Adobe Campaign v8 looks to be the platform’s biggest leap forward in half a decade. The improved multi-channel marketing hub promises to be faster, smoother, scalable, and better for personalisation.
So, does Adobe Campaign Classic v8 live up to the hype?
Here are our key takeaways.
Adobe Campaign v8 works with Snowflake.
Snowflake’s elastic performance engine allows Adobe Campaign users to process enormous data sets almost instantly.
That means:
To put it bluntly, Campaign v8 is stupidly fast. Unofficially it’s 100x faster than v7.
These upgrades are a welcome relief for brands dealing with large data sets or facing performance issues when running complex campaigns.
And you don’t need to change the existing data structure: information is stored in Snowflake and accessed through a primary database, typically PostgreSQL.
You can get nerdy about Campaign architecture here.
Adobe Campaign v8 Enterprise uses a Full Federated Data Access (FFDA) model to simplify data management.
(Campaign Classic v8, the non-Enterprise instance, uses an FDA model that is subject to the limitations of a third-party database).
A local Campaign database handles real-time messaging for a seamless customer experience. Meanwhile, the multi-petabyte-capable Snowflake cloud database deals with campaign execution, workflows, and batch queries.
FFDA and Snowflake alleviate the limitations and extra steps involved when working with third-party databases and Adobe Campaign simultaneously.
Adobe Campaign has long been the industry leader in cross-channel marketing campaign management.
V8 extends Adobe’s lead by building in a connection to the Adobe Experience Platform real-time customer data platform (CDP), which enables:
Of course, you need to be provisioned for Experience Platform and Campaign for the CDP integration to work.
Once again, the benefit here is real-time personalisation at scale using rich customer data. Not only can you deliver better customer experiences and 1:1 journey flows, but thanks to Snowflake, you can do it in real-time.
Adobe announced at Summit this year that its new drag and drop web-based user interface will be released by the end of 2023.
It’s a long overdue (and very welcome) addition.
Practitioners are the primary audience for the interface. However, the responsive design and expanded access will improve collaboration between marketers and administrators by making monitoring and operational features more accessible.
Adobe Campaign v8 is already available. New customers are already on the platform, while Adobe is encouraging brands with existing v7 instances to upgrade.
Adobe Campaign pricing varies based on the number of active profiles, channels, and additional features in your ecosystem.
Although we can’t quote exact costs for privacy reasons (and because to do so would be misleading), we can say the scale reflects Campaign’s standing as an enterprise-level tool for managing multi-channel campaigns with millions of active records.
Pricing is similar between the major platforms like Adobe Campaign, HubSpot, and Salesforce Marketing Cloud.
Adobe Campaign v8 uses Snowflake.
Snowflake provides significant upgrades to speed, agility, scalability and data management.
Adobe Campaign Classic is designed for large businesses with millions of customer records. Classic enables high levels of customisation and 1:1 personalisation at scale.
Adobe Campaign Standard, the scaled-down version, is ideal for organisations with large data sets but relatively simple use cases.
Related: Time to Upgrade Your Adobe Campaign Instances?
Yes. Adobe has put a lot of effort into ensuring the transition from v7 to v8 is minimally disruptive. For now, most changes are behind the scenes.
However, because v8 is only available as a Managed Cloud Service, there’s currently no way to automate the migration.
At the top of this article, we queried whether v8 lives up to the hype.
It does.
The speed improvements alone are extremely impressive. Combined with enhanced cross-channel campaign management potential, plus better segmentation and personalisation from the integrated CDP connection, Campaign v8 has a lot going for it.
When the new web-based user interface rolls out next year, marketers will again see usability improvements.
TAP CXM is a leading customer experience management consultancy in the UK and USA. We partner with ambitious brands to design, implement, manage and maintain their martech, including Adobe Campaign and the entire Experience Cloud.
We’re already working with Adobe Campaign v8. Our clients are seeing significant performance improvements from the beefed-up platform, which translates to better results across complex campaigns.
Contact TAP CXM to speak with an Adobe Campaign expert or see how we’re helping big brands achieve great things.