Priority Issues with Custom Code Activities in Adobe Target's Visual Experience Composer (VEC)

[curiouspaul]

Our team implements frontend experiments using JavaScript through Adobe Target's Visual Experience Composer (VEC). We recently encountered an issue where an activity (EXP001) is not being displayed as expected. This issue started on June 7th, when a new activity (EXP002) was activated. Here are the details and our findings:

Activities Information:

EXP001:

• Activity Type: VEC (Visual Experience Composer)
• Modification: Custom Code (JavaScript Code)
• Priority: 10
• Page Delivery: URL Contains "https://example.com/category/"
• Audience: All Visitors
• Activation Date: May 28, 2024

EXP002:

• Activity Type: VEC (Visual Experience Composer)
• Modification: Custom Code (JavaScript Code)
• Priority: 0
• Page Delivery: URL Contains "https://example.com/"
• Audience: All Visitors
• Activation Date: June 7, 2024

Our Understanding of Adobe Target's Priority Logic:

1. Target server receives a call with URL information.
2. Target retrieves all activities running on that URL.
3. Target attempts to match the visitor into activities.
   • If the visitor is already in an A/B or Multivariate Test, they continue in that activity until they convert.
   • If previously in an Experience Targeting activity, they must match again.
   • If audience rules are met, the visitor falls into those activities and specific experiences.
4. All matching activity content is returned to the page.
5. If content references different CSS selectors, all content is displayed.
6. If there is overlap or duplicated CSS selectors, the highest priority content is displayed.

Issue Encountered: After setting EXP001's priority to 10 and activating both activities, when navigating from "https://example.com" to "https://example.com/category/", only EXP002 activity is displayed, not EXP001. However, directly navigating to "https://example.com/category/" correctly triggers EXP001.

Hypothesis:

• Both activities use the Custom Code feature, embedding JavaScript, rather than modifying specific CSS selectors through the visual editor.
• Due to this, the priority logic may not be applied as expected, leading to EXP001 not being displayed when navigating from the homepage.

Questions:

1. Why is EXP001 not being displayed despite its higher priority and appropriate URL targeting when navigating from the homepage?
2. Does using Custom Code for JavaScript embedding affect how Adobe Target applies priority and displays activities?
3. How can we ensure that higher-priority activities using Custom Code are displayed correctly when there are multiple activities targeting overlapping URLs?

Additional Context: Many customers reach category page (/category) through various funnels, leading EXP002 to be assigned first. Hence, EXP001 is not triggered when navigating from "https://example.com". However, the expectation was that with a higher priority, EXP001 should override or display alongside EXP002 when navigating to "https://example.com/category/".

Any insights or recommendations would be greatly appreciated. Thank you!

[prads · Accepted solution]

Hi @curiouspaul ,

Target returns the content for all activities on the page, beginning with the lowest-priority content, which is then overwritten by each activity, from lowest to highest priority. Usually, this results in the highest-priority content being displayed. However, if a lower-priority activity alters the structure of the DOM for the page, it is possible that the higher-priority activity does not recognize the page structure, so the lower-priority content is displayed.