Specify a specific experience as control

  1. While creating or editing an Automated Personalization activity or Auto-Target activity, configure the experiences as desired.

  2. On the Targeting page (step 2 of the three-part guided workflow), click the control experience to display Control options in the right pane.

    Control pane

  3. From the Control drop-down list, select Random Experience or select the desired experience that you want to use for the control.

  4. Click the Traffic Allocation control, then specify the desired traffic allocation for the control experience and the other experiences.

    Traffic allocation rail

    For a specific experience control, 10% to 30% is advised.

  5. Continue with the Goals & Settings page.

Known limitations and considerations

Keep the following points in mind when using a specific experience as a control:

  • Changing the control experience in an already live activity isn’t advised. The latest control experience selected is named in reporting (even if older reports are based on another experience).

  • Deleting the control experience isn’t advised.

  • Adding many new offers or experiences to a live activity with a specific experience as the control is not advised.

  • In Automated Personalization activities, including targeting on the control experience that could further constrain who can see that experience isn’t advised.

  • In Automated Personalization activities, lift and confidence information is NOT available in the offer-level report if a specific experience is selected. Lift and confidence information is available at the overall “targeted” versus “control” traffic level for the Automated Personalization activity. Lift and confidence information is available if “random” is selected as the control. This difference is because comparing a specific experience’s conversion rate to an offer’s conversion rate isn’t logical due to the difference in units. The information available in an Auto-Target activity is the same, no matter what type of control is selected.

  • Because all control traffic goes to a single experience or set of offers when you select the experience as control (compared to random, where the control traffic amount is split over the number of experiences or offers in your activity), you generally do not need as much traffic to flow to the control. 10% is a good place to start.

  • If you do one of the following to a live activity with a specific experience as a control, the control is automatically reset to randomly served experiences (instead of the previously selected specific experience):

    • Delete an experience
    • Remove a location or offer (Automated Personalization only)
    • Exclude an experience manually, via removing duplicate offers or via an exclusion group (Automated Personalization only)
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