Key Insights from Adobe’s Webinar on Federated Audience Composition for Experience Platform

In a recent Adobe webinar, the spotlight was on Federated Audience Composition, a powerful new feature of Adobe Experience Platform (AEP). The session outlined the significant capabilities this function brings to real-time customer data platforms (CDP), especially regarding audience management and activation across multiple data sources.

What is Federated Audience Composition?

Federated Audience Composition is a cutting-edge capability introduced in Adobe’s Experience Platform, aimed at enabling companies to build and activate audiences using data stored in enterprise data warehouses (EDW), without the need to transfer sensitive data into the platform itself. This highly anticipated feature allows users to access, create, and enrich audience data directly from these warehouses, minimizing the risks associated with data movement and privacy concerns.

The Problem It Solves

Over the years, enterprises have been inundated with vast amounts of customer data, often spread across multiple platforms such as CRM, ad tech, analytics, and commerce systems. This scattered data landscape often leads to data silos, redundancy, and disjointed customer experiences.

With the rise of enterprise data warehouses as a “single source of truth,” businesses can consolidate data more effectively. However, the challenge has always been making this data actionable for customer experience (CX) initiatives, as traditional EDWs were designed for storage and analytics rather than real-time engagement. This is where Adobe’s Federated Audience Composition steps in.

Key Benefits of Federated Audience Composition

1. No Data Movement Required: Enterprises can now build audiences using critical datasets residing in the enterprise warehouse, eliminating the need to copy or move data to Adobe Experience Platform (AEP). This reduces privacy and security risks and ensures that sensitive data remains within its native environment.

2. Audience Enrichment: Marketers can enrich existing audiences within the Adobe Experience Platform by combining them with additional datasets from their EDW, making those audiences even more powerful for targeted engagement.

3. Seamless Activation: Once an audience is federated and enriched, it can be activated across multiple marketing channels via Real-Time CDP and Adobe Journey Optimizer, allowing for personalized experiences at scale.

Use Cases Demonstrated in the Webinar

One of the key demonstrations showed how an audience can be created based on eligibility for fiber service and whether the person is already a customer. The dataset was accessed from a Snowflake instance (an enterprise data warehouse), without having to move data into AEP. The workflow allowed the audience to be activated across marketing channels in real time, providing personalized and immediate experiences to the selected customers.

In another example, Adobe highlighted the ability to trigger “in-the-moment” experiences when a customer interacts with a brand’s digital platform, such as visiting a website, leveraging the federated audience data to deliver personalized messages or offers instantly.

Market Trends Driving Federated Audience Composition

Several key market trends were highlighted during the session:

• Data Integration from Multiple Sources: Enterprises are increasingly relying on data warehouses as their primary source of truth while integrating data from various other platforms.
• Focus on Real-Time Activation: Modern consumers expect brands to engage them with personalized, in-the-moment experiences.
• Enhanced Data Privacy: With stricter privacy regulations, federated audience capabilities ensure sensitive data remains securely stored, mitigating the risks associated with data movement.

Key Differentiators of Adobe’s Approach

Adobe’s Federated Audience Composition offers several advantages that set it apart from other CDP solutions:

• Flexibility: Adobe Experience Platform supports both federated and ingested data workflows, giving enterprises the ability to choose the approach that best fits their use case, data privacy requirements, and technical setup.
• In-the-Moment Engagement: By combining federated audience data with real-time CDP and Journey Optimizer, brands can deliver highly personalized and contextually relevant experiences triggered by customer actions.
• Privacy and Governance: Adobe’s governance tools ensure that customer data is handled according to the strictest privacy regulations, allowing sensitive data to remain within enterprise-controlled environments.

Takeaways for Partners and Marketers

The introduction of Federated Audience Composition marks a significant advancement in Adobe Experience Platform’s capabilities, empowering businesses to leverage their existing data infrastructure more efficiently. Key takeaways include:

• Streamlined Data Management: Businesses can use their enterprise data warehouse as a central hub for audience creation and activation without the need for complex data movement.
• Enhanced Customer Experiences: With access to richer datasets and real-time activation, marketers can deliver more personalized, timely, and relevant experiences at every touchpoint.
• Future-Proofing Data Strategies: Federated Audience Composition supports modern data strategies by balancing privacy, security, and actionable insights, making it easier to meet the evolving demands of consumers and regulatory bodies.

Final Thoughts

Adobe’s Federated Audience Composition is a game-changer for enterprises looking to maximize the value of their data while maintaining strict privacy controls. By enabling seamless audience creation and enrichment directly from enterprise data warehouses, Adobe continues to push the boundaries of what’s possible with real-time CDP and customer journey optimization.