Adobe Campaign Standard and Adobe Campaign Classic are both industry-leading applications that offer businesses the ability to automate marketing processes, execute campaigns across various channels, and track and analyze customer behavior. Each tool includes unique strengths and weaknesses, which can make it difficult to know which one is the right fit for your business.Adobe Campaign Standard (ACS) meets the needs of a large group of digital marketers looking to bring all their channels into one place so they can have a holistic customer view that allows them to design, manage, and execute omnichannel campaigns. In comparison, Adobe Campaign Classic (ACC) is designed for companies that are executing highly data-driven campaigns at a high velocity that are more complex and sophisticated in nature.
While there are differences between ACS & ACC, there are several campaign management functions common across both applications such as their ability to equally:
Create and manage marketing plans
Design & orchestrate campaign management processes
Support dynamic & multi-lingual content
Facilitate landing page creation management
Utilize a graphical query editor & filter designer
Support hierarchical graphical targeting workflow & target counting
Provide for Seed/Trap email management
Aggregate counts such as min/max, count, sums
Support preference management
Setup and execute A/B Testing
Monitor inbox rendering
Support multiple time zones & optimization
Manage fatigue processes (e.g., filtering & control rules)
Provide users with out-of-the-box reports & the ability to create custom reports
Produce marketing, campaign & technical reports by platform & device
Send delivery alerts
Integrate to Adobe Analytics for KPI & Audience Sharing, and Triggers
Integrate to Adobe Target for such functions as contextual personalization
Integrate to AEM for content & asset sharing
Provide for audience sharing via Adobe’s People Core Service
Allow for asset sharing via Adobe’s Asset Core Service
Import & export data
Create custom screens, dashboards, and contact profiles
Support brand configuration
Allow online storage of images, PDFs
Enable email BCC
Maintain and set advanced user rights
Facilitate Package management
Though there are similarities between the two platforms, let’s look at some of the unique differences between the two. Regarding Adobe Campaign Standard, the solution:
Is a great fit for smaller businesses with limited resources or those not seeking an on-premise solution
Well-suited for businesses that need to deliver marketing campaigns but don’t need the complete set of ACC features
Can offer a lower total cost of ownership model for budgeting purposes
Provides a browser-based, user-friendly application hosted in the Adobe cloud, making it accessible from any device or browser with ease
Offers a user-friendly interface with drag-and-drop elements for campaign management and content building
Does not provide access to an underlying database for sophisticated segmentation
Supports only inbound APIs
Supports survey creation and usage, but only via 3rd party tools
Is easier to use and faster to learn
Provides for real-time marketing, customer journey orchestration, in-depth customer profiles, and automated cross-channel and multi-purpose campaigns
Utilizes REST-base APIs
Uses Predictive Subject Lines
Integrates easily with other parts of the Adobe Experience Cloud
In contrast, Adobe Campaign Classic:
Provides a solution for large companies seeking advanced campaign automation
Is tailored for businesses that demand extensive customization and an extensive array of features
Can be deployed on-premise, hybrid, or in the cloud
Has an implementation and customization process that can be more time-consuming and resource-intensive than an ACS implementation
Includes access to a campaign database schema allowing more flexibility & execution of sophisticated queries
Supports Federated Data Access
Allows you to query the data schemas directly from an ‘Explorer’ viewing tool
Includes the ability to use JavaScript in a workflow
Is a thin client-installed tool for console access
Enables integration flexibility with SOAP-based support for inbound & outbound APIs
Entails a steeper learning curve due to extensive campaign features
Has a built-in recommendation engine
Requires some integrations to be built between ACC and other parts of the Adobe Experience Cloud
Requires a certain level of technical expertise to fully utilize its capabilities, which can be challenging for marketers without a strong technical background
Migration Considerations
Adobe is moving away from selling and supporting ACS with the goal of migrating those customers over to AC Version 8. This transition will take place over 2024 and likely will roll into 2025. Adobe is also dropping the name “Classic” from their product so in the future it will only be branded as “Adobe Campaign.” To make the adoption of AC V8 easier for current ACS customers, Adobe has made significant changes in Version 8 specifically in the user interface of the new AC. Those UI changes center around a new email designer, a streamlined audience selection process, and an easier workflow manager. This will help ACS users (who are used to a web-based drag-and-drop interface) to more quickly adapt to the structures in AC V8.
Adobe has also redesigned the underlying architecture within AC V8 to greatly increase the speed, scale, and storage capabilities of the platform which also may be important to existing customers utilizing ACS. However, we see one of the biggest changes for current ACS customers upgrading and migrating to AC V8 will be using and accessing the Adobe Experience Platform (AEP) for campaign segmentation and targeting. This opens a new world of marketing options for users that they didn’t have with ACS. Spending time learning and training marketing team members on how to take advantage of AEP to create and save audiences, in conjunction with AC V8, will be very important.
If you are a current ACS user, you have probably started conversations with Adobe on planning your transition up to AC V8. The planning will likely include deciding what campaigns, workflows, and history you will want to migrate from ACS to Version 8 and determining how you will complete testing to ensure the migration is successful. In conjunction with the migration, you will want to plan for training team members on the differences between ACS and AC V8, and what features you will want to incorporate into your marketing plans and objectives. The AC V8 platform opens the door to campaign possibilities with opportunities to do more sophisticated and complex marketing tactics! Taking the time to learn how to work with the data and additional V8 features will be critical. If you would like more information on migrating from ACS to AC V8 or discuss training options to support your team, please do not hesitate to contact us at Celerity, or reach out to Sean Burrell at sean.burrell@celerity-is.com.