Adobe Debuts Attribution Model And Virtual Analyst App At EMEA Summit

by @lauriesullivan, May 12, 2016

Adobe has a new approach to attribution based on an algorithmic method that measures the impact of marketing on success. The first release of the attribution model officially rolls out this fall with the Adobe Virtual Analyst app. The model and app demonstrated by the creator John Bates, group product manager at Adobe, at the Adobe EMEA Summit Thursday.

The model focuses on each touch along the customer journey, from search to email and social sites — not just paid media, but owned media such as call centers or Web sites. The model assigns credits for each and calculates the success.

“Rather than use a rules-based approach such as last touch or first touch, for example, it uses an algorithm to measure the incremental impact of each piece of media or contact with the brand,” Bates said. “The technology measures propensity and different views for how consumers move across devices.”

Along with the attribution model, Bates created Adobe Virtual Analyst, an app that marketers can access through Adobe Analytics on the Apple watch. Rather than preset alerts, the app learns from the types of reports and data the user accesses.

The Adobe Virtual Analyst continually analyzes preferences and reports accessed by the user. It relies on machine learning and anomaly detection, with algorithms used to determine statistically significant changes in customer data. The app provides a description of what happened in the data, but with an analysis of digital assets in Experienced Manager to see whether the alert is related to a drop in sales or price, for example. It also creates an analysis with links to connect directly with the content.

If Bates wants to see more similar data he can give it a thumbs up or thumbs down, similar to symbols on the Pandora music app, so it learns his likes and dislikes. “I have three years of attribution releases for a variety of capabilities,” he said.

Bates demonstrated the attribution model and mobile application during a presentation Adobe calls Sneak, a main stage session featured during the company’s summits. Adobe Sneak provides a glimpse into projects that come from departments across the organization such as research lab, product engineering, and management.

The projects are not formally on Adobe’s product roadmap. This year, Summit organizers received about 90 submissions. Only six or seven technologies make it into the final group that become demos on the main stage, each lasting about four to five minutes. Some eventually become products; others do not.

 

MediaPost.com: Search Marketing Daily

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