Do TTL for profiles affect CJA stitching?

[JaniceAk]

Hi,

I'm wondering if a TTL (time to live) for specific type of events within profiles in AEP (leveraged by both Audience Manager and CJA) affect what events are being used to stitch identities for CJA? Wondering if, when a TTL is established for profile events from a dataset, and it eliminates events from the dataset in profiles that would be needed as reference for stitching-- past that TTL time range-- would it indeed affect graph-based stitching in CJA? I.e. even though X days ago someone's ID got stitched w primary ID in their profile, once the TTL hits after that X days then the stitching reference goes away.

Or, does the TTL does not affect how graph-based stitching is done for CJA, and it only affects the events that appear for a profile when building an audience in Audience Manager?

[Vinay_Chauhan]

Hi @JaniceAk 

The TTL setting applies to how long certain profile events or attributes are retained in AEP and Audience Manager for audience evaluation. Once the TTL period expires, those events no longer appear in the profile for segmentation or activation purposes.

However, this does not undo or break identity stitching in CJA. When an identity link is first established (for example, when a device ID is stitched to a primary customer ID), that relationship is stored in the identity graph. The identity graph maintains those connections independently of TTL rules, so even if the original event that created the link is no longer visible in the profile, the stitching itself remains intact for analysis in CJA.

In short, TTL affects what you see and use when building audiences in AEP or Audience Manager, but it does not retroactively impact the way CJA resolves identities once they’ve been stitched.

[JaniceAk]

Thanks for this information, Vinay. Regarding CJA's capability of sending audience segments back into Audience Manager-- is it possible to use events that exist in CJA but have an expired TTL in Audience Manager, for segments that are sent back into Audience Manager? For example, a user has web events that have technically expired in profile, but still appear in reporting in CJA. How does the profile in AEP reconcile those events when pulled back in from CJA?

[Vinay_Chauhan]

When audiences are shared from CJA into Audience Manager (or AEP), what actually gets passed over are the segment qualifications based on CJA’s reporting data not the underlying raw events. If an event has aged out of profile due to TTL, it won’t reappear in the profile when CJA sends a segment back. Instead, the profile will only reflect the fact that the individual currently qualifies for the audience segment.

So in your example, even though expired web events can still be used for analysis and audience definition in CJA, once the audience is pushed into Audience Manager, the profile in AEP will not “re-hydrate” those expired events. It simply holds the segment membership flag.

We can say that - CJA reporting can leverage historical events, but TTL rules in AEP still govern what persists in profiles. Audience sharing passes the qualification status, not the expired events themselves.

[JaniceAk]

Hi Vinay. Follow up question wondering if you have any ideas re: TTLs.. on Pseudonymous Profiles i.e. an ECID only profile is deleted after x amount of days in AEP profiles, but not in CJA event datasets....If i create an audience from a population of ECID only individuals (pseudonymous profiles) in CJA, and publish that back into AM for reporting...will this reintroduce those profiles back into the profile graph? I'm also curious how it works when those ECIDs are sent downstream to a destination for activation...how long do they live in each of these areas when sourced from CJA events? thanks!

[Vinay_Chauhan]

Hi @JaniceAk 

That’s a great question. Here’s my understanding -

1. Expired pseudonymous profiles don’t get fully resurrected.
   When you configure TTL on pseudonymous (ECID-only) profiles, the profile and its behavioral records are permanently deleted from the Profile store after the TTL window of inactivity. Pushing a CJA segment back only sends identity membership (e.g. ECID qualifies), not the full historical events or attributes.

2. Identity graph may persist.
   The underlying identity graph (which stitches ECID to other IDs) is managed separately. Even if the profile was deleted, the identity service may still retain the ECID (or its linkages), allowing new activity or segment pushes to recreate a minimal profile.

3. New segment push won’t recover purged data.
   Once TTL has cleared historical events or attributes, they’re gone in the profile store. The new pushed segment will only re-ingest what’s in the destination (qualifying identity), not retroactively restore everything.

4. Downstream retention depends on destination.
   When you send the ECID to AAM or another activation destination, that system’s own retention/TTL policies apply. So even if the identity enters AAM again, how long it's kept depends on that system’s rules.