Getting Started with Adobe Target: a Gentle Introduction for Web Analysts

"If Adobe Target is part of your job description, this book will serve as your field manual. Written from the practitioner perspective, it will save you so much time and struggle, and have you up and running quickly with Target and using this powerful platform to drive your experimentation program forward” -- James Niehaus, Director, Experimentation @ Kaiser Permanente

When I was hired as Experimentation & Optimization Principal at the eCommerce company Cars.com, I had never used Adobe Target and I had to learn the ins and outs of it as fast as possible. Unfortunately, existing documentation and material about Adobe Target is often confusing, fragmented, or obsolete, so I set out to create the resource I wish I had had when I started.

Who is this book for?

If you're a Web Analyst with less than two years of experience with Adobe Target, this book will teach you everything you need to hit the ground running. In many companies, Adobe Target is used directly by the corresponding Digital Marketing team; if that's you, this book is also for you.

It is not a resource for web developers or intermediate to advanced Adobe Target users, who would probably find it too simple and not technical enough.

What's in the book?

This book is broken down into three parts. 

Part I walks you through projects of increasing complexity, so that you can familiarize yourself progressively with Adobe Target:

1. Initial setup and AA test 
2. Canary release and Debugging
3. Scheduling and Progressive Rollout
4. Experimentation and AB Testing
5. Multivariate Testing (MVT)
6. Experience Targeting (XT)

Part II covers two additional activities that are available only in premium subscriptions:

1. Personalization
2. Recommendations

Part III covers a series of transversal topics that will deepen your understanding of the tool and help you handle common issues and specific use-cases: 

1. Audiences and Visitor Profiles
2. Case Study in Audiences and Visitor Profiles: Filtering Out Paid Traffic in E-Commerce
3. Debugging From the Browser
4. Interactions Between Activities
5. Server-Side and Hybrid Implementation
6. Single-Page Applications (SPA)
7. Administration