Adobe DTM to Launch Migration – A Blessing in Disguise
With our last blog we established the advantages for you to shift to Launch by Adobe, in addition to the necessity to do the same because DTM is getting sunset.
At TO THE NEW, we believe that the migration process comes with both, an opportunity to audit and clean the current implementation and the potential risk of implementation gaps during the process. The risk involved and the challenges faced can be diverse and can be curbed if a systematic and well defined procedure is followed. We have in-house and certified Adobe analytics experts, who can help in migrating DTM to Launch for your business.
However, let us walk you through the brighter side of migration first.
A Golden Opportunity :
Before we deep dive into the HOW to do it? Let us discuss all the ways in which this migration can prove to be a win for you and your business:
- It provides us with an indispensable opportunity to clean up and work on optimization of the current implementation which in turn improves the Data Quality, empowering you to deliver the best user experience. As a regular practice, we always lay stress on running a comprehensive and detailed audit for “What Is the current state?” and will give you an exhaustive view of “What should be?”
- Property structure & User Management : The debatable question about the number of web properties in DTM/Adobe Launch and the distribution of the Company’s website domains in these properties is something that should and can easily be revisited during the course of this migration. Your property structure essentially should be based on the following 3 simple questions:
- How similar are the websites in the concerned property ? How similar is the implementation?
- How similar are the publish timelines for all these sites ? A change at the web property level should align with all the sites/domains in the said property.
- Another question often sidelined is the team collaboration and how it affects individual/team workstreams when working with multiple Web properties. With the granular level of user control that Launch offers, the User Management can be revisited and restructured in the way that best suits your process needs.
- Maintaining Security Standards and Best Practices: Once you make the decision to move to Adobe Launch, you can have a fresh start by defining some implementation guidelines & best practices which may save you from a forced implementation clean up in future.
- Security Standards/Privacy- Launch in contrast to Adobe DTM and other Tag Management Systems, provides absolute control over user rights management. Instead of user roles, it allows administrators to add users to the granular rights of specific properties. The structure helps you ensure that correct users have the correct rights. In addition to that, Launch boasts of a Secure Product Lifecycle which proactively meets the Time to resolution requirements for fixing any unknown security issues that may be found as a part of regular security reviews and tests.
- Naming schema : Concurrent implementation, overlapping publishing timelines and having different nomenclature across different departments results in lack of distinction. Before we start with the migration process, in order to streamline the individual/team tasks and bring together a cohesive and production ready build you should have a well defined naming schema : for libraries, for rules, for data elements .For example, having a predefined structure for library names like – “Issue | Date of creation” can help remove any versioning challenges or unknown dependencies that might crop up.
- Data Layer Recommendations: Considering there is already an ongoing investigation into your analytics tracking, it would prove beneficial to also look at the Data Layers currently being used on your site. Is your data Layer updated? Do you wish it was structured differently? How much of the current data layer is being consumed and what more can be added? Although this requires development effort initially, however it would definitely benefit you in the longer run, making it scalable solution.
- Third Party Tags in Asynchronous JS to Extensions: While we are cleaning up the implementation, it would be worthwhile to revisit the third party scripts and ensure that they are async Javascript to enhance the page performance. As a major improvement over its predecessor DTM, Launch provides deep integrations with the help of Extensions. Integrating these extensions is all about connection, connecting the right technologies with each and every user interaction to build a deeper relationship with your user/customer. Before migration, make it a priority to swap all your old third party configurations for expert built extensions that speed up your page performance.
- Update your VistorAPI.js/ App Measurement libraries: Migration also provides you with an opportunity to make sure that you are using the latest version of these adobe libraries. Unless there is some custom code involved, it would do good to update these libraries. You should also have an all-encompassing check of your doPlugins functions and the usage of the plugins you have in place.
- Documenting Everything : If you have been with your present Tag Management System for a while, you are aware how relevant the documentation that you started with is, in comparison to your current implementation. Additionally, as Launch claims to be more Marketer friendly, having a concise and detailed documentation in place (like a dedicated Confluence Page) would ensure smooth operation of the TMS for anyone to access. Make sure to add the following key areas to your documentation :
- Naming strategy : If you are defining new naming strategies, make sure everyone who uses Launch has access to them.
- Publishing workflow : This one is to avoid any haze over what goes into production. Having a well documented workflow listing the approval rights, user accesses and a cadence can be game changing for your processes.
Hoping that this post makes the grass seem greener for your migration plan and at TO THE NEW, we make sure this is in real as easy as it sounds.
