Managing Activities managing-activities
The Activities console enables you to create, organize, and manage the marketing activities of your brands:
- Add brands
- For each brand, add and configure activities
- Administer activities
On the Activities console, activities are organized by brand. You can use brands and folders to structure the organization of your activities. You navigate to the Activities console by tapping/clicking Personalization and tapping/clicking Activities.
Activities are available in Targeting mode for authoring targeted content, where you can also create activities. Activities that you create in Targeting mode appear in the Activities console.
Activities are displayed with a label describing what kind of activity is defined:
- XT - ۶Ƶ Target experience targeting
- A/B - ۶Ƶ Target A/B testing
- AEM - ۶Ƶ Experience Manager targeting (that is, ContextHub driven)
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If the
xt_onlyoption is enabled on the ۶Ƶ Target tenant (clientcode) used on the AEM side to connect to ۶Ƶ Target, then you can create only XT activities in AEM. -
If the
xt_onlyoptions is not enabled on the ۶Ƶ Target tenant (clientcode), then you can create both XT and A/B activities in AEM.
xt_only option is a setting applied on a certain Target tenant (clientcode) and can only be modified directly in ۶Ƶ Target. You cannot enable or disable this option in AEM.cq:ActivitySettings on the publish instance so that it is inaccessible to normal users. The activity settings node should only be accessible to the service handling the activity synchronization to ۶Ƶ Target.Creating a Brand Using the Activities Console creating-a-brand-using-the-activities-console
Create a brand for which you want to manage marketing activities.
When you create a brand using the Activities console, it also appears in the Offers console where you can create offers for the experiences of your activities.
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In the Navigation console, select Personalization. Select Activities.
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In the Activities console, select Create then Create Brand.
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Select the brand template and select Next.
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Type a title for the brand as you want it to appear in the Activities and Offers consoles. Optionally, type or select one or more tags to associate with the brand.
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Select Create. Your brand appears in the Activities console.
Adding/Editing an Activity Using the Activities Console adding-editing-an-activity-using-the-activities-console
Add an activity or edit an existing activity to focus your marketing efforts on specific audiences. When you create/edit an activity, you specify the following information:
- Name: The name of the activity.
- Targeting Engine: Either AEM or ۶Ƶ Target as the engine for targeted content.
- Select a Target Configuration: (۶Ƶ Target only) The cloud configuration that this activity should use to connect to ۶Ƶ Target. This option appears only when ۶Ƶ Target is selected for Targeting Engine.
- Activity Type: The activity type - A/B Test or Experience targeting
- Objective: (Optional) A description of the activity.
- Experiences: Mappings between audience names and the marketing segments that you are targeting.
- Traffic Percentages: If A/B test is selected, you can change how much traffic (in percent) goes to each experience.
- Duration: The period of time when the activity is applied.
- Priority: The relative priority of the activity. When activities provide content for the same user segments, the activity of the higher priority takes precedence.
- Goal Metric: If ۶Ƶ Target is selected as the targeting engine, you can add success metrics to the activity. One success metric is required.
To add an activity:
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Select the brand for which you are creating the activity, and then select Create then Create Activity. If editing, select the activity in the Master Area screen and clicking or tapping Edit Activity.
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Provide the following information and then select Next:
- A name for the activity.
- The targeting engine to use. ContextHub (AEM) is selected by default. If you need to use ۶Ƶ Target, create the activity in the targeted content editor.
- If you selected ۶Ƶ Target as the targeting engine, select/edit the cloud configuration to use to connect to ۶Ƶ Target. (Be careful that you do not select a framework that you created for your cloud configuration.)
- (Optional) The objective or a description of the activity.
- Select the Activity Type.
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Add one or more experiences to the activity. Select Add Experience.
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If you are using AEM targeting or ۶Ƶ Target experience targeting:
- Select Select Audience and select the segment that your experience targets.
- Select Add Experience, type a name, and select OK.
- Select Next.
If you are using ۶Ƶ Target A/B Testing: - Select the pencil in the audiences box to select an audience.
- Select Add Experience, type a name, and select OK.
- Enter the percentage of traffic that displays each experience.
- Select Next.
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To specify when the activity starts, use the Start drop-down menu to select one of the following values:
- When Activated: The activity starts when the page that contains the targeted content is activated.
- Specified Date & Time: A specific time. When you select this option, select the calendar icon, select a date, and specify the time to start the activity.
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To specify when the activity ends, use the End drop-down menu to select one of the following values:
- When Deactivated: The activity ends when the page that contains the targeted content is deactivated.
- Specified Date & Time: A specific time. When you select this option, select the calendar icon, select a date, and specify the time to end the activity.
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To specify a priority for the activity, use the slider to select either Low, Normal, or High.
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If you are using ۶Ƶ Target as your targeting engine, select what you would like to measure with this activity. See Configuring the Activity and Setting Goals for more information on the success metrics available. Select at least one goal.
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Select Save.
note note NOTE After creating an activity, you need to publish it so that it is available.
Publishing and Unpublishing Activities publishing-and-unpublishing-activities
You need to publish activities to make them available. Conversely, you may want to make activities unavailable by unpublishing them.
To publish or unpublish activities:
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Select the brand and then the area that contains the activity you want to publish or unpublish.
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Select the icon next to the activity or activities you want to publish or unpublish.
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To publish, select Publish. To unpublish, select Unpublish. Your activity or activities are published or unpublished and their status changes in the Activities console (may require a refresh).
Activities on Author and Publish instances activities-on-author-and-publish-instances
When an activity that uses the ۶Ƶ Target targeted engine is activated, a second activity is created on the publish instance:
- The activity on the author instance tracks activity on the author instance and is useful for simulating the visitor experience. The analytics recorded for this activity only reflects what occurs on the author instance.
- The activity on the publish instance reflects and responds to the activity on the publish server. This is the activity that runs on the public website. Only the publish activity is relevant to tracking and analyzing the usage of the actual public site.
Viewing Performance and Converting Winning Experiences (A/B Test) viewing-performance-and-converting-winning-experiences-a-b-test
You can see the performance of any ۶Ƶ Target activity (XT or A/B). If you are using A/B testing, you can also convert the winning experience, which then becomes the default experience.
To view activity performance and convert winning experiences:
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In Personalization, select Activities to navigate to the Activities console.
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Select the brand for which you want to see activities.
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Select the activity and select View Properties and click the Reports tab and select the activity that you want to view performance for/convert winning experiences for. Performance data is displayed.
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Select the Push winner link to push that experience as the default experience.
Converting the winner does the following:
- It disables the current activity
- Modifies all pages and replaces the targeted content with the actual content of the winning experience. The content of the winning experience becomes part of the normal page without targeting.
A winning experience is the experience that generates more Lift in the reports, which is based on the conversion rate.
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Select Yes to confirm that you want to convert the winner, disabling the current experience and replacing it with the content of the winning experience.
Synchronizing Activities with ۶Ƶ Target synchronizing-activities-with-adobe-target
Activities that use the ۶Ƶ Target targeting engine are synchronized with ۶Ƶ Target campaigns. An activity is automatically synchronized to ۶Ƶ Target when the following conditions are met:
- The activity contains at least one experience.
- At least one experience contains a mapped segment and one offer.
- Each experience in the activity must have the same number of offers.
These conditions apply to activities on author and publish instances.
When an activity is synchronized, a corresponding campaign is created in ۶Ƶ Target:
- Activities on the publish instance have the same name as the corresponding ۶Ƶ Target campaign.
- Activities on the author instance correspond with Target campaigns of the same name with the
_authorsuffix.
The author activities are synchronized immediately when the activity is modified. Immediate synchronization enables the simulation of activities with ContextHub.
Publish activities are synchronized when the activity is published to the AEM publish instance.
Troubleshooting Activity Synchronization troubleshooting-activity-synchronization
When AEM synchronizes an activity with ۶Ƶ Target, AEM includes a property of the activity named thirdPartyId. The value of this property is based on the path of the activity in the AEM repository. No two campaigns in ۶Ƶ Target can have the same value for the thirdPartyId property. Therefore an activity will fail to synchronize if an existing campaign (of a different type AB, XT) in ۶Ƶ Target uses the same value for thirdPartyId.
This situation can occur under the following circumstances:
- An activity is created and synchronized with ۶Ƶ Target.
- On another AEM instance an activity is created under the same brand and using the same name. Synchronization of this activity fails when attempted.
This situation can also occur under the following circumstances:
- An activity is created and synchronized with ۶Ƶ Target. The activity is then deleted on AEM.
- An activity is created under the same brand and using the same name as the deleted activity. Synchronization of this activity fails when attempted.
To avoid synchronization problems, always use unique names for activities. If an activity fails to synchronize, you can delete the campaign in ۶Ƶ Target that uses the same name if that campaign is not being used.
thirdPartyId to each campaign. When you delete the campaign in ۶Ƶ Target, thirdPartyId is not deleted. You cannot re-use the thirdPartyId for campaigns of different types (AB, XT) and it cannot be manually removed. To avoid this issue, name each campaign a unique name; campaign names cannot be re-used in different campaign types.thirdPartyId already exists,” change the name of the campaign and synchronize again.