Adobe launches GTM challenger: Launch
It’s official: Adobe’s new tag management solution, Adobe Launch, is publicly available since today and will be gradually rolled out to all existing DTM clients.
Launch is the successor of Dynamic Tag Manager (DTM) but is in fact an entirely new product, built from scratch by the product team at Adobe. And they’ve done a great job with it. So great, that Launch may become a challenger for the current leader in tag management: Google Tag Manager (GTM).
“The system has been re-architected from scratch using modern front-end development practices and an API-first approach.” — Jeff Chasin
In 2013, Adobe introduced it’s own tag management system (by buying Satellite), just a couple of months after the introduction of Google’s GTM. However, DTM never became a real challenger for Google Tag Manager. All companies who use DTM, do so because they already have Adobe Analytics (DTM is part of that package without any additional cost). Not because they favour DTM above another tag manager. In fact, if a company would research their tag manager needs, they would end up with another tool (like GTM, Tealium, etc.).
DTM stood still for 4 years
Compared to it’s competitors, DTM did not really evolve in the last 4 years.
It remains a closed ecosystem for implementing Adobe tools on your website. Although you can add any custom code (and thus implement other tools as well), this clearly isn’t the focus. While GTM has built up a library of tag templates (+50 non-Google tags) which facilitates the integration of all kind of digital marketing tools.
It also lacks flexibility when it comes to tag sequencing. In contrast to GTM, DTM offers no built in features to control the order tags will be fired in. This can be frustrating if you have tags that depent on eachother.
Also, the user interface represents the year long stand still and could benfit from UX research to make the tool more accessibel for less-technical marketeers.
Why Launch is more than “the Adobe tag manager”
It’s clear that Adobe was aware of these drawbacks, as their new tag management solution Launch tackles all of them.
Most important, together with Launch, Adobe introduces an Extension catalog. This catalog enables seemlessly integration of third party tags. Bye, bye custom code! And you can be sure that it will be seemless: Adobe open sources the creation of Launch Extensions (all code can be found here). In contrast to other tag manager vendors, who maintain control over third party tag templates and often limit the integrations to entering an ID.
This also provides many opportunities for third party vendor. They can include any custom field, instantly creating specific data elements and triggers (rules). For instance: someone could create an extension for embedded Vimeo videos. The extension automatically creates data elements for the video title, video lenght, account of the uploader, etc. It also creates rules for capturing video specifc actions as play, stop, pause, complete, etc.
Vendors can even use the Extension gallery as a new way for attracting leads. They can include a lead form within the extension, for users who haven’t signed up for their service yet.
Currently, adding your own extension to the gallery is only open for Specialized Adobe Partners. But, it will be opened up to everyone during the first quarter of 2018.
Tag sequencing is coming to Launch
Another very important addition is the enablement of tag sequencing. Finnaly, you are able to control what actions have to happen in what order.
And what is even better, you will be able to do so in a very intuitive way. Adobe uses the same interface as within the Segment or Calculated Metric Builder of Analytics. By simply dragging and dropping actions, you can order them in the desired sequence.
The tag manager for enterprise environments
With Launch, Adobe is not only catching up with GTM. They even make an overtaking move.
Launch has the following enterprise needs covered:
- The approval workflows can be customized to match the internal approval processes of a specific company. Fitting right into the existing IT way-of-working.
- Meets the high-security standards of most enterprises. Thanks to the option of self-hosting the JavaScript libraries, IT can include the entire tag manager logic into their automated testing. Thus complying with internal processes and maintaining control.
- Detailed user rights allow administrators to limit the usage of specific extensions for certain user groups and even restrict access to certain Launch functionalities.
- The open-source extension library enables companies to create their own tag templates. For example: a tag template for 3th party pixels that takes into account the cookie consent used on the websites. Thus preventing incorrect cookie placements, often caused by human error.
- The open API structure will enable bulk editing and facilitate maintenance of many tag management containers.
- Minimized coding. The Launch script itself has been simplified, so that it is 60% smaller than DTM and 40% smaller than GTM. This improves the load speed by some milliseconds.
Based on the announced information, I strongly belief that Launch can become an interesting challenger for enterprise tag management solutions as GTM 360 and Tealium.
Specially, if you take the announcement into consideration that Adobe will offer Launch to everyone as a stand-alone product for free. Yes, you read that right: also none Adobe customers will be able to use Launch. This provides the certainty for Adobe clients that they don’t need to worry about a vendor lock-in, when it comes to their tag management implementation. And it also enables Adobe to ratify its position as a digital marketing enabler.
When can you get started with Launch?
Adobe started releasing Launch on November the 8th. And will continue to make it gradually available to existing Adobe clients in the next 3 months. So by the end of January 2018, all Adobe clients should have access to Launch. Too impatient? Contact your Adobe Succes Manager and ask him/her to put you ahead in the migration list.
The upgrade from DTM to Launch should also be smooth, without any loss of functionality.
“DTM customers should upgrade, no draw backs.” — Jon Viray
Afterwards, Adobe will also make Launch available to everyone else. So, also as a non-Adobe client you can expect to get access to Launch somewhere in February/March.
