We’ve just released the results of our 2013 Digital Marketing Optimization Survey, after compiling data from over 1,800 respondents around the world. Based on the premise that engaging customers online and optimizing their digital experience across channels can mean millions in revenue, the survey was designed to find out if digital marketers are implementing programs to maximize investment or, in some cases, still just talking about it.

Some of the findings are eye-opening, like data showing a majority of the companies surveyed spend 5% or less of their marketing budget on optimization activities. Five percent or less, even though it’s also clear from the data that companies investing more get more in return. For example, companies allocating more than 25% of marketing budgets to optimization are twice as likely to see high conversion rates.

With data like that, it’s logical to ask, “what’s holding companies back”, and almost half of respondents indicated two primary challenges are budget and resources. While companies are starting to invest and advance in digital marketing optimization, there still is much to be done, as indicated by data showing more than half of respondents are unaware of the impact of site search techniques beyond the baseline functionality of keyword matching. Nearly half do not optimize their recommendation strategies and rely significantly on manual updates, with only 18% using an automated approach.  And, even though Adobe Analytics saw a doubling of traffic from mobile devices last year, 45% of marketers still do not have a mobile-optimized site.

The results of the Survey provide insight into areas where digital marketers need to excel – key areas like testing, optimized targeting, leveraging consumer data, social, site search, and automated recommendations.  It doesn’t matter if a company is just getting started with basic optimization practices or mapping out complex strategies to maximize conversion, it’s never been easier – or more necessary – for business to up their game.

To learn more and understand how you compare with your marketing peers around the world, check out our Kevin Lindsay’s post with further details and download the full survey here.

Adobe Summit EMEA, The Digital Marketing Conference, opened in London today at 9:00 a.m. local time with a keynote address by Brad Rencher, senior vice president and general manager of the Adobe Digital Marketing business.  Over the course of the two day event, Summit participants have the opportunity to learn from the industry experts and network with savvy professionals who continue to push the boundaries of digital marketing and advertising, ultimately making their businesses more successful.  Keynote speakers from high-profile brands like UniCredit Group, Nike Global, AKQA, Nissan Europe, Deloitte digital, BBC, SAP and SapientNitro DACH highlight the agenda, and record-setting Austrian skydiver and BASE jumper, Felix Baumgartner, will open the general session on Thursday.

We released several news announcements at Summit today including:

1. News about a powerful new capability in Adobe Social that predicts social content performance on Facebook to maximize engagement and ROI.
2. Details of an expanded global partnership that integrates Adobe Marketing Cloud with SapientNitro’s EngagedNow platform.
3. An efficient means to conquer the webinar process from within Adobe Experience Manager.
4. Results of the Adobe Digital Index State of Mobile Benchmark Report 2013, including detail on 1) how Samsung smartphones are gaining popularity with Europeans and 2) how iOS has re-emerged as a leader in US smartphone browsing and dominates on tablets.

Adobe Marketing Cloud has fast become the solution that helps marketers get from data to insights to action, faster and smarter than ever. Here are some expanded highlights:

Adobe Social Unveils Predictive Publishing for Facebook

This powerful new predictive publishing capability for Adobe Social, which predicts social engagement on individual pieces of content and automatically suggests ideal timing to improve how that content will perform, will offer Facebook integration with the initial version.  Additional social platforms will be added later in the year.

Adobe and SapientNitro Expand Global Partnership

Adobe and SapientNitro’s expanded global partnership includes integration of the Sapient EngagedNow^SM platform with Adobe Marketing Cloud.  This integrated offering provides a solution for creating, delivering and optimizing consumer experiences across Web, social, mobile, and digital displays. NASCAR, E.ON and VISIT FLORIDA are among the organizations already seeing significant results using EngagedNow with Adobe Marketing Cloud.

Additional benefits for customers include:

• Complete hosted and managed services for Adobe Marketing Cloud solutions from SapientNitro with EngagedNow
• Ready-to-use integrations built specifically for key verticals, including travel, sports and entertainment, retail, and financial services, that help make development and deployment more efficient
• Built-in operational efficiencies from the integration of EngagedNow and Adobe Marketing Cloud that streamline creative, delivery, and measurement workflows for better performance and cost savings

Conquering the Webinar Process – from within Adobe Experience Manager

Adobe Experience Manager webinars, powered by Adobe Connect, helps marketers 1) easily create targeted webinar landing pages that drive registration; 2) deliver immersive online events that engage audiences, build brand and drive demand; and 3) deliver post-event analytics via capabilities from Adobe Analytics.

Adobe Digital Index State of Mobile Benchmark Report

The report analyzes 150 billion visits to 1,500+ websites to provide an overview of how consumers are using mobile devices worldwide.  In addition to trends in social media, video content consumption and ecommerce from the past 12 months, the study features key findings on which mobile operating systems and device manufacturers are helping drive the most web traffic globally.

Samsung smartphones gain popularity with Europeans

In the 19 European countries analyzed, nearly 30% of all smartphone browsing now occurs via a Samsung device – up 9% from last year.

iOS has re-emerged as leader in US smartphone browsing and is dominant amongst tablets

The iPhone has been gaining ground since being offered on the Verizon network (February 2011), and again became the primary driver of smartphone browsing in the US during Q4 2012, after trailing Android phones for two years. In addition, iPads accounted for nearly early 80% of all tablet browsing in the US in February 2013, up 10 percent from last year.

Today, we’re excited to announce that Adobe Primetime (formerly “Project Primetime”) is now available, offering the industry’s most advanced TV publishing and monetization platform for programmers and pay-TV service providers. Comcast Cable and NBC Sports Group have signed on as first Adobe Primetime customers and we’re collaborating with dozens of industry leaders to pave the way for TV content across every connected screen. Ecosystem partners include Akamai, Amazon Web Services, Cisco Systems, Elemental Technologies, Envivio, Harmonic, iStreamPlanet, RGB Networks, thePlatform and others.

Adobe Primetime integrates Adobe’s video publishing, player, DRM, advertising and analytics solutions to help eliminate the complexity of reaching audiences across screens and to create great digital video experiences while also offering new monetization opportunities for programmers and pay TV service providers. The seamless tie-in with ecosystem partners offers an unprecedented, highly scalable and reliable solution that can be implemented consistently across devices and platforms.

The Adobe Primetime Player is available for Windows, Mac OS, Android, iOS, and will support connected TVs as well as gaming platforms such as Roku and Xbox in 2013. To learn more about Adobe Primetime and how we’re helping content owners and distributors more efficiently bring more content to more devices, see our press release and blog post.

Additionally, given the rise in digital video consumption, we also published The U.S. Digital Video Benchmark report. The Adobe Digital Index team looked at 19.6 billion video starts on media websites from 2012 to confirm the growth of broadcast video consumption across connected devices. A few key findings include:

• TV Everywhere adoption increased 12-fold
• Mobile video viewing grew by 300%
• Facebook users are seeing twice the level of engagement with video over non-video content

Check out our animated infographic below and see the full report on the latest video trends for device use, ad placement, social media, and more.

Day Two of Adobe Summit is in the books now and it was a day full of excitement and emotion.

In our morning keynote, we were excited by Felix Baumgartner’s first-person account of how he successfully managed risks and stood on the edge of Earth’s atmosphere. We were moved by Sal Khan’s story of how the Khan Academy came to be; so much so that Khan received a standing ovation, something extraordinarily rare at Adobe events.

Another round of breakout sessions kept people’s brains full, and then it was time for the capstone of Summit — Sneaks. Our guest host, the wonderful Carrie Brownstein, shared her love/hate relationship with the Internet and then we all enjoyed ten fantastic sneak peeks of possible new product features (but sadly I can’t share anything more about them here).

Social conversation has been a part of Summit for a few years now, but this year the conversation went to a whole new level. The #AdobeSummit hashtag trended across the United States several times during Summit and a number of Sneaks hashtags trended nationally as well.

We also produced two new videos sharing how Summit keynotes get made and getting feedback on the popular Predictive Analytics session today:

Ok yes maybe I work at Adobe and ok yes maybe I’m a tad biased, but I’ve been going to Adobe Summits for I think four years now and dare I say this one is the best? Yes, the food at the opening night party was good. Yes, from an event team’s standpoint things are running smoothly, but from the overall “relevance” standpoint, this year’s Summit has started off super strong.

The social conversations from the event are unparalleled, growing more than 50% when compared to the same timeframe last year. Over 8500 conversations in just the first day put #AdobeSummit at the top of trending Twitter hashtags.

Brad Rencher kicked it all off with the opening keynote session (watch now), which included a thorough demo of Adobe Marketing Cloud by David Nueschler and folks from all five of the Marketing Cloud’s solutions teams. Need a rundown of what’s coming in Marketing Cloud? Check out this week’s news.

The day’s second keynote had its moments too. After Bill Briggs of Deloitte Consulting implored everyone to go beyond “mobile first” and think of “mobile only,” John Battelle interviewed Adam Bain of Twitter about Twitter growth, and paid social media vs organic social media. Good stuff. And the conversation continued to prove to this social marketer (me) that Twitter might be a brand’s best bet for proving ROI in social — paid and organic. Happy to discuss further in the comments.

Need some visuals of what the first full day of Summit was all about? Watch the videos below. Short and to the point, with quick looks at what Summitees are experiencing here in Salt Lake City, and be sure to follow all tomorrow’s action: @AdobeSummit and #AdobeSummit.

This week at Adobe Summit – The Digital Marketing Conference, more than 4,500 digital marketers and senior leaders representing the world’s top brands are coming together in Salt Lake City to learn the latest about marketing trends, network and share best practices with each other.

At the conference, we are making a series of news announcements to address growing industry needs that include:  1) helping marketers iterate and act more quickly to better meet consumers’ expectations; 2) staying on top of the mobile explosion and delivering better mobile experiences; 3) simplifying the complex task of delivering the right experience or content to the right person at the right time.

Keynote presenters this year include Adobe CEO Shantanu Narayen and SVP and GM of Adobe’s Digital Marketing Business, Brad Rencher, along with record-setting stratospheric daredevil Felix Baumgartner; Adam Bain, president of global revenue at Twitter; and Sal Kahn, founder of Khan Academy.

You can watch the keynote live today, Wednesday, March 6 from 9am-11am MST.

Our news today highlights major new Adobe Marketing Cloud capabilities, including:

New Touch Interface and Mobile Marketing Capabilities 

Adobe today unveiled an innovative new UI for Adobe® Marketing Cloud that surfaces data and insights to marketers and business leaders so they can easily gauge the impact of their marketing dollars.  Through this visually rich, touch based interface, Adobe Marketing Cloud, which marketers use to understand how campaigns are performing, now links with Adobe Creative Cloud™, which agency creatives use to build and deliver those campaigns.  In addition, every solution within Adobe Marketing Cloud has been upgraded with new mobile marketing capabilities, including new mobile capabilities for analytics, advertising, social app development, targeting content on smartphones and tablets, and mobile content management and delivery.

Adobe Social Goes Mobile 

Adobe today upgraded Adobe Social®, part of Adobe Marketing Cloud, with a completely redesigned user interface focused on interpreting and presenting social data in a more digestible format that helps social marketers prove business results.  Adobe also debuted Adobe Social for mobile phones and tablets.  Social marketers now have a marketing tool that’s as mobile as they are.

Delivering Personalized Experiences across Mobile and Social 

The static website is long gone.  Personalizing and optimizing your customer’s experience is essential.  Adobe today announced a major update to Adobe Experience Manager, part of Adobe Marketing Cloud, which introduces new responsive design, social communities and video capabilities that deliver a fully personalized experience to customers. In addition, Adobe today introduced a new Digital Asset Management offering within Adobe Experience Manager.  Adobe has re-imagined digital asset management with both marketers and creatives in mind, giving organizations unprecedented capabilities to deliver consistent, high-quality experiences anywhere.

New Digital Advertising Solution for Media Agencies and Marketers 

Adobe today unveiled a standard version of Adobe Media Optimizer, part of Adobe Marketing Cloud. Media Optimizer is Adobe’s digital advertising platform for campaigns across search, display and social media. The new edition, Media Optimizer Standard, delivers a rules-based bidding solution that improves the performance of search engine marketing campaigns through seamless integration with Adobe Analytics. Media Optimizer Standard is designed for media buying agencies, search engine marketing (SEM) agencies and direct advertisers seeking more control and transparency over their campaigns at an economical price point.

Taken together, these groundbreaking new solutions and capabilities are all designed to help our customers deliver the right online experience to the right person . They also offer the best way to tie social media activities to business results. And finally, they enable customers to achieve the greatest return on investment from online advertising.

Adobe Summit, THE digital marketing conference, is set for March 4-8 in Salt Lake City Utah. If you need help to convince your boss to get you there, we have a letter you can use, or just send her this video. It’s a good reminder that Summit is all about adding to your skillset, and not about building your buzzword dictionary.

Those of us in the advertising profession don’t view the Super Bowl like most Americans. Let’s face it – most people will be focused on watching their big screen TVs, eating Super Bowl munchies, and hoping for their favorite team to score another touchdown. Marketers, however, think of this event as the Holy Grail of advertising. We run into the room when the commercials start, and admittedly some of us even tune out when the football action resumes. For marketers, it’s our opportunity to be inspired by the world’s best creative talent. Most importantly, it’s our moment to truly entertain, inspire and emotionally touch consumers during one of the biggest TV events of the year. In the back of our minds, however, a huge question looms: Is this the best we can do as marketers? Should we still be spending that much money on a seemingly untargeted and untrackable sports event?

Digital marketers are held to a higher standard nowadays. Measurement, targeting, and the ability to deliver relevant advertising through digital media channels have changed the game. Simply tracking marketing budget ROI via focus groups and awareness studies is insufficient for today’s CMO.  Interaction between online and offline media is still complex, but it’s imperative to analyze and optimize multiple media in order to build effective advertising campaigns.

The Adobe Digital Index team performed two types of analysis to understand 1) the consumption patterns of sports related content across devices, and 2) how web traffic is impacted by television advertising around the Super Bowl.

Mobile video viewing will double on Super Bowl Sunday

The Digital Index team analyzed 1.4 billion video starts during 10 large sporting events in 2012 and compared them to typical, non-event days.  Viewers demonstrated an increasing propensity to check sports-related videos from their mobile phones and an even larger desire to watch those videos from tablets during these special sporting events. These data points are compelling, but most striking is the percentage of online videos accessed by tablets and mobile phones, reaching 16% on a day with a major sporting event – a 100% increase compared to a typical day in sports. Viewership levels of this magnitude are significant and demonstrate the need for media websites to continue to invest in usability, design, and optimization of mobile content.  For advertisers, it begs the question, Should I supplement my Super Bowl ad spend with online video to reach a more affluent and targeted audience with more measurable results?  Or, if I can’t afford America’s most expensive 30 seconds of airtime ($3.8 million in 2013), can I take advantage of the event in other ways online?

Digital Index data suggests that marketers should be saying yes and yes. Super Bowl advertisers should consider the mobile video consumption trend to supplement their television expenditure with incremental online video advertising. Advertisers seeking more targeted vehicles or those who cannot afford the Super Bowl premium can tap into this marketing moment online and capitalize on the digital channel’s great targeting, low cost per mille (or cost per impression), and affluent audience. We know that mobile advertising is still complex, but the prices remain relatively low while the audience is growing and is proven to spend more. U.S. advertisers spent 180 billion dollars in 2012, but directed only 2% of that spend into mobile advertising (Source: eMarketer Worldwide Ad Spending Forecast, January 2013).

Super Bowl advertisers will see a 20% increase in web traffic and the bump in visits will last about a week

Visits and page views to companies that advertise on TV during the Super Bowl show a 20% increase in visits on the day of the game and maintain higher than average traffic for a week following the game.  However, by the following week, all is forgotten and traffic returns to its normal levels.

This chart shows visits leading up to and following the Super Bowl in 2011 and 2012:

In 2012, more and more brands launched Super Bowl videos online before the game. The 2012 data in the graph above shows that traffic for advertisers peaked much earlier in the cycle prior to the Super Bowl. The week following the Super Bowl, however, saw a lower lift of 12% more page views versus 15% in 2011, and 12% more visits in 2012 versus 23% in 2011. These findings indicate that the previews were more likely to pull traffic forward than increase the overall impact. Clearly, optimizing the digital returns from Super Bowl advertising is still a work in progress.

Many advertising conversations revolve around the tradeoffs between digital and traditional advertising when in fact, the most powerful formula comes from the combination of them. As media companies expand their digital content and ad insertion capabilities, especially in the area of video and mobile, and as advertisers dial in the magic formula between online and offline media spend, it becomes increasingly clear that we can no longer think in terms of one versus the other. The marriage of digital and traditional media will become the ultimate solution and will drive unprecedented results.

Will Super Bowl advertisers be able to dial in the previews and extend the post-Super Bowl bump this year? Will they incorporate online and offline campaigns more effectively and improve the effectiveness of their Super Bowl ad spend? Will advertisers get their money’s worth? A lot of these questions will be topics of discussions after February 3^rd.  In the meantime, we’d be interested in hearing your thoughts and predictions.

Today, we released some data findings from our own Dr. Sid Shah, director of business analytics for Advertising Solutions, on paid search advertising among online retailers from the 2012 holiday season. For digital marketers and advertisers, three trends emerged:

1.       Paid search spend in retail grew 16% Year-over-Year (YOY)

• Online retail spend increased by 16% YoY (from Q4 2011)
• Google increased its market share in retail paid search to 86.5% percent, up from 85.9% in Q4 2011
• Growth attributed to strong mobile traffic and the transition of Google Shopping from a free to a paid model (Product Listing Ads – PLAs)

2.       Mobile traffic doubles in a year as mobile now accounts for 1 in 5 clicks in retail

• Mobile continued to grow in Q4 2012; smartphones and tablets comprised 20% of all retail paid search impressions and ad spend
• 100% increase of mobile traffic as percentage of overall paid search in one year
• Tablet retail campaigns yielded 73% more conversions than desktop campaigns
• Tablet CPCs are still lower than desktops (16% in Q4)

3.       Trend in seasonality driven by device unboxing

• Widespread consumer adoption of smartphones and tablets drove major advertising shifts and retail dollars
• Share of tablet impressions show consistent YoY growth starting immediately after Christmas – with similar trends in Europe

Key Takeaways and 2013 Predictions

1. Online retailers should optimize PLA campaigns for bid and feed management. 
2. Tablet traffic will represent 1 in 4 paid search clicks by end of 2013. Smartphones and tablets combined will represent 30% of all retail traffic.
3. Marketers have a big opportunity to capitalize on tablet CPCs, which remain 16% lower than desktop campaigns while yielding a higher conversion rate.
4. Any marketer with a sizeable search campaign and significant mobile traffic should create, manage, and optimize tablet and mobile-specific paid search campaigns.

For Sid’s full analysis and commentary on these trends, check out his post on our Digital Marketing Blog.

We’re taking the next step to bring broadcast TV online with major updates announced today to Project Primetime – the industry’s first fully integrated video technology platform that publishes and monetizes broadcast TV content across any Web-connected device.

• Adobe MediaWeaver, our new ad insertion service, dynamically places ads into content to maximize revenue. This new offering delivers a viewing experience that mirrors broadcast TV while also supporting audience targeting and analytics to increase media inventory value.

• The new Primetime Media Player is the first player technology that allows TV content owners and distributors to maximize audience reach and ensure that all experiences are monetized immediately through seamless ad insertion and analytics. It allows for a richer, more robust viewing experience on desktops and mobile devices within apps.

• For the first time, video publishers can now combine content and ad analytics. This allows for comprehensive analyses of revenue opportunities and optimization of ad policies in order to improve audience engagement with content and ads. Enhanced audience targeting and analytics are now possible with the integration of Adobe Auditude, Adobe AudienceManager and Adobe SiteCatalyst.

Check out the Project Primetime overview video below and read our blog posts for more details!

• Blog Post – Introducing Primetime Media Player – A New Way to Distribute, Monetize and Analyze Online Video Content

• Blog Post – Introducing Adobe MediaWeaver – Innovation for Video Ad Insertion Across Devices

• Blog Post – Project Primetime Integrations Make It Easier to More Effectively Monetize Professional Video