Brands must capture detailed data about each relevant customer engagement if they expect to offer industry leading customer experiences. Every web page view, mobile app session, loyalty status change, customer support interaction, product research interaction, and on and on -- it must all be tracked and recorded. It must be all done in real-time, with consent and with complete control and visibility to which downstream solutions the data will flow. Adobe has invested heavily in AEP Data Collection. A modern, scalable, industry leading solution with the AEP Edge Network at its core.
One incredible feature of this data collection technology is Event Forwarding. As rich customer interaction data flows through the AEP Edge Network it can be intelligently routed to Adobe and non-Adobe solutions that can take action on the customer behavior in real-time. You can think of event forwarding similar to asking the brand to put a conversion tag on their "thank you" page -- but the major difference is that event forwarding will pass on the event data all server side. Event forwarding decreases web page and app weight by using the AEP Edge Network to execute tasks normally done on the client. Implemented in a similar manner to tags, event forwarding rules can transform and send data to new destinations, but instead of sending this data from a client application like a web browser, it is sent from Adobe’s servers.
The opportunity for our Technology Partner Program partners is to create an Event Forwarding extension. These extensions allow brands to easily include a simple rule to forward important customer events to the data collection server of the Technology Partner Program partner. A brand's marketing technologist can quickly activate the extension and rule with little to no involvement from their IT team -- and with no changes being published to their website. Just like with AEP Sources and Destinations, Technology Partner Program partners can develop and test their extension with a self-service approach and publish it to a catalog, where brands can easily find and install it.
You must be an official Adobe Technology Partner Program partner at Silver, Gold or Platinum tier to gain access to an AEP sandbox. If you are interested in developing an Event Forwarding connector, please review this integration guide.