Hi David,
Great question. There's pro's & con's to each approach, ultimately it boils down to "What is the business trying to achieve?"
Can you share which Target Sku you've purchased? If you have Target Premium, I suggest implementing Target as an ad-hoc system, so the business can utilize the full premium suite (AP, Recs, Auto-Target and MVT)
See the attached slide, it references the 4 Target/AEM implementations.
My suggestion is either Blue or Purple - or a combination of the two, yes, it's possible.
Thanks,
Kollin