project, refresh it, and you’re done. It’s astonishing.
This doesn’t even touch on the magic you can do with connected external datasets – for example, measuring the amount of time it takes for a customer to complete a sale after calling the customer support line.
Getting Leadership on Board with Adobe Customer Journey Analytics
From Adobe Summit 2024 attendees who were already sold on Adobe Customer Journey Analytics, I heard, “How do I convince my Executives that we need to switch to Adobe Customer Journey Analytics?”
Besides all of the features and flexibility of the tool, my suggestion was to emphasize the fact that Adobe Customer Journey Analytics is cutting edge – and being in front of that now will save a lot of headaches down the road, if Adobe does eventually reduce support for Adobe Analytics.
If your organization has invested in licenses for Tableau or other BI Tools, those can probably be eliminated. But for those who just really love Tableau, Adobe Customer Journey Analytics works with it, too.
Time is Money, and Adobe Customer Journey Analytics Can Save You a Lot of Both
One of the biggest benefits of Adobe Customer Journey Analytics is the capability for analysts to transform data on the fly. You no longer need to coordinate with the data science team, wait weeks for them to address your request, then wait even longer as they refine the query and make sure you’re getting exactly what you need. Distilling a task that once required people to work across multiple weeks (or even months) into just a few hours is pretty impressive, and it’s hard to even put a price tag on the cost savings and efficiency gains this brings.
Is Adobe Analytics Being Put Out to Pasture?
The question on everyone’s minds this year is “Is Adobe Analytics going away?”
Let me start by just saying: Adobe is not Google. They have no intention of decommissioning Adobe Analytics any time soon, given its widespread use by so many large companies. Adobe Analytics has been around for an extraordinarily long time in digital years (almost 28 years, if you can recall the SuperStats days), and it seems set to stick around for the foreseeable future.
Adobe Customer Journey Analytics was the Star of the Show
The previous question may have been driven in part by the notable lack of Summit offerings related to Adobe Analytics. A great deal more emphasis was placed on Adobe Customer Journey Analytics and AI (of course), leading attendees to wonder whether Adobe clients should start planning for an Adobe Analytics sunset.
Adobe Analytics Isn’t Going Away Any Time Soon
In conversations with Adobe Product Managers, the message is clear: there is no intent to stop supporting Adobe Analytics. Of course, this does not mean it won’t happen someday. Adobe is clearly putting most of its development efforts into Adobe Customer Journey Analytics – but I suspect the goal is to get more clients on the new platform so that eventually Adobe Analytics will no longer be necessary as a separate product.
The Incredible Generosity of the Adobe Community
The most frequently asked question at Adobe Summit 2024 – the one that I think I got from every single person I met – was “Is this your first Summit?”.
Repeat Adobe Summit attendees happily to guide first-timers through this huge event help them make the most of their experience.
There is something about this conference that really connects people from all corners of the world – people with different backgrounds, interests, skills, and job titles. The event is part celebration of all things Adobe, and part educational opportunity for users to learn and grow their skills in this age of digital transformation. The repeat attendees never hesitate to guide first-timers through the event and help them make the most of what might otherwise be an overwhelming experience.
Year After Year, Adobe Continues to Impress
This was my third time at Adobe Summit. I’m still in awe of what Adobe has accomplished – not just regarding this enormous event complete with keynotes, sessions, labs, parties, food, swag, and more food (oh, and Shaq). I’m also in awe of the amazing tools that Adobe continues to improve upon year after year, and the wonderful, supportive community of users they’ve built. It’s more of a lifestyle than a job.
There’s so much to be excited about coming out of this year’s Adobe Summit. If you weren’t able to attend, make sure to check out the sessions available on demand. For Adobe Customer Journey Analytics-specific sessions, I highly recommend checking out Your Customer Analysis Tech Stack and Customer Journey Analytics – VS117 and Dashboards & Dragons: Customer Journey Analytics Tips & Tricks – S101.
Have Questions About Adobe Summit 2024 or Adobe Customer Journey Analytics?
As always, reach out to us at BlastX Consulting if you’d like a demo, or just more conversation around how these tools can impact your business. You can also contact me directly on LinkedIn if you have specific questions about Adobe Summit 2024 or any of the tools discussed in this article!
