Adobe Analytics

Yay, looking forward to the session @kayawalton! I am also here to help do back-end support for this AMA, so I will also be occasionally posting as well.

If you don't know who I am, I am Kaya Walton, director of analytics for Voice of America. We are a US Federal agency AND international  broadcaster serving news in 48 languages around the world. 

Just curious on who is joining us today, please let us know who you are and where you are from in this thread!

You're in the session now! Ask your questions here to get them answered by Achaia.

You are here! This is actually a chat-based, forum AMA

So, you can ask your questions immediately.

The chat is the session! This is chat-based, in-forum AMA. Basically this is a live post a question and get a response event.

Content groups came to be when we were asked for cumulative data and insights for our coverage of a specific event (I talked about the Paris Olympics in the Perspective). We realized that as we get these requests more often that we had to come up with a sustainable system, which is how content groups came to be.

@MikeA1 Great question! A big lesson learned from the early stages of developing content groups was thinking about topics as different buckets. For example, instead of just creating a segment for Paris Olympics, you have to think of it as Paris in one bucket (or segment container) and Olympics in another. This way, I can always reuse either for future events. The great way about pulling these segment containers into a new segment is the ability to tweak it for your specific use, so if you had to pull data for Paris in a different context, you can reuse that segment container instead of starting from scratch.

That’s great, thank you. When reusing segment containers like Paris and Olympics from your example, what strategies or naming conventions do you recommend to keep things organized and easy to find, all while the container grows?

I cannot emphasize enough the importance of tags. They help organize ALL components, including content groups, so you can tie content groups to different components, such as alerts or annotations. We also developed a governance in naming segments, so they are organized based on their intent. For content groups, we will have EVENT or TOPIC at the beginning of segment name so we can easily determine what type of segment it is.

This is so stupidly helpful for my current project. My boss is going to love you Achiaia!

It depends on what kind of industry you have. News is probably the hardest in terms of setting cadence because you cannot predict what topics will come about or when they are needed. We news analyts live on the edge like that; amirite, @Jennifer_Dungan? But for more evergreen content, I would suggest coming up with a list of consistent topics that users are interested in and a content calendar of potential milestones where these content groups may spike in interest (Black Friday, sales, specific events in the year). This can help you get a lay of what segment containers to build and when to pay attention to them (this is where annotations play an important role).

This also really depends on how well your teams tag and categorize the content... some content groups may be really simple... whereas others you may have to continually modify your groups to ensure all the content is included.

Don't be afraid to also schedule some time with your various teams... like in my case, I try to make sure that everyone understands how what I do can help them, and show them how they can make things easier and more reliable for everyone.

Another advantage to having these segment containers ready, especially for an unpredictable industry, is that you may have the tools to set up to track an unforeseen event already and be able to provide reporting to stakeholders as quickly as possible. In our organization, understanding what our audience is looking for regarding the topic and where they are coming from are crucial to editorial and outreach strategy and the newsrooms need those right away. Having these set up so we can react quickly have been really helpful.

FYI, the Perspective has a section about how to use annotations with content groups here: https://experienceleague.adobe.com/en/perspectives/measuring-content-groups-in-adobe-analytics#lever...

I would definitely keep segment containers as granular as possible. Especially when you include other languages, you want to keep it to one keyword as much as possible. This way, you can keep that segment container versatile for future uses. You can either come up with a list based on popular content, user top tasks, or stakeholder input, and start from there. 

Thanks! This is very helpful.

Hi @katieburke797 - thank you for joining us! I would either come up with a list of topics that are consistently used by your organization or ask certain stakeholders for input. Once you have that list, I would outline them into more granular topics so each topic can have their own segment container. In our case, we also have to account for different translations of the topic within the segment container if you support different languages. Once you have those topics and segments setup, I would build related components that make sense for what your stakeholders would want to know about these topics. The most common being annotations for related events or dates where these content groups might see a spike.

Hi @ZhannaMc,

There is no really set AMA series, but it's tentatively going to be quarterly to start. There should be a formal process stating soon to get these events better advertised. The first place will always be posted here in the community, but there will be an attempt at making an email distribution list to get these types of events in the future... stay tuned for more details.

As for learning the backend of Adobe, you can of course always ask people here on the forum for specific questions, but there are a lot of resources available to you.

There are User Groups that you can join:

https://analytics-augs.adobe.com/chapters/

(Feel free to join chapters not in your timezone so that you can at least get notifications of upcoming events)

And also, you can watch the recordings of their past sessions:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCQOHnCs7KZgsuFHVzwboQuA 

There is also the official Adobe Analytics YouTube channel:

https://www.youtube.com/@adobeanalytics3740 

There are also various blogs, some may be dated (given how long AA has been around), but there is always good insights to understanding the history of tracking.

As for the regularity of the sessions.  That's a good question for @seanrobinson!

Hi @ZhannaMc , as far as how often these events will happen, we're hoping at least quarterly, but since this is the very first Champion AMA event, we might do it more often depending on response. The first place you'll hear about these in the future will be on the Analytics Community, where it will be advertised on the banner. You'll also be notified by email since you've RSVP'd for this event. We're looking forward to continuing this series in the future, so keep an eye out!

Great, thank you! 
Jennifer_Dungan
 jeff_bloomer 
seanrobinson

It would also seem to me, that even evergreen content groups can "all of a sudden" provide opportunities to have them break out into brand new groups, based on new trends and events happening in the news.  Just like jargon and colloquialisms change, I'm sure content groups get updated and need to adapt.

Absolutely! This is a great point and why keeping segments for content groups as granular as possible is important. I like to keep these terms in separate segment containers (that I can always combine for cumulative data), so I can also see the trends on whether these terms are being used together or whether one jargon or colloquialism surpassed another. Understanding those trends can help folks understand how to reach their audiences more effectively based on the language they use.

Love this question @seanrobinson! Content groups are really just segments or segment containers, but we refer to them as that way because there are different types of segments in our org. This is a special type of segment where we look at the big picture of what content interests our audience or that our stakeholders find valuable, and organize them so we can pull cumulative insights about these topics.

One thing that I like to do in my org is to Tag these segments with something like "ContentGroup". That way I can easily find all content groups simply by searching for "#contentgroup" and ALL of these specific segments will be returned.

You can also try to create a specific naming convention, but remember that full name will appear in your tables and visualizations, so that can get a little wordy in the display.

See, @Jennifer_Dungan is on my wavelength.  LOL!

I would suspect that #tags become quite valuable in that instance.  <BIG WINK!>

TAGS ARE MY BEST FRIEND. (Well, alerts deserve some love, too.)

Especially from an admin POV, having a great governance for tags has been helpful in managing components, including segments and content groups. This also helps stakeholders identify related components or segments when they are jumping in there to do their own analysis.

Just another reason for @adobe to up their game with managing #tags in AA and CJA.

That's right, this time I'm looking at you @adobe.  <Another BIG WINK!>