Martech: Martech is Marketing Logo
  • Topics
    Digital Transformation
    Marketing Operations
    Data
    Customer & Digital Experience
    Performance Marketing
    Marketing Management
    Special Reports
    All Topics
  • Conference
  • Webinars
  • Intelligence Reports
  • White Papers
  • What is MarTech

Processing...Please wait.

MarTech » Marketing Operations » Adobe Target expands beyond A/B testing to automated optimization of user experience

Adobe Target expands beyond A/B testing to automated optimization of user experience

The company is today announcing Auto-Target, which implements machine learning-driven automation across the entire tool.

Barry Levine on September 15, 2016 at 1:14 pm | Reading time: 3 minutes

targets with darts

Adobe is today evolving its Target solution — part of its Marketing Cloud — away from the testing of discrete A/B variables and toward automated optimization of entire user experiences.

A new Auto-Target capability extends machine learning-powered, automated optimization across the entire tool, beyond its previous role as a separately available function for specific locations in sites and apps.

In a blog post announcing the enhancement, Senior Product Marketing Manager Jason Hickey wrote that Target users can now set up automated personalization “in the same simple way they’d set up an A/B test.”

“By simply clicking ‘Auto-Target’ on step two of our three-step guided workflow,” he said, “marketers will be enabling a powerful personalization engine to determine the right experience to serve an individual.”

Previously, marketers might use Target to test two or more variables through a rules-based process. Usually, the testing was focused on offers, such as whether a 50-percent-off coupon would drive more sales than, say, a two-for-one sale.

They can still do that. But, now, Auto-Target also allows the marketer to select and automatically test an unlimited number of variables that define not only presented offers, but also the larger user experience. These could include, for example, different layouts, choices of images, different wording and so on.

adobe-target-image

The automated optimization can be targeted down to an individual profile, whether identified or not, and across channels. Target automatically tracks responses to the many variations, pointing to the one(s) that have the best performance according to the goals the marketer sets.

“The training wheels are coming off,” Hickey wrote, adding:

“You could have, say, 10 or 20 different page experiences — ranging from minor creative or copy adjustments all the way to totally different layout experiences. That’s right, no need for targeting rules, no waiting for test completion and no more going to IT to push a winning experience to production. You’ll be able to tap into real-time analyses surrounding the most predictive elements of each site visitor, which in turn, will enable you to deliver instant targeting tied to the best-performing experiences and maximize conversions throughout the course of the test.”

If A/B or multivariate testing — such as testing several different offers — is considered one end of a performance optimization spectrum, and automated optimization of all variables is the other end, Auto Target is now moving toward the automated/all variables end.

Interestingly, Optimizely — generally known as an A/B testing tool — is also today announcing that it is expanding beyond that limited role and becoming more of an “experimentation platform.”

But, Adobe Principal Product Marketing Manager Drew Burns told me, no one else has Target’s “combo of capabilities.”

Other testing platforms, he said, are “much more of an offer level, [while] we’re at the user experience level.”


New on MarTech

    Only 38% of marketers very confident in their customer data and analytics systems
    Does your email copy persuade or sell?
    The latest jobs in martech
    74% of B2B marketers expect budgets to increase next year
    How Cherry Bombe uses email to make customers smile

About The Author

Barry Levine
Barry Levine covers marketing technology for Third Door Media. Previously, he covered this space as a Senior Writer for VentureBeat, and he has written about these and other tech subjects for such publications as CMSWire and NewsFactor. He founded and led the web site/unit at PBS station Thirteen/WNET; worked as an online Senior Producer/writer for Viacom; created a successful interactive game, PLAY IT BY EAR: The First CD Game; founded and led an independent film showcase, CENTER SCREEN, based at Harvard and M.I.T.; and served over five years as a consultant to the M.I.T. Media Lab. You can find him at LinkedIn, and on Twitter at xBarryLevine.

Related Topics

Marketing Operations

Get the daily newsletter digital marketers rely on.

Processing...Please wait.

See terms.

ATTEND OUR EVENTS The MarTech Conference logo.

September 28-29, 2022: Fall

Start Training Now: Master Classes

Start Discovering Now: Spring



The SMX Conference logo.

Start Training Now:: SMX Advanced

November 14-15, 2022: SMX Next

March 8-9, 2022: Master Classes

Webinars

SEO Recon: The What, Why, and How for Building Amazing Links

Unlock the Cutting-Edge Potential of QR Codes

Why Finding the Right Platform is the Key to Winning in Email Marketing

See More Webinars
Intelligence Reports

Enterprise Marketing Performance Management Platforms: A Marketer’s Guide

Enterprise Customer Journey Orchestration Platforms: A Marketer’s Guide

Enterprise Account-Based Marketing Platforms: A Marketer’s Guide

See More Intelligence Reports
Featured White Paper

The Definitive Buyer’s Guide to Collaborative Work Management for Marketers

See More Whitepapers
Search Our Site

Receive daily marketing news & analysis.

Processing...Please wait.

Topics

  • Transformation
  • Operations
  • Data
  • Experience
  • Performance
  • Management
  • All Topics
  • Home

Our Events

  • MarTech
  • Search Marketing Expo - SMX

About

  • What is MarTech
  • Contact
  • Privacy
  • Terms Of Use
  • Marketing Opportunities
  • Staff

Follow Us

  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • LinkedIn
  • Newsletters
  • RSS

© 2022 Third Door Media, Inc. All rights reserved.