Targeting and personalization are key components of online marketing. By tailoring your marketing messages for the individual visitors to your website, instead of making them overly-generalized for a broad audience, you can increase the chances that they will become a customer and a repeat customer.
A February 2016 survey from Demand Metric found that 59 percent of marketers don't personalize their content because they don't have the technology to do so. But the fact is, the technology necessary to personalize your marketing efforts is easily accessible if you know what to look for.
One tool often used by content markers is called a data management platform, or DMP. It's a type of software that allows marketers to interpret data about their visitors and use it to personalize those visitors' experiences. For example, a DMP might help a marketer ascertain whether a visitor is an existing customer, or a prospective one, so they can tailor the visitor's experience and the messages they see accordingly.
Where DMPs really become useful is when they're integrated with testing and personalization tools such as Adobe Target. DMP personalization with Adobe Audience Manager is a snap — you just need to understand how a DMP and Adobe Target can work together to help provide a personalized experience to a targeted audience.
Adobe Target is a program designed to help web masters and marketers test their websites, such as through A/B testing. It also helps marketers personalize their websites. Adobe Target is part of the Adobe Experience Cloud, a suite of cloud-based marketing software offered by Adobe, like Oracle Marketing Cloud and Salesforce Marketing Cloud — all of which can be integrated with a DMP.
On its digital marketing blog, Adobe explains that you can use a DMP to identify a specific audience, then push that audience to Adobe Target to target it on your website. The audience can then also be pushed to a display marketing channel and to paid search, allowing you to reach the same audience across several different marketing channels with specific, personalized messages.
Reaching the same audience across several marketing channels can help you implement basic marketing strategies, such as the "seven touches" marketing technique. It's the idea that it takes seven interactions with a potential customer before that person will act upon your call to action.
By targeting customers across various marketing channels, you can help ensure you've engaged the customer at least a few of those seven times. With the personalization offered by a DMP, your marketing messages may prove more effective, and you may be able to get a customer to act in fewer than seven touches.
This just scratches the surface of what you can accomplish by combining the power of a DMP with a personalization and targeting tool like Adobe Target.
