Adobe (Nasdaq:ADBE) today announced the next generation of its Real-time Customer Data Platform (CDP), the only enterprise application architected from the ground up for first-party data-driven customer acquisition and engagement. Adobe Real-time CDP helps brands activate known and unknown customer data to manage the entire customer profile and journey seamlessly in one system, without the need for third-party cookies.

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“With first-party data rising in importance in this new era, we place tremendous value on our close collaboration with strategic partners such as Adobe to put the interests of consumers at the forefront of what we do.”

The relationship between consumers and brands is rapidly evolving. Consumers today are more attentive to the data they share, which has resulted in a patchwork of privacy regulations globally. At the same time, expectations for personalized brand experiences remain at an all-time high, while third-party cookies, which marketers have historically relied on to track unknown visitors, will no longer be supported in browsers. This means brands will have to contend with reduced insight about unknown visitors to their digital properties while still trying to provide a compelling customer experience.

In light of these changes, it is imperative for companies to recalibrate their customer acquisition strategy to place quality, permission-based first-party data at the center of all their customer engagements. Adopting a first-party data strategy allows them to provide customers with the most relevant, personalized experience by only using the information that customers choose to share. And yet, a recent survey of digital marketers shows that despite optimism around the benefits of first-party data, marketers believe they have tapped only 47% of their first-party data potential.

“As consumers, we now expect personalized brand experiences while being in control of the data we share,” said Anil Chakravarthy, executive vice president and general manager, Digital Experience Business and Worldwide Field Operations at Adobe. “With Adobe Real-time CDP, we are partnering with brands to deliver relevant, responsive and respectful experiences through first-party data.”

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Using First-Party Data to Power CXM

• A Centralized Hub for First-Party Data: Adobe Real-time CDP serves as a centralized hub for brands to bring together varying types of first-party event and attribute data to form a more complete view of their customers. It allows brands to combine first-party web, app and media data (from publishers) coming from interactions such as a prospect’s web browsing activity, as well as emails or phone numbers from customers who opt to register on a brand’s site. As additional data is added and richer customer profiles are built, brands can use Adobe Target to personalize experiences. In addition, out-of-box data governance capabilities help brands ensure that data usage policies are strictly enforced and followed by everyone in an organization.

• Real-Time, Machine-Learning Powered Personalization at Scale: Encouraging an unknown visitor to register on a brand’s site with their email or phone number can be a challenge. There’s no one-size-fits-all approach as every customer’s journey is different. As Adobe Real-time CDP allows brands to build a prospect’s profile based on brand interactions, Adobe Target ingests available data and orchestrates in real-time the next best content, offer or experience, including identifying the right moment in between clicks to trigger registration and consent from the unknown visitor. In addition, Adobe Target allows brands to bring prospects’ propensity scores (the likelihood that a visitor will perform certain actions like a purchase) from Adobe Real-time CDP into Adobe Target to deliver relevant experiences that will likely turn a prospect into a customer.

• Segment Match: New Segment Match lets brands collaborate to expand their own first-party data sets through partnerships. It allows marketers to securely enrich their matching first-party profiles with segment metadata for better insights and improved personalization. For example, an apparel retailer may partner with a jewelry brand to exchange non-sensitive segment data about their matching customers, like the type of dresses that a subset of their customers is buying so that the jewelry brand can recommend accessories for those groups. The non-sensitive customer data can only be referenced in Segment Match when the customers for both the apparel retailer and the jewelry brand permit them.

• Look-Alike Segments: New Look-alike Segments allow brands to identify additional customers who share similar attributes to their best-known customers. For example, using a sample audience of existing customers, marketers can build a look-alike segment that consists of other customers within the brand’s database who share comparable traits. Another way to use Look-alike Segments is in tandem with Segment Match. In this instance, a brand can identify and send a sample audience of existing customers to a Segment Match partner. Based on the data, the partner can build a look-alike segment that consists of other customers within the partner’s own database who share similar characteristics and have granted permission for the partner to use their data.

• New B2B CDP Capabilities: In today’s increasingly digital economy, B2B companies must find new ways to connect with customers across an ever-expanding set of touchpoints in a personalized, relevant way and do it at scale. Available today, the B2B edition of Adobe Real-time CDP brings together both individual and account profiles for complete intelligence and activation to help B2B companies think and act like B2C brands.

“No customer experience initiative will be successful without a data infrastructure to support it,” said Gerry Murray, research director, marketing and sales technology at IDC. “Customers expect brands to act as one regardless of where, when, how or with whom they interact. The only way to do that is by making customer data an enterprise service free from application and departmental silos with a solution like Adobe’s Real-time CDP.”

“The preservation of our customers’ privacy has long been a priority for IBM,” said Jason Andrews, vice president for digital marketing at IBM. “With first-party data rising in importance in this new era, we place tremendous value on our close collaboration with strategic partners such as Adobe to put the interests of consumers at the forefront of what we do.”

“As a customer-obsessed company, we recognize the vital role that first-party data plays in helping to contextualize our customers’ journeys to ultimately deliver a winning brand experience,” said Josh Rab, vice president, marketing technology at Intuit. “Intuit has been a long-standing Adobe customer, and we’re excited to extend this partnership as we ramp up our data strategy and raise the bar for the type of brand experience that Intuit offers.”

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