“Can we run 8-10 optimization campaigns concurrently?”
It seems most executives must have attended the same optimization maturity workshop, as I’m often being approached by organizations, both large and small, to help them mature their optimization practices to a point where they are consistently running 8-10 optimization campaigns concurrently.
What I have discovered is that most organizations are getting bogged down doing ad-hoc testing and are struggling to reach a point in their maturity where they have the ability to run several campaigns concurrently that are based on clearly defined goals. Part of this lack of maturity comes down to simply not putting in the work — At times it’s just too damn difficult to get the technology deployed.
This technical hurdle is especially prevalent with the optimization market-leader, Adobe Test&Target, due to the solution requiring Marketing Boxes (mBoxes) be deployed around specific test content. NOTE: This hurdle can be overcome using a Global mBox Strategy however this strategy isn’t necessarily the best approach for organizations in the early part of the optimization maturity curve.
Tag Management Systems (TMS) brought hope to many organizations struggling with the complexity of optimization platforms however that hope was short-lived as it quickly became evident that most TMS were conceived to, as the name suggests, manage “tags.” The problem is that analytics & optimization isn’t a “tag,” they are business assets, and managing optimization “tags” through a TMS just introduced more complexities — TMS weren’t solving the problem, they were creating new ones.
As I began experimenting with Satellite, I could tell that this platform was different. Satellite appeared to be built top-down, it wasn’t necessarily built to be a tag management system, in the traditional sense, but more of a behavior/audience management system.
When it came to deploying Adobe Test&Target, most TMS treated Test&Target as a traditional “tag,” this approached introduced a nasty side effect known as “Content Flicker.” Content Flicker happens when vistors experience a default creative version, say a hero image on the home page, and then experience an alternative creative version of the hero image a fraction of a second later, producing what is described as a “flicker” of the site content. Although this may not seem like such a huge deal, this “flicker” has be the sole cause for many campaigns failing to see the light of day.
As Satellite was built to be a behavior management system, handling things like the nasty content flicker was built right into the core product — there was no need for me to build a hack to code around it.
As an analyst, I want solutions that focus on allowing me to do amazing things, untimely empowering me to create value not just manage blocks of code, and Satellite provided that for me.
If you are interested in the specific steps for deploying Test&Target through Satellite, then read on…
5 Simple Steps for Deploying Test&Target With Satellite
Step 1: Add a New Tool
From the Satellite Dashboard, click ‘Add a Tool’
Step 2: Configure the Tool
Click the ‘gear’ icon next to the Test&Target tool we added in Step 1 and supply the URL to your mBox.js file.
Step 3: Create a Rule
From the Satellite Dashboard, click ‘Rules,’ from the left-hand navigation click ‘Page Load Rules,’ then click ‘Create New Rule.’
→ In the ‘Name’ filed provide a descriptive name.
→ Expand ‘Identifier’ and select to trigger this rule at ‘Top of Page.’ In this example, I’m running a test on a set of social icons that appear on every page of my site, so I’ve added in a path that will allow this rule to be triggered on all site pages.
→ Expand ‘Test&Target’ and define what element you want an mBox deployed around and the name of this newly created mBox.
Step 4: Save, Approve, & Publish
After you have created your new rule, save it, approve it, and publish.
That’s it, you have now dynamically deployed an mBox around a specific set of real estate on your site. Now all that’s left is to create your Campaign and Offer(s) in Test&Target and you are ready to launch your test.
Step 5: Test&Target Configuration
Using the Test&Target admin, setup your campaign just as if your development team had hard-coded the mBox for you.
→ Create HTML offer(s) for your alternate test content
→ Create a new campaign
→ Select the mBox name defined in step 3
→ Associate your offer(s)
→ Test, Save, & Approve
That’s it! No hastle, no hacks, no flicker, just pure awesomeness and value!
“As an analyst, I want solutions that focus on allowing me to do amazing things” – this is why I joined Satellite. Great article Jason. It is in the hands of great analysts that Satellite becomes something truly special.
This caught my eye: “…more of a behavior/audience management system”. This got me to thinking of two things:
1. Most of the analysts I know and work with are pretty non-technical. When they hear the term “tag management” all they think of is the IT group, and wonder how it could possibly relate to them, or more importantly benefit them. Jason’s term would make more intrinsic sense to them, and hopefully better get their interest up.
2. Digital Analytics practitioners and tools both need to do a better job of moving beyond the focus on isolated interactions and the management of measuring them, and towards looking at consumers in a more behavioral evolution perspective where the focus is on understanding the customer as a whole.
I had already arranged a Satellite demo for our company later this week, so thanks for giving this insight. I now have something else to make sure and talk about with them.