Adobe adds more AI control, customization, transparency in Adobe Target update

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Adobe is aiming to give marketers more control and transparency over targeting algorithms, as it updates Adobe Target tools.

The company's Experience Cloud, which encompasses Adobe's Marketing Cloud, is now managing 233 trillion customer transactions a year, with more than 150 billion emails sent through Adobe Campaign. A customer transaction includes a link click, web visit, opens and other items included in a digital footprint.

Meanwhile, Adobe has been adding more automation and artificial intelligence in with each update. The challenge for enterprises and business leaders is that they are increasingly relying on data science and artificial intelligence, but don't have visibility into the algorithms in many cases.

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At Adobe Summit in Las Vegas this week, Adobe is hoping to open the AI transparency a bit.

Drew Burns, principal product marketing manager for Adobe's digital marketing unit, said the company's AI platform is absorbing CRM data, industry metrics, and individual profiles to give customers more control of the algorithms. "Customers can constrain and customize the algorithms based on what their goals are. We're giving a lot of control to marketers," said Burns.

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The AI customization workflow resembles what an enterprise would use for testing. "With automated personalization and targeting capability you can test experiences and evaluate everything from the profile to attributes," said Burns.

Burns outlined the following updates:

• Real-time customization to brand recommendation models. Brands using their own algorithms for product and content recommendations can use Adobe Target Premium to apply new rules, filters and weight attribute to specific audiences and individuals.

• Personalization insights via a new report type in Adobe Target. Adobe's Personalization Insights showcases what audience traits were influential in building the model and how they were applied. Personalization Insights launches in beta in the spring.

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• Propensity score model comparisons. Adobe Target will allow markets, product owners, developers, and data scientists to factor their custom propensity scores to gauge a customer's likelihood to purchase a product or churn. These comparisons will be available in June.

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Adobe is also adding new features to Adobe Campaign to simplify and bolster email campaigns. Email remains a key cog in omnichannel marketing plans and one of the tools with the strongest enterprise returns on investment, said Kristin Naragon, director of product marketing for Adobe Campaign. "Email is a topic that never goes away. Love it or hate it the face we're still talking about it either way speaks to its staying power and importance in daily mindshare," said Naragon.

The updates to Adobe Campaign include:

• Creative Designer, which is a tool to simplify email creation and design. Marketers can use a visual UI to drag-and-drop templates and content fragments. Each fragment is customized to the header, image, and text level. The Creative Designer is also integrated with Adobe Campaign's content library.

• Behance Collection of email templates. Behance, a platform used by artists to market their work, will integrate with Adobe Campaign so email designers can use pre-built templates via Behance community members.
• Scaling tools to bolster email sends, personalization, and boost delivery efficiency.