This case study highlights how our customer used Sentinel Insights technology to help with a tag management system (TMS) migration from Ensighten to Adobe Launch.
Especially as they recover from the COVID-19 pandemic, modern hospitality marketing teams need to gather, analyze, and act upon accurate digital data. Hotel groups navigating this recovery rely on MarTech programs to collect stable, accurate data, enabling them to execute data-driven marketing campaigns confidently. Understanding shifting consumer behaviors, optimizing marketing efficiency, and driving strategic decisions all depend on good data.
Employing a tag management system (TMS) has become an industry best practice over the past decade. The TMS simplifies implementing and managing marketing and analytics tags, which are crucial for collecting valuable marketing data and insights. Our customer, a leading global hotel chain recovering and stabilizing after the COVID-19 pandemic, previously used Ensighten as their TMS but decided to switch to Adobe Launch to align better with their changing business and data analysis needs.
This case study demonstrates how Sentinel Insights enabled the customer to monitor and validate their data throughout the migration process, ensuring a seamless transition to their new tag management system.
TMS Migration Challenge
Transitioning between tag management platforms can be complex in any sector. The complexity often leads many organizations to take years to execute TMS migrations. However, as business and leisure travel began to rebound in 2022, our customer found their existing Ensighten setup unsustainable. They identified the shift to Adobe Launch as a strategic move to enhance and future-proof their marketing technology stack for a post-pandemic world.
However, like any migration, our customer identified significant risks, including data loss, analytics misconfiguration, and operational disruptions. Each of these issues could result in inaccurate data collection and analysis, potentially leading to significant financial losses in various ways:
- Losing hours identifying and resolving post-migration issues
- Misdirecting campaign funds due to missing or incomplete data
- Underperforming campaigns from improper targeting
- Complaints about customer experience and decreased brand loyalty
- Reputational damage that results in lower morale and higher staff turnover
TMS migrations pose significant challenges. They demand thorough documentation, analysis, and testing to ensure the new system properly incorporates or corrects years of custom configurations from the legacy TMS, crucial for continuous data accuracy. Migrations often affect data collection in unexpected ways, and teams require granular visibility into the data to minimize this impact and maintain operational continuity.
The Sentinel Solution
Our customer introduced Sentinel Insights into the MarTech ecosystem as a vital part of their TMS migration strategy. Our mission was clear: our platform would become an essential tool for maintaining data integrity before, during, and after the move from Ensighten to Adobe Launch.
Here’s how we did it:
Pre-production Testing
Data Validation and Monitoring: Our customer installed Sentinel Insights tag-based monitoring platform in both production and pre-production environments. Our tag established baseline databases that provided insight into data collection for each tag management system. This enabled the customer to independently monitor their Adobe Analytics implementation in pre-production environments as test data was generated within Adobe Launch. This crucial step allowed for direct comparison and validation with production analytics data being collected by Ensighten. Our customer was able to achieve parity between the two platforms, building confidence in Adobe Launch and mitigating risks of Adobe Analytics data loss during migration.
Data Benchmarking and Issue Resolution: The full breadth of data that only Sentinel Insights provides allowed the customer to perform detailed comparisons between the data collected in Ensighten and Adobe Launch. Sentinel Insights dashboards and insight reports provided the level of detail necessary to identify any discrepancies or unplanned gaps in data collection between the two platforms. This phase was critical in understanding how Adobe Launch was collecting data, allowing for several rounds of adjustments before cutover. These adjustments empowered our customer to not just migrate the current state, but to actually enhance their Adobe Analytics implementation as they migrated to Adobe Launch.
Stakeholder Engagement and Feedback Integration: Through the Sentinel Insights dashboard, key stakeholders were able to review and identify gaps in best practices using the data collected by Adobe Launch in a sandbox environment. This level of detail allowed the MarTech team to prioritize more effectively and make informed adjustments to data collection. Because of the ease of collaboration, they were able to make strategic improvements to their Adobe Analytics implementation, ensuring that the final rollout would meet or exceed the operational and analytical needs of the business.
Phased Production Rollout for the TMS Migration
Controlled Deployment Strategy: Leveraging insights gained from the pre-production phase, our customer employed a phased deployment strategy. The Ensighten to Adobe Launch migration was rolled out over two days, beginning with less complex websites. This strategy allowed the team to review performance on a smaller scale, then fine-tune the process and apply learnings to the more challenging portions of their digital properties. This reduced risk and ensured a smoother transition across the board.
Real-time Data Monitoring, Enabling More Effective Troubleshooting: Throughout the rollout, Sentinel Insights provided real-time monitoring, allowing immediate identification and resolution of any issues as they arose. Sentinel Insights technology provided detailed reporting linking data layer values directly to analytics requests, allowing the customer team to understand issues and resolve them much more quickly than ever before. This continuous oversight meant that our customer maintained operational continuity and data integrity during the migration. Our team provided enhanced white-glove support throughout the migration to ensure we were ready to help with enhanced data requests as they were needed.
Post-Implementation Analysis and Optimization: Following the migration, Sentinel Insights facilitated a comprehensive analysis comparing pre and post-migration analytics. This ensured that all data was accurately captured in Adobe Launch, validating the success of the migration and identifying areas for further optimization.
TMS Migration Results
The TMS migration to Adobe Launch proved successful in several key areas:
- Data Integrity and Confidence: The customer achieved data parity between Ensighten and Adobe Launch, eliminating concerns over data loss or inaccuracies and ensuring a solid foundation for future analytics efforts.
- Enhanced Analytical Capabilities: The transition to Adobe Launch paired with best practice validation that only Sentinel Insights provides opened up new avenues for enhanced data collection practices, providing deeper insights into customer behaviors and preferences.
- Operational Continuity: Our customer migrated their Adobe Analytics implementation from one TMS to another with minimal disruption to ongoing operations, ensuring continuous data collection and analysis throughout the transition.
- Morale Boost: The customer experienced a significant uplift in team morale, attributing this to the seamless and secure transition facilitated by Sentinel Insights. The successful migration not only provided a sense of accomplishment but also instilled a newfound confidence and enthusiasm among the marketing technology team.
Conclusion
The TMS migration from Ensighten to Adobe Launch, supported by Sentinel Insights, stands as a testament to the power of comprehensive pre-migration testing and real-time, real user data monitoring. This case study underscores the importance of a meticulous, data-driven approach to MarTech migrations. By ensuring data integrity every step of the way, Sentinel Insights enabled our customer to transition to a more advanced TMS with confidence.
If you’re considering a MarTech migration, please reach out so we can help you execute it with confidence.
