Sharing my experience as an Adobe consultant

Articles by category: Opinion


For the past 5 years or more, almost every client I work with has raised their concerns about flicker or the causes that generate flicker. For reasons that will become clearer in this post, this topic tends to be a bit heated, with very strong opinions on either side. I will try to stay away as much as I can from subjective matters, but I will also give you my point of view. This is the first post of a two-part series, where I will talk about the problem and potential solutions to this issue.


25 Feb 2024

CDP vs MDM

This is a post I have had on my list for quite some time and today I thought it was high time I wrote about it. If you do a quick Internet search, you will see that this topic is very popular, with hundreds of results. I will not repeat what others are saying. Instead, I will provide my point of view with the aim of clarifying what each acronym is and is not. I know there is some confusion about these terms.


Unless you have been living in a cave, you must have heard the term Generative AI, or GenAI for short, recently. The best example is ChatGPT, which has taken the world by storm. Adobe, on its side, has also been working on this technology and it is now available in some tools. I have to admit that it has taken me some time to start playing with it, as my main project has eaten all my time. However, I have finally started digging into it. I am far from an expert, but I wanted to share with you what I have learned and my point of view on where I think it should go to.


First post of 2024! Throughout my career at Adobe, I have seen from time to time a conflict between the two potential approaches when implementing a new technology: base it on use cases or base it on capabilities. I have a very hard time when I have to face this discussion with my customers, as I understand both sides and see the benefits of both approaches. However, the choice will have a deep impact on the future usage of the tool.


31 Dec 2023

2023 Restrospective

Here we are again, at the end of another year. I remember a conversation with my grandmother many years ago, where she told me that, for her, the days just flew. As I grow old, I am beginning to feel the same. Just looking at this blog, I started it almost 9 years ago, with my first post in February 2015. A lot has happened since then, but today I will only cover the events of 2023.


26 Nov 2023

Incrementality

Ever since I had my first statistics lesson in high school, I have hated the subject. All I can really understand is that each side of an unloaded dice has a probability of 1/6. Other, more complex concepts like stochastic processes are just black magic to me. Unfortunately for me, there is one area of digital marketing that requires a good knowledge of statistics: the measure of incrementality. I do not claim to be an expert, but I more or less understand the important concept behind it. I will do my best to explain it in this post, although this is more for me to keep track of something I have learned.


23 Jul 2023

Loyalty Data

Digital marketing requires enough customer data to be able to segment your customer base and run personalized campaigns. Quite often I find clients who tell me that they have very little data from their customers, leaving them mainly with anonymous behavioral data. In some cases, there is a fairly easy solution: a loyalty program. Let me explain the benefits you get beyond the “loyalty” part.


04 Jun 2023

Why, What, How

You probably remember when you were in primary or secondary school and you were taught about the five Ws: who, what, when, where, and why. Some people will also add how, me being one of them. It is very handy that, in English, these words start with WH, making them easy to remember. When you learned them, they were just boring language constructs you had to learn. However, over the years I have realized that they are much more important than just that. It helps a lot to ask these questions in everything in life, but today I will focus on digital marketing.


As I explained in my last post, I was invited to attend the US Summit 2023, an invitation that made me very happy. If you have attended this year or any of the previous events, this post is probably not for you. However, if you have never attended, this will give you a flavor of what you get.


15 Jan 2023

Security

Sometimes I joke with my colleagues saying that, if I had to start again my career as a consultant, I would have chosen security as my area of expertise. I do not think that I would have liked it as much as my career at Adobe, but I know that I would have always been in demand. That being said, we all have to be very conscious of the security of everything we do, even in digital marketing. Let me explain why.


31 Dec 2022

2022 Retrospective

We made it again! With all the issues that we have faced due to the pandemic in the last three years, we have reached the end of 2022. At least I can say that this year has been better that the previous 2 years for several reasons.


Today I want to tackle an area that I rarely mention in this blog: digital transformation. I know, this is a very broad concept, with many ramifications and ways of implementing it. Every digital strategist has their idea of what it is, how to approach it and how to implement it. My goal today is just to introduce the three pillars of a digital transformation program: people, process and technology.


19 Jun 2022

Segments vs Audiences

Those of us in the digital marketing industry use very liberally some concepts, taking for granted that everybody knows what they mean. Two of such concepts are “segments” and “audiences”. I have used them in my posts very often, without giving much thought to which word I use. I had a recent enablement session with a customer and I realised that I have never explained these terms.


22 May 2022

10 Years at Adobe

It has been a long journey, but here I am: in less than 1 week I will celebrate my 10th anniversary at Adobe. It has been an amazing journey, much better than what I thought 10 years ago. Without a doubt, it has been my best job ever. Not everything has been rosy, though. Let me summarize the positives and the negatives of these 10 years.


You probably remember from your school days, that there are 3 types of industries: primary, secondary and tertiary. It goes without saying that we are in the last one: tertiary or services. While jobs in all industries require knowledge, in the services industry it is all about the knowledge: we do not have factories or farms or mines or…, just our brains.


26 Dec 2021

2021 Retrospective

Here we are again, at the end of another year, a year that many will want to forget. Still, some things have happened and I wanted to share with you my sensations about the last 12 months.


This post is going to be very different from those I usually write. Instead of talking about Adobe technology or related topics, today I want to explain how I became an architect in the Adobe consulting organisation. This came as a suggestion from a colleague, in case others would like to follow the same path.


27 Jun 2021

Long Live the Cookies

At beginning of this year, I wrote a blog post on a cookie-less web. In it, I explained where did this witch hunt against the cookies come from and what would the (expected) next chapter in this drama be. However, a recent plot twist has sent ripples, which have been felt in every corner of the Internet.


03 May 2021

New Blog Design

As I said at the very bottom of my 2020 Retrospective post, one of my personal projects for 2021 was to migrate this blog from Wordpress to Jekyll. I am not sure there was a clear goal, I just thought it would be fun. With all the time that I have spent at home during this long British winter in lockdown, it has been a distraction that has kept my mind busy. Finally, after so long and so much time invested, here it is. I hope you like it!


11 Apr 2021

Reporting vs Analysis

When people talk or think about Adobe Analytics, the first idea that comes to their minds tends to be “reporting”. In fact, this idea applies to any visualisation tool. However, this is only half of the story. Many forget that these tools actually have another, very important, capability: data analysis.