But where is this update, that will have a big impact on marketeers, coming from? In 2021, Apple introduced Apple Mail Protection. This had an impact on the open rate, location data, send time, … So as a result, marketers began to focus on measuring clicks. They can provide an insight on recipients interests or engagement and even tell us more about our strategy and see where we miss some touchpoints. The new feature on iOS 17 is a reaction to this marketing strategy. It will have potential implications such as decreased attribution, impacted personalization and segmentation, limited retargeting capabilities, analytics and reporting challenges.

Thankfully, Adobe Experience Platform comes to the rescue, offering innovative solutions to navigate this new era of data restrictions.

What is Adobe Experience Platform?

AEP is the Customer Data Platform (CDP) from Adobe. It’s the layer beneath all the different applications that Adobe has in its experience suite. AEP helps customers to centralize and standardize customer data from any system. In this article, they explain everything you need to know about CDP in general, how it can help businesses when third-party data is limited and how it’s a GDPR-compliant solution that retrieves client data from different resources. With AEP, businesses can create a 360° view of their customers by centralizing data, and activate this data in the Adobe Experience Cloud by sending personalized campaigns, showing ads at the right time, lifting customer journeys to the next level, …

But why is AEP better then other CDP’s? AEP is built to enable real-time action, and goes beyond other CDPs. Some talk about real-time data, advanced segmentation and hundreds of integrations. Some emphasize capabilities in insights, consumer privacy, and data governance. Adobe provides all of this and more.

• A cloud-based solution is available that enables you to access and act on enterprise-wide data in real time.
  
  

• Their platform allows for the creation of real-time customer and account profiles, enabling activation and personalization on a large scale.
  
  

• The architecture is specifically designed to handle real-time use cases, even at a large scale.
  
  

• They provide tools to streamline data governance and protect customer data and privacy from acquisition to activation for data stewards in marketing and IT teams.
  
  

  See what our colleague has to say about AEP, on LinkedIn.
  
  

  
  
  
  

  
  
  

How can AEP help against link tracking protection?

Adobe Experience Platform offers a comprehensive solution to reduce the effects of link tracking protection by providing advanced tracking and analytics capabilities that adapt to evolving privacy measures, even without relying on traditional link tracking. This can be done with different strategies:

• Collecting First-party data. Besides link tracking, there is all kinds of information that a company can collect directly from its interactions and touchpoints with customers. For example website interactions, customer accounts, purchase history, opened emails, ….
  
  

• Collecting Zero-party data, which is when customers willingly share their preferences and interests through surveys, preference centers, and interactive content. Adobe Experience Platform empowers businesses to gather zero-party data and build customer trust through more explicit consent and personalized experiences.
  
  

• With the help of Server-Side Tracking, data tracking takes place on the server, offering enhanced resilience against client-side defenses. AEP can opt for this approach instead of solely depending on client-side tracking.
  
  

  We can use all this tracking data and build rich segmentations. The **Segment Builder **enables businesses to create simple or complex segments that identify visitor attributes and actions across visits and page hits. It provides a canvas to drag and drop metric dimensions, events, or other segments allowing the segmentation of visitors based on hierarchical logic, rules, and operators.
  
  

  But that's not all. AEP has the ability to update and maintain customer data in real-time. Leveraging AI and machine learning technologies, AEP can deliver valuable insights, predictions, and recommendations that aid in refining marketing strategies. Besides that, it has a seamless integration with other adobe tools. This leads to better data sharing, consistent customer experiences and easier cross-channel marketing.
  
  

  But one of AEP's strengths lies in its security features and compliance with data regulations like GDPR, fostering customer trust and regulatory adherence. The platform's customization options offer flexibility, allowing businesses to tailor the data model, integrate external systems, and design workflows according to their unique requirements.
  
  

  
  
  

Conclusion

The new data restrictions Apple iOS 17 is introducing, creates a significant challenge for marketers seeking to understand and engage their audiences effectively. This shows that we’re in need for innovative solutions.

Positioned as a comprehensive Customer Data Platform, AEP doesn’t only centralizes and standardizes customer data but also operates in real-time, surpassing other CDP’s in its capabilities. With its cloud-based architecture and GDPR-compliant framework, AEP empowers businesses to navigate the complexities of modern data management. It provides a comprehensive and adaptive solution to continue delivering personalized and engaging experiences to customers. By integrating AI-driven insights, customer consent and several data sources, AEP enables businesses to maintain customer trust, enhance engagement, and create lasting connections with their audiences, even in the absence of traditional link tracking.

In essence, Adobe Experience Platform emerges as a powerful tool for businesses seeking to not only navigate the challenges caused by evolving data restrictions but also to unlock new levels of customer understanding and engagement in today’s digital world.