Get started with code-based channel

Last update: August 12, 2025

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Journey Optimizer allows you to personalize and test the experiences you want to deliver to your customers across all your touchpoints like: web apps, mobile apps, desktop apps, video consoles, TV connected devices, smart TVs, kiosks, ATMs, voice assistants, IoT devices, etc.

With the code-based experience capability, you can define inbound experiences using a simple and intuitive non-visual editor. It allows you to insert and edit specific elements at individual and more granular locations of your apps or web pages, no matter the type of applications you have - rather than applying modifications to an entire content.

IMPORTANT
Specific recommendations for code-based experiences are detailed on this page.

➡️ An end-to-end use case showing how to use content experiments to compare decisions with the code-based experience channel is presentend in this section.

When to use code-based vs. other channels

Code-based vs. other channels

When to use the code-based channel rather than the other Journey Optimizer channels?

  • You can consider using code-based experiences any time when your digital property is not accessed through a web browser or a mobile app – cases in which you can probably better use the Journey Optimizer web channel or the Journey Optimizer in-app messaging channel.

  • You can use the code-based channel as an alternative to the Journey Optimizer web or in-app channels in case you have an API-based, headless or server-side implementation.

  • You can also leverage the code-based channel on native mobile applications as an alternative to the in-app channel if you want to modify the content inside your native app instead of showing modals, popups or overlays.

Code-based vs. web channel

To execute web use cases, you can use either the web channel or code-based experience, but depending on your context one would be more appropriate than the other. The main differences are listed below so you can make an informed decision on what to use, and when.

Web

  • The web channel lets you modify everything on your page and has a pre-defined list of actions you can use to make changes. Learn more
  • It is easy to set up and get going fast.
  • It is marketer-persona focused.

Code-based experience

  • Edit your content using the personalization editor.
  • You need either the Adobe Experience Platform Web SDK – client-side implementation, or the the AEP Edge Network Server API – server-side implementation.
  • The code-based experience requires previous development work on your implementation to make sure that your applications can interpret and deliver the content published on the edge by Journey Optimizer for these locations. Learn more
  • It requires more planning and it can change only the things that developers specify. Therefore, it is essential to identify the components (home banner, hero image, menu bar, etc.) on the applications that need to be modified for personalization or testing, and work with your development team to build the implementation needed for handling these changes.
  • It allows you to use JSON code content.
  • It is developer-persona focused.