Adobe launches Launch, its next-gen tag management platform

Adobe is out this week with its next-generation tag management platform.

Called Launch and built into the Adobe Cloud Platform, it is based on technology acquired when the tech giant bought a tag management technology called Satellite in 2013. Launch was announced as a beta release at Adobe Summit in March, and it’s now out in general release.

Adobe Product Marketing Manager Jon Viray told me that the previous Adobe tag management offering, called Dynamic Tag Management or DTM, is primarily designed for providing page tags for Adobe’s tools. Users could integrate third-party marketing tools into DTM by adding the necessary JavaScript, he said, but they couldn’t easily add much functionality.

By contrast, Launch is a completely new, open platform designed so that third-party developers can create their own integrations called extensions, thus making whatever feature set they desire immediately available through the Launch platform for any of their subscribers.

A tag management platform is a way to capture data in a website that is needed for various marketing and analytical tools through one container tag of JavaScript in the web pages. Adding or subtracting tools can then be managed via a tag management dashboard, instead of redoing the web pages.

In a blog post announcing this launch of Launch, Viray noted that the new platform is oriented around APIs so that external tool makers can develop their own extensions instead of “relying on the tag management vendor to do so.”

This is a differentiator from most other tag management providers, he told me, in that outside developers have access to Launch’s open source components for creating their own integrations. Additionally, he said, marketers can specify that certain kinds of data, like revenue, are captured the same way in different tools, and data can be shared between the external tools.

Launch extensions have been developed by Clicktale, DialogTech, Dun & Bradstreet, LinkedIn, PebblePost and TrustArc, among others.

Viray told me that, while Adobe will continue to support DTM and “won’t force customers” to upgrade, Launch does everything DTM does and more.

About The Author

Barry Levine

Barry Levine covers marketing technology for Third Door Media. Previously, he covered this space as a Senior Writer for VentureBeat, and he has written about these and other tech subjects for such publications as CMSWire and NewsFactor. He founded and led the web site/unit at PBS station Thirteen/WNET; worked as an online Senior Producer/writer for Viacom; created a successful interactive game, PLAY IT BY EAR: The First CD Game; founded and led an independent film showcase, CENTER SCREEN, based at Harvard and M.I.T.; and served over five years as a consultant to the M.I.T. Media Lab. You can find him at LinkedIn, and on Twitter at xBarryLevine.