A4T integration with custom mbox - activity not showing up in Adobe Analytics

[#1]

I am really novice in Adobe Target, so please be gentle here!  

We are looking to integrate Adobe Target on a new website and have the ability to view results in either Target or AA (via A4T).  When we use the global mbox, all is well - no issues seeing activities/results in either area.  However, we are trying to utilize different custom mboxes per website.  We believe we have the custom mbox setup properly - worked with Adobe consultants on setting this in Launch via a call to adobe.target.getOffers(...):

Spoiler

adobe.target.getOffers({
request: {
execute: {
mboxes: [
{
index: 0,
name: "custom-mbox-name-here"
}
]
}
}
});

The custom mbox is now showing up in Adobe Target for usage - so far, so good!  However, when we use a custom mbox, we never see the Activity populate over in Adobe Analytics. 

Not sure where to go to troubleshoot.  I guess the first question might be:  does A4T work with custom mboxes? 

Thanks, in advance,

Jason

[iamjasona · Accepted solution]

I will lead with "do both activities have unique names"?

If they do, are you able to view the response on the browser from Target? I am interested to see what is being returned from the  server for the analytics object. Screen shot below. Is it set to "server-side" and also does the supplemental IDs match to the SDID passed in the adobe analytics beacon call? Screenshot below.

Adobe Target Form Based Mbox Response

Adobe Analytics Beacon Payload

[iamjasona · Accepted solution]

@josejr19- Your post helped me put the pieces together - it was a setup issue on our end. When I looked more closely at the delivery beacons, I realized on the page where my activity should have been triggering that the delivery beacon was not referencing my custom mbox. We're deploying the custom mbox via Adobe Launch and the rule for this wasn't triggering on the page we are testing. Doh!

With the mbox rule in Launch now corrected, I'm seeing the custom mbox in the delivery beacon; to your point, the supplemental IDs in the delivery and analytics beacons now match.  Waiting for data to show up in AA for my activity, but I'm feeling confident now.

Thank you so much for helping - the screen snips you gave helped me understand what should be expected in the delivery beacon when this is working.  Owe you a beer! 

[josejr19 · Accepted solution]

Ahhh, sounds like we found possible issue. I would recommend getting the Adobe Experience Platform debugger, its a great chrome extension built by Adobe. Under the Adobe Target tab you can see if all the expected mboxes are being fired.

[josejr19 · Accepted solution]

https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/adobe-experience-platform/bfnnokhpnncpkdmbokanobigaccjkpob

[iamjasona · Accepted solution]

Thanks again for your help on this, @josejr19. 🙂

[iamjasona]

@iamjasona might be a silly question, but how did you set up the activity you are calling via the getOffer/applyOffer function? Did you set it up as a form based? If so did you set the reporting to use Adobe Analytics? The fact that you are stating you see activity data in Target tells me you might of set it up to use the Adobe Target reporting versus Adobe Analytics.

Let me know, if possible share screenshot of the activity reporting configuration.

[iamjasona]

Thanks for your reply, @josejr19. It's an extremely simple activity in Adobe Target: 50/50 A/B Test composed with the form-based composer and setup with 2 experiences, both of which are exactly the same (i.e. have the same audience refinement). Reporting is set to the appropriate Adobe Analytics reporting suite, but nothing shows up in AA when the custom mbox is used. However, if we switch the Activity back over to the global mbox, then data begins to populate in AA.