Need clarification on target priority

[arshdeepv954921]

I recently came across some documentation regarding priority between multiple target activities while investigating for an issue. It says "The priority is used if multiple activities are assigned to the same location with the same audience. If two or more activities are assigned to the location, the activity with the highest priority displays".

Also, I believe if we use custom code, then the location is not defined. Location is only defined if we use CSS selectors within target. Correct me if this is wrong?

At my organization since the last two years we have been using priority across different activities (all activities have custom code and no CSS selectors) with different and/or same audience group.

Now, the issue is that target is executing/pushing/adding custom code for multiple changes/activities at the same time even when they have different priority. This behavior is correct as per the documentation (link provided above). However, after two years of implementing this differently, it is very difficult for my team to believe that. As per my team it should be following the priority order.

Can someone please confirm how does priority work or share some information.

[Gokul_Agiwal]

Hey Hi  @arshdeepv954921 

When you're using custom code that means you're using Form based composer for all target activities however this also depends on the Target interface. 

Below page and video shows all the detailed info about priority. Have a look. 

https://experienceleague.adobe.com/docs/target/using/activities/priority.html?lang=en 

Hope this helps to understand how priority decided. 

[arshdeepv954921]

No, I'm not using form based composer. It is visual composer. There is an option in the visual composer to add custom code - usually scripts.

[arshdeepv954921]

All the activities have audience (it could be same and/or different) but the location is same. None of the activity is altering the DOM structure.

Lets assume there are 5000 activities (for an ad spot, every activity has different content and image) - first 1000 have audience 1, second 1000 have audience 2 and remaining 3000 have audience 3. All 5000 activities have different priority set. Can you tell which activity from which audience will be executed?

As per you, target will return content for lowest priority change and keep on replacing it with highest priority. So, target will replace the ad 5000 times. This will slow down the page, clients will be able to see the design/content changing (text, images, colors, etc). The page can even go unresponsive.

Why would Adobe implement it like this? When they know there is an activity with higher priority, why not return/execute the code for only the highest priority activity. What was the reason for implementing it this way?

[jmosbaug]

Hi @Arshdeepv

Best practice for targeting a DOM element with multiple Target Activities is to use Audiences to exclude and include groups of visitors. A simpler example than the one you post above would be 10 activities on a banner element on a home page. In that case you would use the swim lanes profile scripts to assign a random number to your visitors and use that audience to split up the traffic so that Target doesn't have to evaluate all 10 activities for priority. Here is a page on doing that: https://experienceleague.adobe.com/docs/target/using/audiences/visitor-profiles/use-profile-scripts-...

Reliance on Priority should be secondary to using Audiences to exclude visitors from ever having to evaluate multiple activities on the same DOM element.  

For your question about the ads and 5000 different content, this is something Advertising Cloud is built for.