Configure A/B Tests in Adobe Target for Advertising Search, Social, & Commerce Ads

Last update: May 9, 2025

CREATED FOR:

  • User
  • Developer

Advertisers with Advertising Search, Social, & Commerce only

Google Ads and Microsoft Advertising accounts only

Adobe Advertising and Adobe Target make it easy to set up landing page experience A/B tests for digital advertising traffic Google Ads and Microsoft Advertising to:

  • Improve conversion rates (CVR) and acquisition efficiency measures (such as CPA, CPL, and CAC).

  • Deliver a more personalized landing page experience that’s relevant to the ad (for example, matching the image/video creative, copy, keyword, or other advertising signal to the landing page).

You can also combine the native Analytics for Advertising and Analytics for Target integration reporting dimensions that are integrated into Adobe Analytics to measure and visualize your test data with Analytics metrics and success events.

See the following sections for the prerequisites, instructions to set up A/B tests in Target for click-through traffic from ads in Search, Social, & Commerce, and tips on how to measure and visualize your tests in Analytics.

Prerequisites

Required Products

  • Search, Social, & Commerce
  • Target

Step 1: Create an A/B Test Activity in Target for Search, Social, & Commerce

The following instructions highlight information pertaining to the Search, Social, & Commerce use case.

  1. Sign in to Adobe Target.

  2. Create an A/B test:

    1. In the Enter Activity URL field, enter the landing page URL for the test.

    2. In the Goal field, enter the success metric for the test.

      NOTE
      Make sure that Analytics is enabled as a data source within Target, and that the correct report suite is selected.

    3. Set the Priority to High or 999 to prevent conflicts when users in the test segment receive an incorrect on-site experience.

    4. Within Reporting Settings, select the Company Name and Report Suite connected to your Search, Social, & Commerce account.

      For additional reporting tips, see “Reporting best practices and troubleshooting.”

    5. In the Date Range field, enter the appropriate start and end dates for the test.

    6. Select Site Pages > Landing Page > Query. In the Value field, enter the Network Account ID, Network Campaign ID, Network Adgroup ID, or Network Ad ID for the relevant ad network entity in Search, Social, & Commerce. This allows you to use the Target query string parameters for click-through audiences for the entity.

      You can find the ID by adding the relevant ID column to the entity view.

      Network Account ID column in the Accounts view

      Work with your Adobe Account Team if you need assistance.

    7. For the Traffic Allocation Method, select Manual (Default) and split the audience 50/50.

    8. Save the activity.

  3. Use Target Visual Experience Composer to make design changes to the A/B test landing page template.

    • Experience A: Don’t edit because it’s the default/control landing page experience without personalization.

    • Experience B: Use the Target user interface to customize the landing page template based on the assets included in the test (such as headlines, copy, button placement, and creatives).

    NOTE
    For example creative test use cases, contact your Adobe Account Team.

Step 2: Set up Your Analytics for Target Analysis Workspace in Analytics

Analytics for Target (A4T) is a cross-solution integration that lets advertisers create Target activities based on Analytics conversion metrics and audience segments and then measure the results using Analytics as the reporting source. All reporting and segmentation for that activity is based on Analytics data collection.

For more information about Analytics for Target, including a link to implementation instructions, see “Adobe Analytics as the reporting source for Adobe Target (A4T)”.

Set up the Analytics for Target Panel

In Analysis Workspace, configure the Analytics for Target panel to analyze your Target activities and experiences. Keep in mind the following important pointers and information about your reports.

Metrics

  • Create a panel within the workspace specific to the Adobe Advertising account, campaign, or ad group for which the test was run. Use summary visualizations to show Adobe Advertising metrics in the same report as the Target test performance.

  • Prioritize using on-site metrics (such as visits and conversions) to measure performance.

  • Understand that aggregated media metrics from Adobe Advertising (such as impressions, clicks, and costs) can’t be matched to Target metrics.

Dimensions

The following dimensions pertain to Analytics for Target:

  • Target Activities: Name of the A/B Test

  • Target Experiences: Names of landing page experiences used within the activity

  • Target Activity > Experience: The activity name and experience name in the same row