How to Choose Between AJO, Marketo, and Adobe Campaign

Are you feeling overwhelmed by the endless marketing automation options out there? As the world of Adobe continues to expand, our clients often ask us, “Which customer journey management solution is the best fit for our business?” Luckily, Adobe currently offers 3 core applications to choose from: Marketo Engage, Adobe Campaign Classic, and Adobe Journey Optimizer (AJO).

These industry-leading tools offer businesses the ability to automate marketing processes, execute campaigns across various channels, and track and analyze customer behavior. But with each platform boasting unique strengths and weaknesses, it can be tough to know which one is the right fit for you.

Marketing Automation Platforms to Consider

In this article, we’re diving into a comparison of the use cases for:

• Adobe Journey Optimizer
• Marketo Engage
• Adobe Campaign

Together we’ll find the perfect solution for your organization’s marketing needs.

Marketo Engage Use Cases

Marketo Engage provides a range of marketing automation and campaign management tools focused on B2B use cases. It offers a comprehensive suite of features that include email marketing, lead management, social media marketing, and analytics. One of Marketo’s main strengths is its ability to create complex marketing workflows, enabling businesses to automate complex marketing processes without requiring technical (code) skills. With Marketo, businesses can create sophisticated lead scoring models, nurture leads with personalized content, and deliver targeted campaigns across multiple channels. Marketo is suitable for businesses that have sophisticated buying journeys and require a comprehensive marketing automation platform with sales and marketing alignment provided vis-a-vis robust pre-built CRM integrations.

Adobe Campaign Use Cases

In comparison, both Adobe Campaign Classic and AJO are well-suited to address B2C-focused use cases. Adobe Campaign has been a part of Adobe’s suite of products for nearly 10 years while Journey Optimizer was released as a standalone application in 2021. Adobe Campaign and AJO have a number of similar capabilities. Both tools can orchestrate journeys across email, SMS, and push channels, personalize content based on customer behavior and preferences, and track campaign performance metrics in real-time.

One of Adobe Campaign‘s main strengths is its ability to integrate with other Adobe Experience Cloud products, such as Adobe Experience Manager and Adobe Analytics, creating a complete marketing ecosystem. While Campaign can also integrate with Adobe Experience Platform (AEP), this is currently limited to sharing segments from the CDP to Campaign, and there is not a common data structure or automatic data sharing back into AEP Real-Time CDP.

Adobe Campaign is strongly suited for use cases like traditional campaign management, functioning as an email service provider replacement, and batch or multi step segmentation. Adobe Campaign is a fit for companies that require complex segmentation, but may not have a CDP and do not have a need for 1:1 personalization. It is also a solution for companies who want to focus their data infrastructure within the marketing automation platform itself. When it comes to email marketing programs, Adobe Campaign is the better choice for businesses that have an email program that is their main marketing priority or want to automate audience-based, scheduled campaigns.

Adobe Journey Optimizer Use Cases

Adobe Journey Optimizer is built natively on the foundation of Adobe Experience Platform (AEP) and is a fit for companies who have a need for one-to-one personalization, mobile-centric use cases, and real-time use cases. Unlike Adobe Campaign, AJO can automatically access all datasets, segments, governance policies, etc. that are configured within AEP. In addition, AJO automatically generates AEP datasets for journey and engagement data it collects and automatically updates user consent profile attributes based on their opt-in/out actions within AJO journeys. For organizations that already have AEP RTCDP configured with customer data from various sources, adopting AJO can be a straightforward choice.

AJO is designed for “in the moment” customer touchpoints and messaging, but can be used both for sending individualized communications and audience-based batch communications. For example, a clothing store can send post-purchase surveys to all customers who have purchased products in the last week, but can also personalize emails for customers who experienced delayed shipments. This helps companies to provide a better customer experience and increase customer satisfaction.

Marketers can also use AJO to send real-time behavior-based communications. For example, a retailer can engage a loyal customer who pulls into the store parking lot in real time by sending a personalized push notification or offer. This helps companies to be more proactive and personal in their customer interactions.
AJO represents a shift from segment-based marketing to true one-to-one marketing and personalization. This means that companies can deliver a more personal and relevant experience for each customer, rather than using a one-size-fits-all approach.

In Conclusion

When it comes to driving successful marketing campaigns, having the right customer journey tools in your arsenal is critical. That’s why AJO, Marketo, and Adobe Campaign stand out as some of the most powerful customer journey platforms available in the market today. These robust solutions offer a wide array of features and capabilities that can help your business create and execute highly targeted campaigns with ease.

Whether you need advanced audience segmentation, sophisticated lead management, or powerful analytics and reporting, these platforms have you covered. And while each platform has its unique strengths and weaknesses, the good news is that there’s no need to choose just one. By leveraging the strengths of each platform and integrating them into your martech stack, you can unleash the full potential of your marketing efforts and drive exceptional results.

If you would like support in deciding which of these options is the best marketing automation platform for your small business, mid-level company, or enterprise,  let us know and we’ll connect you with our TechOps team for an assessment to determine how to enable the most impactful use cases for your organization.