Sergio Leone‘s famous spaghetti western, The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly, explored themes of antiheroism and greed.  I ran across the film recently and somehow it made me think of…Adobe.

Like all major MarTech vendors, Adobe platforms seem almost ubiquitous at the enterprise tier, which creates the mis-impression that they are pervasive within enterprise stacks. As it happens, very few firms go all-in with Adobe, and instead cherry-pick specific solutions among the vendor’s set of offerings. The question then becomes: which Adobe platforms make sense for your stack?

Adobe seems to never want you to ask this question. It’s the only vendor with a station on every line in Real Story Group’s famous MarTech subway map, above. They pitch a story where you align around the idea of Adobe, and bundle as many of their platforms as possible in a larger deal.

This is almost never in your best interest, for reasons I’ll detail below. So it becomes important to understand what Adobe is actually good at, and where their platforms come up short. After evaluating all major Adobe MarTech platforms – in some cases for two decades – as part of RSG’s vendor evaluation research, we can cite major pros and cons of specific platforms. 

Earlier this week I outlined some broader themes around what’s good, bad, and downright ugly about Adobe’s approach to MarTech.  Enjoy!