Adobe Journey Optimizer ‑ B2B Edition: Features and Preparation for Release

In the ever-evolving landscape of customer experience management, Adobe has consistently been at the forefront in providing solutions to meet the dynamic needs of businesses. Adobe Journey Optimizer, Adobe’s marketing application built on Adobe Experience Platform that focuses on building and executing customer interactions at scale, has set a high standard in enabling businesses to deliver personalized, real-time customer experiences across various touchpoints.

Now, Adobe has introduced Adobe Journey Optimizer - B2B Edition, a groundbreaking extension to Marketo designed to cater specifically to the unique journey orchestration demands of the business-to-business (B2B) market. This new offering brings a suite of advanced capabilities tailored to enhance the journeys of business clients, ensuring that B2B interactions are as seamless, personalized, and impactful as those in the business-to-customer (B2C) realm. With Adobe Journey Optimizer B2B Edition, businesses can now leverage powerful tools specifically tailored to orchestrate and optimize complex B2B journeys, driving deeper engagement and fostering stronger, more meaningful relationships with their clients.

The platform considers the frequent challenges faced by B2B companies, such as misalignment between sales and marketing, aiming to harmonize lead and account-based marketing efforts by defining decision-maker roles, outlining their functions within a buying group, and identifying optimal strategies to engage various groups within target accounts through AI-generated content.

You may be curious about how this works. We will explore the anticipated features of Adobe Journey Optimizer B2B Edition, along with actionable steps that marketing and sales teams can implement to get ready for the release. Let's dig into the specifics!

Features of Adobe Journey Optimizer - B2B Edition

Adobe Journey Optimizer B2B Edition has several features that help users address challenges of the B2B marketing world. In the below section, we will shed light on a few of these exciting features and what they mean for the sales and marketing teams. 

Buying Groups and Account Audiences

Unlike in B2C marketing, B2B marketing looks at audiences as accounts, not necessarily individuals.  Therefore this functionality allows users to create buying groups and account audiences, giving them the ability to assign distinct responsibilities to each key decision-maker in a buying group. Contacts are subsequently assigned to the appropriate buying group based on specified target accounts. A marketer can easily track and manage the interactions and preferences of each buying group member, ensuring that the right messages are delivered to the right contact at the right time. This level of customization and personalization can greatly improve the effectiveness of marketing journeys and ultimately drive higher conversion rates. 

With this functionality, marketers can:

• Set up buying group templates, allowing them to streamline the process of setting up new buying groups and account audiences. 
• Unify and normalize data, enabling them to have a comprehensive view of their target accounts and buying groups which make more targeted and personalized marketing journeys possible.

By implementing the processes above, sales and marketing teams gain: 

• Ease in scaling buying groups for each target account 
• Organization and consistency
• Visibility into insights and trends that will inform marketing strategies 

Journey Orchestration

Adobe Journey Optimizer B2B Edition offers the capability of journey orchestration, allowing users to interact with account audiences through different channels like email, SMS, chat, events, and webinars. Marketers are able to personalize journey paths and content according to individual audience member requirements using the specific journey canvas within the user interface, a capability not available in Marketo. The personalized journey flows are influenced by factors such as role, preferences in products and service offerings, industry, and more. Moreover, orchestration in Adobe Journey Optimizer B2B Edition enables greater visibility of customer experience through deeper engagement and more robust channel interactions.

Sales and Marketing teams can:

• Tie buying groups to products, which allows them to associate accounts and buying groups with particular products so that they are in line with your business objectives. 
• Establish buying group scoring models, allowing marketing teams to see how engaged contacts are within each buying group.
• Utilize existing marketing strategies, enabling marketers to pull from current campaigns, workflows, and assets that are already set up within Adobe Marketo Engage. 

By implementing the processes above, sales and marketing teams gain: 

• Insights and trends to send the right messages at the right time with the right channel 
• Baseline scoring for buying groups allowing for enhancements as data is captured and more is known about account audiences
• Timely activation and marketer efficiencies for buying group journeys, leveraging the journey canvas and integrations to use existing Marketo Engage objects

Hyper-Personalized Content

Adobe Journey Optimizer B2B Edition allows the use of AI to analyze user data and behavior, allowing for highly targeted and personalized communication. By understanding individual preferences and habits, companies can establish connections with their account audiences, leading to improved conversion rates and fostering stronger relationships. This is achieved through consistent sales messaging and offers that guarantee the activation of aligned sales strategies.

This will involve:

• Generating response libraries: This ensures a consistent brand voice which is a crucial task so that all interactions with contacts are in line with the company's identity and values.
• Integrating with Adobe Experience Manager Assets: This allows for the reuse of pre-approved assets to save time and resources while keeping branding consistent. 

By implementing the processes above, sales and marketing teams gain: 

• Enhanced customer experiences 
• Brand loyalty 
• Consistent brand presence across various channels
• Improved communication efficiencies

Engagement Insights

The Engagement Insights feature will complement existing Marketo Sales Insights. With Adobe Journey Optimizer B2B Engagement Insights, teams can access valuable data on account and buying group behavior, which was previously impossible. Furthermore, these new insights can empower marketers and sellers with tools and information needed to optimize operations, improve account relationships, and drive sales growth at an unprecedented level. This data-driven approach enables marketers to effectively nurture contacts within buying groups, improving communication strategies and ultimately leading to higher conversion rates, shorter sales cycles, and a competitive advantage. 

Key elements to keep track of include:

• Conversion rates, which are crucial in monitoring key elements such as buying group and account engagement when analyzing sales performance
• Engagement and most effective channel, which helps marketers identify the most effective channel and highlights where the most sales growth is happening 
• Shared insights dashboard, which helps improve communication, collaboration, and overall efficiency and alignment within the sales and marketing teams

While tracking the key items above, sales and marketing teams will gain: 

• Clear understanding of conversion rate success
• Defined attribution modeling, which can help allocate resources to the appropriate channels 
• Buying group insights to keep the sales team aligned, so everyone is working towards the same goals and objectives

Ultimately, utilizing the features above allows marketers to have focused and personalized content, optimized journeys, consistent branding, and valuable insights. This will help sales and marketing teams to address deficiencies in existing target accounts — all of which supports accomplishing marketing and sales goals.

How Sales and Marketing Teams Can Prepare for Adobe Journey Optimizer - B2B Edition

Relying on technology to solve a problem is not enough; a well-defined ABM strategy and buying group definitions are crucial for advancing target account marketing maturity and making the most of Adobe Journey Optimizer B2B capabilities. Now that you have a good grasp of the features of Adobe Journey Optimizer B2B Edition, it is crucial to focus on understanding your strategy and data in order to effectively utilize this technology for the success of your business.

Here are a few initiatives that we recommend the marketing and sales teams begin working on:

The features and details outlined above only scratch the surface of Adobe Journey Optimizer B2B Edition’s capabilities — but should equip marketing and sales teams with a solid strategic groundwork to streamline its implementation and accelerate ROI. We can’t wait to unleash the power of Adobe Journey Optimizer B2B edition!