Adobe Audience Marketplace: What is it and why do I need it?

The Adobe Audience Marketplace is Adobe Audience Manager’s go-forward service for the sale and distribution of third-party, and second-party, audience Segments. Audience Manager customers understand the value of sourcing marketing data from external sources (such as Acxiom or Dun & Bradstreet) in order to complement their data that they already have. Audience Marketplace connects customers to the large world of audience data by providing both Buyers and Sellers a simple “e-commerce” interface for accessing these audiences. Audience Marketplace streamlines existing internal data sourcing processes for customers, or replaces typical bottlenecks in the process—such as billing and contracting.
Also, over a period of time mutually determined by Adobe and our data partners, Adobe will be sunsetting the legacy workflows for the sale and distribution of 3rd party audiences. If you are offering data in the legacy manner, this process will eventually need to migrate to Audience Marketplace.

What are the different Use Cases for my data to be made available in Audience Marketplace?

There are several different ways that you can make your data available in Audience Marketplace:

• “Segments and Overlap” lets the Buyer do two basic things: view audience sizes of each Trait in the Feed and run overlap reports. In terms of overlap reports, the Buyer can compare 1st party Traits with Traits licensed from Audience Marketplace (3rd or 2nd party) in a trait-to-trait overlap report. Also, the Buyer can create or add Audience Marketplace Traits to a DMP Segment and make additional comparisons with the segment-to-trait and segment-to-segment reports. This Use Case does not allow the Buyer to Activate (ie: push data to an ad targeting system) Traits outside of Audience Manager.
• “Activation” lets the Buyer create a rules-based DMP Segment that includes Traits licensed from Audience Marketplace and map that Segment to a Destination. A Destination is any Adobe or 3rd party technology that Audience Manager has a server-to-server connection with. Mapping a Segment to a Destination sends the DMP Segment over to the Destination. A Buyer that enables Activation intends to use data to drive audience targeting or content optimization campaigns. There is typically an associated cost with this Use Case, either CPM or Flat fee.
• “Modeling” lets the Buyer utilize Traits licensed from Audience Marketplace to create “Algorithmic Models” in the DMP. These are similar to what is commonly referred to as “look-a-like” models. The Buyer uses these models to do two primary things. First, the Buyer can determine which licensed Traits correlate highly to a target audience of interest to the Buyer (ie: this is an analytics exercise). Second, the Buyer can create a new target audience which incorporates licensed Traits, create DMP Segments using the new audience, and map this new Segment to a Destination. “Modeling” incorporates all aspects of the workflow just described. There is typically an associated cost with this Use Case, either CPM or Flat fee. If priced at a CPM, there will be no incurred cost until that Segment containing the Modeled Trait is syndicated to a Destination and it is included in a live campaign.

Why should my customer consider buying data in Audience Marketplace instead of another platform, like a DSP?

• Applications beyond Advertising: Buying data within AAM allows you to enable data activation for not only Paid Media executions, but also Owned Media and Customer Intelligence initiatives. Use cases such as:
  • A/B testing of website/app content powered by optimization platforms such as Adobe Target
  • Content personalization managed through CMS platforms such as Adobe Experience Manager
  • Look-a-like modeling based off of executions from cross-channel marketing platforms such as Adobe Campaign
  • Audience insights pulled from web analytics tools such as Adobe Analytics
• Upstream audience creation: Creation of audiences composed of 1st, 2nd and 3rd party data within the DMP enables additional insights at greater scale before data has been syndicated to other platforms and risking data loss. The Addressable Audiences feature then allows for additional insights into scale across platforms as the data leaves AAM.
• Flexibility in pricing models: Data sellers can make their data available at either CPM or Flat fee pricing models within Marketplace, depending on the use case and need of the buyer. This enables greater flexibility for AAM customers to utilize data across different use cases.
  • Data priced at a CPM:
    • Enables customers who have variable data usage
    • Allows customers to test new data partners
  • Data priced at a Flat Fee:
    • Empowers customers who will have large amounts of data usage to maximize the value of data usage in an all-you-can-eat setup across all marketing initiatives
    • Provides a simple cost structure for customers who want to have predictable data spend every month

• Look-a-like Modeling powered by Adobe proprietary algorithms: Data from the Marketplace can be utilized when running models within the AAM platform to create more meaningful customer segments while getting better scale, and more quickly.
• Data cost negotiation: Customers can negotiate discounts directly with the data seller through the platform. Once a percent discount has been agreed upon, the data seller can make this change within the platform for that specific customer only, eliminating the need to loop in a platform manager from Adobe and cutting down time to implement pricing changes.
• Supports existing data relationships: Oftentimes customers will have existing partnerships with data partners, including financial agreements, prior to working with Audience Manager. In this case, Marketplace allows customers to bypass the clearinghouse capabilities altogether and serve only as the data delivery mechanism.