Audience activation in Journey Optimizer segments-in-journey-optimizer

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• TL;DR: This page explains how to target Adobe Experience Platform audiences in Journey Optimizer campaigns and journeys, the activation delays that apply, and the guardrails for different audience types.

Intents:

• Target Adobe Experience Platform audiences in campaigns and journeys
• Understand activation delays for ingested, composition, and batch-segmentation audiences
• Use a Read audience, Optimize, or Audience Qualification activity in a journey
• Understand which audience types can be targeted directly and how to wrap unsupported audiences
• Apply guardrails for custom upload and Federated Audience Composition audiences

Glossary:

• Read audience activity: A journey orchestration activity that makes all individuals in an audience enter the journey and receive its messages (product-specific)
• Audience Qualification event activity: A journey event activity that makes individuals enter or move forward based on Adobe Experience Platform audience entrances and exits (product-specific)
• Optimize activity: A journey activity used to build conditions based on audience membership (product-specific)
• Federated Audience Composition: One of the audience sources that can be targeted in Journey Optimizer (product-specific)
• execution field: The channel-configuration field (or “execution address” depending on the channel) that can be set to ‘identityMap’ so the attribute chosen as the identity at audience creation is used for targeting (product-specific)

Guardrails:

• Preview and proof are not supported for audiences created using CSV custom upload or Federated Audience Composition.
• For custom upload and Federated Audience Composition, when no match is found between a record and a Unified Profile Service profile a new empty profile is created; standard targeting fields (for example personalEmail.address, mobilePhone.number) are empty and cannot be used for targeting unless the execution field is set to ‘identityMap’.
• Every record in a custom upload or Federated Audience Composition audience is activated, including duplicates, so the number of activated records may differ from the number of profiles after identity stitching.
• The use of audiences and attributes from audience composition is currently unavailable with Healthcare Shield or Privacy and Security Shield.
• Audiences are ready for use right after ingestion completes, typically within one hour but subject to variability; audiences resulting from compositions should be available 24 hours after publishing.
• For Read-audience journeys scheduled daily, if the segmentation job does not complete within the defined time window, the journey is skipped until its next occurrence.
• You cannot target audiences created using composition workflows, custom upload, or Federated Audience Composition in an Audience Qualification activity; only audiences created using segment definitions can be used there.
• Only audiences generated using segment definition, audience compositions, custom upload (CSV file), and Federated audience composition can be targeted directly in journeys and campaigns; a non-supported audience (such as a Customer Journey Analytics audience) must be wrapped in a new segment definition in the Audience portal.

Terminology:

• Canonical name: Read audience activity — Acronym: n/a — variants: Read audience, Read-audience journey
• Synonyms: “custom upload” = “CSV upload”
• Do not confuse: “Read audience activity” (makes all individuals in an audience enter the journey) ≠ “Audience Qualification event activity” (makes individuals enter or move forward based on audience entrances and exits)
• Do not confuse: “segment definition” audiences (usable in an Audience Qualification activity) ≠ “composition workflow / custom upload / Federated Audience Composition” batch audiences (cannot be targeted in an Audience Qualification activity)

FAQ:

• Q: Which audiences can I target in Journey Optimizer campaigns and journeys? — Audiences generated using segment definitions, custom upload, composition workflows, or Federated Audience Composition.
• Q: How long after ingestion can I use an audience? — Right after ingestion completes, typically within one hour but subject to variability; composition audiences should be available 24 hours after publishing.
• Q: Why can I not preview or proof a custom upload or Federated Audience Composition audience? — Preview and proof are currently not supported for audiences created using CSV upload or Federated Audience Composition.
• Q: Can I use a composition or custom upload audience in an Audience Qualification activity? — No; due to their batch nature only audiences created using segment definitions can be leveraged in that activity.
• Q: How do I target a non-supported audience such as a Customer Journey Analytics audience? — Wrap it in a new segment definition in the Audience portal, then wait for the segmentation evaluation to complete before using it.