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Adobe steps up digital marketing push with new and upgraded products

Adobe Systems has introduced tools for advertising across social networking sites and different devices, and also analytics to keep track of it all, the company said on Wednesday.

The announcements come as Adobe is stepping up its efforts in digital marketing. Last year, Adobe made several acquisitions to improve related products. This week the company has gathered 4,000 digital marketers and executives from the media industry to show them where it is heading. 

The technology Adobe acquired from Efficient Frontier is now part of the Digital Marketing Suite, and will help unify social, search and display campaigns, it said.

The company has also introduced Adobe Social and added new predictive marketing capabilities within the Suite.

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The predictive marketing capabilities will make it easier to find and take advantage of behavioral patterns in large amounts of data, according to Adobe. The capabilities include the virtual analyst, a predictive modeling engine that will become available later this year. 

Social, which is based on technology from Efficient Frontier, will combine social publishing with monitoring, social ad buying and analytics, according to Adobe.

Marketers will get a single platform they can use to manage, measure and optimize their social media campaigns. They will, for example, be able to import analytics data from Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and Google+; monitor the sentiment of conversations and receive alerts on relevant trends; and create and deploy social apps, such as contests or forms.

The first iteration will start shipping in the latter half of 2012, and more features will be added before the end of the year. Social will be integrated with other products in the Digital Marketing Suite as well, according to Adobe. 

Adobe also announced the availability of an updated version of its Web Experience Management (WEM) package. The update includes CQ 5.5, a tool that is used to create, manage, and deliver personalized content. Version 5.5 has been integrated with PhoneGap to allow users to create HTML5-based, cross-platform mobile apps, Adobe said.

PhoneGap developer Nitobi Software was acquired by Adobe in October last year.

Working with Hybris, Adobe is planning to make e-commerce an integrated part of WEM. The integration is currently in beta testing, and will start shipping during the second quarter.