Adobe Moving into Digital Marketing

Adobe is going to give Google Analytics a run for its money with its new digital marketing software, Digital Marketing Cloud.  The company, which has long been known for its design tools Photoshop and Illustrator, has spent more than $2.5 billion since 2009 on acquisitions and internal development of digital marketing tools to manage and measure user interaction data.  In the third quarter, this investment started paying off with 40% greater digital marketing revenue over the previous year, putting the unit on track to make $750 million in revenue in 2012.

Adobe is focusing on two key areas of digital marketing measurement.  First, they have created products that help marketers understand how customers are using different devices, so marketers can optimize their advertising based on actual customer behavior.  Adobe is also leveraging its design expertise to incorporate measurement into traditional magazines that have moved on to tablets.

Two Adobe customers shared some interesting findings:

• NBC said it learned through Adobe's software that users who share video access almost three times more online video than those that don't share
• Build.com learned that the surface finish of metal bathroom fixtures is key to a customer's purchasing decision, and has now optimized its site to suggest fixtures with similar finishes to the one a customer is currently viewing

Adobe reaches for share of digital marketing