Brian Hawkins - Adobe Target Classroom in a Book: A Guide for Marketing, Business, and IT Professionals

A Guide for Marketing, Business, and IT Professionals

The official training workbook from Adobe

Brian Hawkins and Lily Chiu-Watson

Adobe Target Classroom in a Book

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Writers: Brian Hawkins, Lily Chiu-Watson
Project Editor: Nancy Peterson
Development Editor: Bob Lindstrom
Copyeditor: Anne Marie Walker
Proofreader: Scout Festa
Production Coordinator: Maureen Forys, Happenstance Type-O-Rama
Compositor: Cody Gates, Happenstance Type-O-Rama
Technical Reviewer: Kimen Warner
Indexer: Joy Dean Lee
Cover Designer: Eddie Yuen

Interior Designer: Mimi Heft

Printed and bound in the United States of America

ISBN-13: 978-0-321-96287-4
ISBN-10: 0-321-96287-7

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There are way too many people to thank given the space allotted! I have had the incredible pleasure of working with some of the smartest and most fascinating people and organizations around the world. The fun and amazing Offermatica family who opened my eyes to the power of optimization and the power a team can have when they collectively believe in something. My colleagues at Offermatica, Omniture, and at Adobe who are some of the brightest minds that I have ever met. My partners at Web Analytics Demystified who inspired me to take on this task and encouraged me along the way. And, of course, the many great clients and organizations that I have had the pleasure of working with.

I would like to also thank my loving family including my mother Fran Hawkins, my father Tom Hawkins, and my sisters Jaimie Cahill and Megan Hawkins. My loving wife Erika and my beautiful son Jackson. My dear friends Lily Chiu-Watson and Kimen Warner; without them, this book would not have been possible. And finally Nancy Peterson, Bob Lindstrom, and Victor Gavenda at Pearson whose support and patience made this all come together.

Brian Hawkins

Thanks so much to the Offermatica family for launching us on this wild and crazy optimization ride. Ive never worked with a more fun, intelligent, and neurotic bunch of people, and fear I never will again. Thanks to my husband, whose patience, love, and support knows no bounds. Im also incredibly thankful for the friendship of Brian Hawkins, who gave me the fantastic opportunity to write this book with him, and Kimen Warner, who lovingly edited all our technical mistakes. Speaking of editing, I will always be grateful to Bob Lindstrom and Nancy Peterson for their unwavering optimism and support throughout the writing process. Thanks as well to all of the clients I have worked with over the years. Ive learned so much through our experiences. There are too many more people to thank, including the incomparable Team BearPaw, my amazing friends and family, and all of the kind and thoughtful people Ive been lucky enough to work with at Omniture and Adobe.

Lily Chiu Watson

If youre reading this book, you probably have a vested interest in Adobe Target. Maybe your organization just purchased it and you are preparing for its implementation. You may have started a job and your new employer uses Target. Perhaps you are leading a team tasked with evaluating a purchase. Or you could already be familiar with Target and want to deepen your knowledge.

Whatever prompted your interest in Target, you should be excited about its testing and optimization features because they allow your organization to make significant impact to key success events and increase your knowledge of your digital consumers.

This book describes the value of Adobe Target for a marketing teammore specifically, a digital marketing team. It describes technology-agnostic challenges that digital marketers face and then explains how Target can help you address those challenges.

If youve worked with Adobe technology, youre probably familiar with the Classroom in a Book series. This book, however, is an atypical Classroom in a Book. You wont find step-by-step directions that explain how to use each and every feature of Adobe Target. Instead, our goal is to help you understand the business value of Targets features so that you can evaluate if and how you may want to use them.