Adobe has unveiled enhancements to Adobe Mobile Services that include a a fully integrated mobile app framework, at the Adobe Summit, its digital marketing conference in the US.

Mobile Services is a Core Service in Adobe Marketing Cloud that dramatically simplifies the complete mobile app lifecycle — from app development and user acquisition to app analytics and user engagement. It is the most complete solution in the industry and the first of its kind designed to eliminate marketers’ dependence on an array of disjointed point solutions, instead offering an integrated approach for developing and managing apps. To complement Adobe Mobile Services, Adobe enables customers to tap into its partner ecosystem to add functionality to their apps. The company extended its group of partners today by adding six top app technology providers, who are integrating their tools into the mobile app framework.

“Adobe Digital Index data shows a new record in the use of mobile devices and yet, building a successful mobile app experience today remains a mystery for many marketers,” said Matt Asay, vice president, mobile strategy at Adobe. “They struggle to synthesize a myriad of different mobile tools that address very specific needs. With Adobe Mobile Services, we will dramatically simplify this process, making it easy for marketers to build and optimize their apps.”

The mobile app framework in Adobe Mobile Services brings together leading app technologies across Adobe Marketing Cloud including Adobe Experience Manager Apps, Adobe PhoneGap Enterprise, Adobe Analytics – Mobile Apps, and Adobe Target. The integration of app tools from partners delivers the most flexible, end-to-end workflow across the app lifecycle:

• Development: With Adobe Experience Manager Apps and PhoneGap Enterprise, companies can create apps that run across mobile platforms using web technologies including HTML, CSS and Javascript. Mobile apps can be natively integrated with Adobe Experience Manager to ensure consistent content management across any app without having to worry about multiple app stores, fragmented operating systems and different device sizes. More importantly, Adobe Experience Manager Apps enables marketers to continuously drive engagement with their mobile apps long after launch. Once the application is released, marketing and business teams can easily update both app content and functionality and publish to devices without burdening developer resources. With the integration of Ionic’s HTML5 solution, developers can more easily design beautiful applications.
• User Acquisition: Adobe’s partnership with Fiksu combined with Adobe Analytics gives enterprises a powerful way to acquire new mobile app users. The platform drives and tracks brand awareness through paid media, app discovery, app installations and more. Support for A/B testing in Adobe Target continues to help marketers optimize and target content more effectively by better identifying audiences based on mobile-specific criteria such as device type and operating system. The integration of Kochava’s solution allows brands to understand what media advertising efforts drive conversion and how effective their mobile ad spend is.
• App Analytics: With Adobe Analytics-Mobile Apps, marketers gain rich insights into mobile app usage — how frequently users launch the app, what paths they take through the app, what link the user clicked on that led to the app download, and more. Apps that are instrumented with Adobe’s Mobile SDK are also able to leverage built-in capabilities to change the user experience on the fly and deliver in-app messages. By integrating Crittercism’s application performance management solution, companies will be able to go beyond basic crash reporting to understand errors and transactions in extensive detail. In addition, Adobe’s integration with appFigures’ app store analytics platform enables brands to automatically grab and visualize essential data on things like sales and download numbers, app rankings and more.
• User Engagement: Native support for GPS and iBeacons in Adobe Analytics ensures that mobile users receive relevant content precisely at the moment that the brand engages them. The partnership with Vibes adds a comprehensive set of toolsto engage with app users and deliver contextually relevant experiences and promotions. The integration of Vibes’ mobile wallet capabilities with Adobe Campaign gives brands the unique ability to deliver personalized “passes” for Apple Passbook and Google Wallet. To engage mobile users, marketers are using digital passes to replace print versions of coupons, offers and boarding passes.