Success metrics

In Adobe Target success metrics are parameters used to measure the success of an activity. Success metrics include key business measures that enable you to determine the success of a given experience or offer in a Target activity.

For example, you can determine if a new offer increases your revenue per visitor or adding an item to a shopping cart. Success metrics can be useful for discovering issues with registration, ordering, or purchase funnels, but also simply with visitor or customer engagement.

Overview

In Target, success metrics are pre-configured with the optimal options for both reporting and tracking purposes.

By default, conversion events are set to “Increment count & keep user in activity.” Conversions are counted only once, no repeat conversions are counted, and the visitor always sees the activity content.

Revenue metrics that are set to “Increment count & keep user in activity” log order details only for the first order made by the same visitor. All subsequent orders increase conversion count, but will not add revenue to RPV/AOV/Sales, and will not be included in the Order Details report.

NOTE
For activities using Analytics as the reporting source (A4T), the goal metric will always use the “Increment Count & Keep User in Activity” and “On Every Impression” settings. This is not configurable.

The following success metrics are available:

Success Metric
Measurement Approach
Definition
Conversion
Conversion-based

Conversion is when a visitor performs an action on your site that you defined, such as

  • Clicked a button
  • Viewed a page
  • Completed a survey
  • Made a purchase

A conversion can be counted once per visitor or each time any visitor completes a conversion.

Revenue
Conversion-based

Revenue generated by the visit. You can choose from the following revenue metrics:

  • Revenue per Visitor (RPV)
  • Average Order Value (AOV)
  • Total Sales
  • Orders
Page Views
Engagement-based
Each unique visit is counted as a conversion.
Custom Scoring
Engagement-based
Aggregated score based on the value assigned to pages visited on the site, from the point the visitor first sees the activity’s first display Target request.
Time on Site
Engagement-based
Time spent in the visit (in seconds) from the point the visitor sees the activity’s first display Target request to the load of the final page with a request in the session.

For engagement-based metrics (unlike for conversion-based and revenue-based metrics), visitors must re-qualify for the activity on each visit in order to increment the count for that session. The associated metric begins incrementing after re-qualification and stops at the end of each visitor’s session. A session ends after 30 minutes of inactivity. Therefore, you won’t see results immediately during testing; however, all results from that session are available within a few minutes of the session ending.

Custom success metrics

You can also create custom success metrics.

After selecting the success metric, select the action taken by a visitor to achieve the goal. For example, choose a Conversion metric, set it to be counted once per visitor, then set whether success is achieved when a visitor views a certain page (or set of pages), views a specific Target request, or clicks a specific link.

If enabled, the Estimated Value of one conversion field (not available for the Page Score metrics) provides a value for your goal, but not for other metrics. This value enables Target to calculate an estimated lift in revenue. This field is optional; however, incremental revenue for any non-revenue metric cannot be calculated without it. For all revenue metrics (Revenue per Visitor, Average Order Value, Total Sales, and Orders), the estimate uses Revenue per Visitor. The data type is currency. See Estimating Lift in Revenue for more information.

The success metrics you choose for your activity are available in the report settings when you view a report for the activity.

Some metrics, such as Custom Scoring and Revenue Per Visitor, require a customized implementation that passes in information such as order totals and order IDs.

Advanced Settings section_7CE95A2FA8F5438E936C365A6D43BC5B

Use the advanced settings to manage how you measure success. Options include adding dependencies, choosing whether to keep the user in the activity or remove them, and whether to count the metric once per entrant or on every impression.

To access the Advanced Settings options, click the vertical ellipses > Advanced Settings.

Advanced Settings menu

NOTE
If you use Adobe Analytics as your reporting source, settings are managed by the Analytics server. The Advanced Settings option will not be available. For more information, see Adobe Analytics as the reporting source for Adobe Target (A4T).

Add dependency

You can use the advanced settings to create dependent success metrics, incrementing one metric only if a visitor reaches another metric first.

Add Dependency

For example, a test conversion might only be valid if a visitor clicks the offer, or reaches a particular page before converting.

Dependency functionality is not supported for the following:

  • Recommendations activities. This functionality is supported for all other activity types.
  • If you use Analytics as your reporting source (A4T).
  • The “Viewed a Page” metric type.
  • The “Clicked an Element” metric type for Visual Experience Composer (VEC) activities.

Dependent success metrics will not convert in the following cases:

  • If you create a circular dependency in which metric1 is dependent on metric2 and metric2 is dependent on metric1, neither metric can convert.
  • Automated Personalization activities release users and restart the activity when conversion metrics are reached, so any metric dependent on the conversion metric will not convert.

What will happen after a user encounters this goal metric?

Use the advanced settings to determine what happens after a user reaches the goal metric. The following table shows the available options:

After a User Encounters This Goal Metric
Options
Increment Count & Keep User in Activity

Specify how the count is incremented:

  • Once per entrant (default)
  • On every impression, excluding page refreshes
  • On every impression
Increment Count, Release user, & Allow Reentry

Select the experience the visitor sees if they reenter the activity:

  • Same experience (default)
  • Random experience
  • Unseen experience
Increment Count, Release User, & Bar from Reentry

Determine what the user sees instead of the activity content:

  • Same experience, without tracking (default)
  • Default content, or other activity content
NOTE
If you configure a metric to one of the Increment Count options (mentioned above), the metric count correctly increments once per entrant at the visitor level only. The metric count increments once per visit for every new session at the visit level.

How will the count be incremented:

Choose the desired behavior:

  • Once per entrant
  • On every impression (Excluding page refreshes)
  • On every impression

Known issues

  • Success metrics with the advanced option “How will the count be incremented” set to “every impression” or “every impression (excluding refreshes)” cannot be used as a success metric that another metric depends on.

When a success metric is set to increment on every impression, Target counts the visitor again every time the visitor visits this success metric. Target then resets the success metric “membership” to 0 so it can count again on the next impression. Thus, if another metric requires this metric to have been seen first, Target never recognizes that the user has seen the first metric.

Training video: Activity Metrics

This videos shows you how to use activity metrics.

  • Understand “goal” metrics
  • Understand and build Conversion, Revenue, and Engagement metrics
  • Build a click-tracking metric
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