How we create winning online and live events.

Successful digital events are a key growth strategy for any enterprise business. They connect you with your customers, build lasting brand awareness, and serve as a hub for content that can last years (yes, years).

After pivoting from live to online to hybrid events, we’ve been using our own suite of products to make Adobe Summit and MAX successful. Since we get a lot of questions about how we do it, we’re sharing how we power seamless workflows, create standout personalization, and inspire millions with great content.

350K+

2022 MAX and Summit global attendees

200K

Hours of content consumed

1M+

Online video views on Adobe.com

HERE ARE FIVE WAYS WE BRING OUR ONLINE EVENTS TO LIFE:

#1: We make personalization a priority.

Adobe MAX and Adobe Summit draw over 350K attendees each year, both in person and online. To keep each one feeling connected to the event, we do the following:

Audience targeting

We create tailored experiences using Adobe Target and Adobe Audience Manager. At Adobe Summit, for example, these tools allow us to focus on users from any industry (e.g. finance) and show them content specific to that industry.

Machine learning recommendations

When we don’t have many signals about an audience, we use technology to get the job done. For MAX, for example, we use a portfolio of algorithms to find the most relevant video session for an attendee.

Explicit intent personalization

Asking visitors for their preferences lets us use a combination of manual and automated personalization to recommend curated content. With Adobe Experience Manager, we built a quiz-based experience for attendees to share information, and with Adobe Target, we created a truly individualized user experience.

“We use a one-two punch for Adobe’s online events. Adobe Experience Cloud solutions make the event a personalized experience, and Creative Cloud solutions create a beautiful experience. With this approach, we see a 15% to 25% lift in content engagement across Adobe.com.”

Mark Tuyay

Group Manager, Adobe.com Personalization Product Management

#2: We design an immersive experience.

An amazing immersive experience happens when you lean into UI, UX, and good design. We make this happen at MAX and Summit by creating a vibe that’s apparent at every event, on every page, and in every detail of our entire event. Adobe’s world-class design apps — such as Photoshop, Illustrator, and Premiere Pro — are integral to the way we build, share, and scale every creative element that makes Summit and MAX a next-level experience.

Milestones to consider

We plan ahead as we create our events by including key milestones that make all the difference in successful execution. For a 6-month planning cycle, we consider the following:

T-minus

5 months

Extended team kickoff

Grounding the broader project team on event framework, site scope, and high-level timelines.

T-minus

4 months

Lock requirements

Defining the engineering team’s checklist so they can focus scope, resources, and schedules.

T-minus

2 months

Complete features

Finalizing the code for any new feature developments so fixes and testing can occur.

T-minus

1-2 weeks

Test site

Finishing the final round of user testing to vet the event site experience.

#3: We think of our events as a system.

Use analytics to develop precise content.

Content drives every level of our MAX and Summit event systems, so we focus on audience needs as we develop it. Adobe Analytics and Adobe Customer Journey Analytics reveal everything from visitor journeys to web analysis and inform the customized content we create for these events. The goal? Make every customer (in a sea of thousands) feel seen.

“From the very beginning, you want to think of your event as an entire system and how this system will be translated into different types of experiences for distinct audiences.”

Emily Chang

Head of Experience Design, Adobe Studio

#4: We optimize for engagement.

Boosting UI and UX is important for a standout online event. Here are the tools we use to make sure we’re developing content wisely during Summit and MAX:

Adobe Target is how we test and target our marketing offers, personalization, and UX testing. It integrates with Adobe Analytics to help us know if we’re hitting our intended marks.

Adobe Audience Manager helps us build unique audience profiles so we can identify our most valuable segments and use them across our digital event offerings.

#5: We create an exceptional event lifecycle.

With so much going on at Summit and MAX, part of maximizing value at our events means that nothing falls through the cracks. We make sure our attendees know what’s coming at every stage—pre-event, during, and after. With Adobe Marketo Engage, a tool that combines automation, content, lead development, and marketing, we can connect with attendees and hosts and keep them up to date with our event schedule, program updates, and news.

The power of an all-in-one web stack.

A unified web stack is simply more powerful and nimble. Here are some of the advantages we get out of running our events on our suite of products:

Personalized data to create an exceptional real-time experience for users
Easy incorporation of external partners for integrations such as event registration, session live chats, on-demand video, meeting schedules, product tie-ins, and more
Evergreen value of all content

We create the tools that make building a better online event a reality.