Adobe Campaign sits in that strange spot between marketing wish lists and real data. It can feel like a control room and a junk drawer at the same time. Today is a good day to clean it up and make it work harder.
This is a practitioner’s take. Less buzzwords, more buttons. If you run segments, build journeys, or worry about data hygiene, this is for you.
Who are you really segmenting?
Start with the Query activity. Keep filters obvious. You want segments you can read and explain. Country equals MX. Purchase count greater than 3. Last open within 30 days. Plain stuff that travels well across teams.
Then decide where to store them. Lists are quick and dirty for one time blasts. Audiences and saved queries are better for repeatable logic. If someone asks for the same slice again next week, automate it.
Need overlap control? Use Exclusions in typology and the Intersection or Exclusion activities. Do not try to remember this in your head. Let the workflow enforce it.
Where do journeys start and stall?
Journeys in Adobe Campaign are just workflows with a story. Triggers feed them. Profile updates, webhooks, file drops, cart events. Pick one clear entry and stick to it. One entry equals fewer ghosts in your logs.
The stall points are always the same. Bad joins, missing enrichment, or an empty delivery template. When a journey stalls, check the Scheduler, then the JS activity logs, then the transition counts. The graph never lies.
Keep the journey thin. Orchestrate here, store intelligence in your data model. The more logic you cram in every branch, the harder it is to test and trust.
What does clean data mean inside Adobe Campaign?
Three checks keep you out of trouble. A stable primary key, a reliable email or mobile, and a clear consent flag. If any one is fuzzy, you will chase ghosts all week.
Run a Deduplication step before major sends. Pick one rule and commit. Email first, then profile ID as a tiebreaker. Write the survivor strategy down and pin it to the workflow canvas in a note.
Watch your quarantine and denylist. People move, domains expire, interns upload test addresses. A weekly report of new bounces and blocked profiles saves reputation and keeps the CRM honest.
How do you keep deliverability under control?
Warm up new IPs slowly. Small sends to engaged segments first. Use typology rules to cap daily volume and to block risky domains during warm up. It is boring and it works.
Keep seed addresses across major inboxes. Watch the broadlog and tracking log for long delays or sudden drops in opens. If opens dip to zero on a provider while clicks still trickle in, you are in the spam folder.
Respect consent flows. Clear opt in, easy opt out, clean preference center. You will send fewer messages and make more money. That is the game.
What belongs in Campaign and what stays in CRM?
Adobe Campaign is great for channels, timing, and response. CRMs and warehouses win on heavy product logic and long history. Do not push ten years of transactions into Campaign when a weekly aggregate works.
Bring only what you need to target and personalize. Profile fields, last purchase date, last viewed category, top 5 brands. Keep the rest in your source and fetch it on demand if the channel allows it.
If you run mid sourcing or a hosted setup, check the sync windows. Late data means late triggers. Late triggers mean angry people. Set alarms for missed file arrivals.
How do you test without wrecking live data?
Use control groups and proofs. Proof to a team list with mirror pages on. Then run a small live sample with tracking enabled. Compare against your control. Move slow until the numbers smile.
Tag every send with a delivery code that matches your campaign brief. When someone asks what drove revenue yesterday, you can answer in seconds instead of pulling five exports and guessing.
Wrap up
Keep segments simple, journeys thin, and data clean. Let Adobe Campaign do the sending and pacing, and let your source of truth hold the heavy stories. If you can explain your setup on a whiteboard in two minutes, you are on the right path.
Less magic, more repeatable moves. Your future self will thank you the next time the schedule hits and the logs stay green.