Activities

Activities in Adobe Target let you personalize content to specific audiences and test page designs.

For example, you might design an activity that tests two different landing pages, one that highlights information about women’s summer shoes, and another landing page that highlights more general summer apparel. The activity determines the conditions that control when each of these landing pages appears, and the metrics that determine which page is more successful. The activity is configured to start and end when specific conditions are met, such as between specific dates, or to start when the activity is approved and to end when it is deactivated.

When designing an activity, you should plan carefully. Determine when the activity will start and how long it will last. Then, list your offers and assign a target audience to each one.

Activity types

Target includes several activity types. The following table provides an overview of each activity type with links to help you learn more. To help you better choose the best activity type for your purposes, we have also created the Adobe Target Activities Guide.

Activity Type	Description
A/B Test	A/B Testing compares two or more versions of your Web site content to see which version best improves your conversions during a pre-specified test period. Note: You can now include recommendations inside A/B Test activities. This functionality requires that you have a Target Premium license.
Auto-Allocate	Auto Allocate identifies a winner among two or more experiences and automatically reallocates more traffic to the winner to increase conversions while the test continues to run and learn. Note: You can now include recommendations inside Auto-Allocate activities. This functionality requires that you have a Target Premium license.
Auto-Target	Auto Target uses advanced machine learning to identify multiple high performing marketer-defined experiences, and serves the most tailored experience to each visitor based on their individual customer profile and the behavior of previous visitors with similar profiles, in order to personalize content and drive conversions. Note: You can now include recommendations inside Auto-Target activities. This functionality requires that you have a Target Premium license.
Using Analytics Data (A4T)	You can configure an activity to use Adobe Analytics as the reporting source. This activity type requires that you link your Adobe Experience Cloud account with both Analytics and Target.
Multivariate Test	Multivariate Testing (MVT) compares combinations of offers in elements on a page to determine which combination performs the best for a specific audience, and identifies which element most impacts the activity’s success.
Experience Targeting	Experience Targeting (XT) delivers content to a specific audience based on a set of marketer-defined rules and criteria. Note: You can now include recommendations inside Experience Targeting activities. This functionality requires that you have a Target Premium license.
Automated Personalization	Automated Personalization (AP) combines offers or messages, and uses advanced machine learning to match different variations to each visitor based on their individual customer profile, in order to personalize content and drive conversions.
Recommendations	A recommendation determines how a product is suggested to a website user, depending on that user’s activities on the site. For example, you might want to encourage people who purchase a backpack to consider buying hiking shoes and trekking poles. You could create a recommendation that shows items that are often purchased together, using the “People who bought this also bought that” algorithm. Or, you might want to encourage visitors to spend more time on your media site by recommending similar video to the one they are watching, using the “People who viewed this viewed that” algorithm. Note: You can now include recommendations inside A/B Test (including Auto-Allocate and Auto-Target) and Experience Targeting (XT) activities. See Recommendations as an offer.

Activities list

The Activities list is the default view when you open Target. You can create new activities from this page and manage existing activities.

You can also display the Activities list by clicking the Activities tab at the top of the Target UI.

The Activities list provides an overview of all activities:

Mouse over an activity to see the available actions.

The following actions are available (depending on your permissions):

Note the following details about the Activity list:

• Archived and ended activities do not appear in the Activities list. To view these activities, filter them using the advanced filter settings on left rail.

• As soon as an activity originally created in Target Classic is deactivated or deleted, it is deleted from Target Standard/Premium. Deleted activities originally created in Target Classic are not sent to the Archive folder in Target Standard/Premium. The archived folder functionality applies only to activities created in Target Standard/Premium.

• All activity types other than Automated Personalization (AP), Auto-Allocate, and Auto-Target give you the choice to use either Target or Adobe Analytics as the data source. AP, Auto-Allocate, and Auto-Target always use Target data.

• Activities are available to several channels:

  • Web and mobile sites
  • Internet-connected screens and devices, including kiosks and ATMs
  • Email and other acquisition channels or partner sites
  • Mobile apps
  • Anywhere else you can deliver tagged content

Sorting and filtering the Activities list

By default, the list is sorted by the date the activity was last modified, with the most recent on top. However, there are several filtering options to help you customize the list to show the activities you want to see.

Search

Use the search field to search for activities that match your search criteria.

The search field includes a drop-down menu to help you narrow your search by specifying one of the following search filters: Activity Name and URL.

Activity list filters

You can determine which activities appear in your Activities list by selecting list filters.

You can filter by the following options. In each category, if nothing is selected, the default is All.

Sort by activity attribute

Click one of the following headings to toggle whether the activities are listed in ascending or descending order according to the selected heading.

• Type
• Name

Limitations

Each Target activity has the following content limitations:

The activity cannot be saved if you exceed any of these limits.

Increasing the numbers of these items in your activity also increases the length of time it takes to synchronize the activity across Target.

For additional limits of the Visual Experience Composer, see Visual Experience Composer Limitations.

Attributes imported into Target for activities updated outside of Target

If activities created in Target are updated from outside of Target (for example, via Adobe I/O), the following activity attributes are imported back into Target:

thirdpartyId

startDate

endDate

status

priority

marketingCloudMetadata(remoteModifiedBy)

This import job will run when the activities page is opened, with a maximum delay of ten minutes. (KB-1526)

Training videos

The following videos contain more information about the concepts discussed in this article.

Activity Types (9:03)

This video explains the activity types available in Target Standard/Premium.

• Describe the types of activities included in Adobe Target
• Select the appropriate activity type to achieve your goals
• Describe the three-step guided workflow that applies to all activity types

Business.Adobe.com resources

Enterprise Governance Website Personalization Product Recommendations Behavioral Targeting Recommendation Engine Website Optimization