Bret Gundersen is a Director of Product Management for Adobe Analytics, is an expert in digital analytics, and has driven major improvements in Adobe Analytics for the last 10 years. While at the Adobe Summit 2018 in London, Nicolas Malo, Optimal Ways’ founder, had the opportunity to interview him on the latest Adobe Analytics updates.
Nicolas Malo: What are the 3 top changes for Adobe Analytics during the past 12 months?
Bret Gundersen: Good question! Off the top of my head, I would think of the following:
- #1 : context-aware sessions: Adobe Analytics users are empowered to specify the expiration time for a visit from 1 minute to 24 hours in a virtual report suite. This feature is very powerful for mobile apps measurement, where a 30-minute expiration time may not fit the mobile exprience. It is also possible to restart a session with an event, which is useful for interactive kiosks with multiple users logging in and out in a few minutes.Although this feature is somewhat hidden in the administration area of Adobe Analytics, it is already surprisingly popular in our user base.
- #2 : audience analytics: Audience Manager segments may be imported into Adobe Analytics workspaces as additional dimensions. Depending on the audiences accessible in Audience Manager, demographic data (for example: age, gender, etc…) or intent information (for example: in market for a laptop) may be imported. If you combine this data with the segment comparison feature in Analysis Workspace, Adobe can uncover how these demographic or intent attributes align with various behaviors.
- #3: component curation: dimensions and metrics may be hidden or renamed for each virtual report suites. This will ensure that only the necessary information will be shared to users and that those users see dimension and metric names that make sense in their part of the organization.
Nicolas Malo: Regarding GDPR, what changes should be performed within Adobe Analytics in order to be compliant?
Bret Gundersen: privacy has been a hot topic on our plate for several years now. Regarding GDPR, the following features have been built in order to reach compliance:
# 1: the retention period for all Adobe Analytics data is going to be 25 months by default on May 25th, 2018. It is possible to establish a shorter or longer retention period depending on your company needs. Additional costs may apply if you want to retain data for more than 37 months..
# 2: data labelling a new user interface has been rolled out for Adobe Analytics administrators, who can indicate the sensitivity of data stored in all dimensions. When users request access or deletion of data, these fields can be treated specifically to ensure the appropriate is returned or deleted.
#3: Adobe cookie tool: specific JavaScript code will be provided that collects all the cookies sent by Adobe solutions and makes them available to your company so you can include them in access or delete requests you submit to Adobe on behalf of your customers (the “data subject”). This information will be used to access or delete data for the requesting user. An interface will be provided by Adobe as well as an API for handling high-volume requests.
Nicolas Malo: Which changes should we expect in Adobe Analytics during the next 12 months?
Bret Gundersen: I am really excited about the things we’ll be rolling out during the next year, as we’ve been talking about them for quite some time.
#1: attribution IQ will be available for all customers with the current Adobe Analytics packages (Select, Prime and Ultimate) this summer. It will not work for customers with older packages like Standard or SiteCatalyst. Ten attribution models will be available with the option to customize models further. The attribution lookback window will depend on the reporting window. Algorithmic or data-driven attribution will be provided in the future.
#2: customer journey analytics (cross-device) will connect all data across devices, allowing you to see attribution, pathing, and segmentation at the person, rather than device, level. This feature will rely either on a private device graph (to be released with or before Customer Journey Analytics) or the Adobe Data Co-op. Retroactive processing of historical data will be possible when users authenticate. Because of the changes needed with new privacy laws, the launch of the Data Coop was delayed in Europe and should happen within this calendar year.
#3: intelligent alerts v2.0 (prescriptive insights) : alerts will be triggered on a weekly basis based on user behavior in Analysis Workspace and reports. Only frequent and experienced users will receive these reports but anyone can opt-in or out, or otherwise personalize these alerts based on their needs.
#4: advertising analysis: phase 1 will include paid search data (Yahoo, Microsoft and Google) and is targeted for Summer 2018. Phase 2 will include ad impressions view-throughs from Adobe Ad Cloud (Media Optimizer) and is planned for release this Fall..
Nicolas Malo: What will happen to the standard reports in Adobe Analytics, Ad hoc Analysis and Report Builder?
Bret Gundersen: the standard reports will be decommissioned eventually. Advanced notice of at least a year will be provided before they are completely removed from the interface. Ad hoc Analysis will be decommissioned after all critical functionality has been transferred to Analysis workspace. Report Builder will continue to be available for the foreseeable future.
Nicolas Malo: Thank you very much Bret for this interview!