Get Started for Marketers

Last update: June 17, 2025

Topics:
Get Started

CREATED FOR:

Beginner

As a Marketer or a Journey Practitioner, you create offers, design journeys, and develop content to engage your audience. You start using Adobe Journey Optimizer after the System Administrator and the Data Engineer grant access and prepare the environment. These roles handle setup tasks, allowing you to focus on delivering impactful customer experiences.

Your Role as a Marketer

Marketers using Journey Optimizer perform tasks that define how customers interact with the brand:

Design and implement customer journeys to create personalized experiences.
Create and manage messages for email, SMS, push notifications, and other channels.
Define audience segments to ensure that messages reach the right audience.
Add personalization and dynamic content to tailor messages for individual preferences.
Manage offers and assets to provide relevant value at key moments.
Analyze campaign performance to improve results continually.

These responsibilities enable the delivery of data-driven, meaningful interactions that resonate with the audience.

Getting Started Checklist

Follow these steps to create your first journey, add offers and assets, and send messages:

1. Create Audiences

Audiences form the foundation of the targeting strategy. Journey Optimizer enables the creation of audiences using segment definitions in the Audiences menu. This ensures that campaigns reach the intended individuals. For example, define a segment of “frequent buyers” who made purchases in the last 30 days. Learn more about audiences on this page and explore how to build segment definitions in this sample.

2. Add Personalization and Dynamic Content

Personalization makes messages relevant to each recipient. Journey Optimizer uses customer data to adapt messaging through personalization and dynamic content. For example, greet customers by name in emails or recommend products based on their browsing history. Learn more about personalization and dynamic content.

3. Create and Manage Assets

Assets, such as images, templates, and videos, are essential components of message content. Use Adobe Experience Manager Assets as a centralized repository to store and retrieve assets for campaigns. For example, upload a promotional banner and reuse it in multiple emails. Learn more in this section.

4. Add Offers

Offers provide value to customers, such as discounts, promotions, or exclusive content. Use Journey Optimizer to deliver the best offer at the right time across all touchpoints. For instance, target loyal customers with a 20% discount on their next purchase. Learn more about decisioning management in this section.

5. Test and Validate

Testing ensures that content works and appears as intended before reaching the audience. Use test profiles or sample input data (CSV/JSON) to preview personalized content. For example, confirm that a recipient’s name appears correctly in an email. Integrate a Litmus account with Journey Optimizer to preview email rendering in popular clients like Gmail or Outlook. Learn how to test and validate messages in this section.

6. Design Customer Journeys

Customer journeys define how and when the audience interacts with the brand. Use Journey Optimizer to create dynamic, multistep journeys that respond to real-time events or scheduled triggers. For example:

Send a real-time message, such as a push notification, when a customer abandons a shopping cart.
Launch a batch email campaign for a pre-defined audience, such as “new subscribers.”

Incorporate data from events, Adobe Experience Platform, or third-party APIs to make journeys relevant. Use built-in channel actions (Email, SMS, Push, InApp) or custom actions to send messages. The journey designer includes a drag-and-drop interface to build complex scenarios. For example, combine conditions and triggers to send personalized messages at the optimal moment.

Learn how to design and execute journeys in this section.

7. Monitor Messages and Journeys

Monitoring ensures that messages are sent, delivered, and performing as expected. Journey Optimizer offers tools to track message execution and evaluate journey performance. For example, check an email campaign’s open rates or identify SMS delivery errors. Learn how to monitor performance in this section.

recommendation-more-help