Targeting

Targeting
Targeting makes it possible to optimise the performance of a campaign by tailoring the delivery of a campaign to a visitor's profile - where relevance is key - or to other relevant parameters. Adhese enables targeting based on both standard and adjusted parameters. You can use each request parameter as a targeting variable. Multiple targeting variables can be used in combination.
During the implementation process of your Adhese account, you will need to consider which variables or parameters you would like to use for targeting purposes. You can add additional parameters to your account at any time.
A request can have targeting parameters at three different levels:
as a parameter in the request itself,
as a value in the cookie, or
as a value at the server (identification will happen through a unique key or session).
A request can combine the above three methods.
GDPR: Remember that the unique identification of visitors and storing personal and other data is subject to national, European and international legislation. It is the exclusive responsibility of the publisher to comply with the law and adequately notify the user of its rights. Adhese can help and advise publishers herein. More on user privacy is available in the GDPR section of the documentation.
Relationship between targets: Targets values from different target types have an AND relation, while values within the same type have an OR relationship. To create an AND relationship between targets of the same type, make an additional target value in the admin screen that includes both target codes (first_target&second_target). The same can be done for negative targets (!first_target&!second_target).
New targets & forecasting: New targets lack forecast data and are therefore best used in combination with the SOV setting. When used with the auto setting, the system will try to calculate an estimated share. With many competing bookings on that same target, however, it is likely that only some bookings will receive a share. The other bookings will only start delivering once forecast data is available, which can take up to two weeks.
Managing Targets
Important rules to keep in mind when working with targets:
1. The code cannot contain any punctuation. The only exceptions allowed are an underscore (_), an ampersand (&) (to add two or more codes in one target), and an exclamation mark (!) (for negative targets). 
2. Using a '-' will cause problems in the backend (rotation file) once the target is used in a booking
3. Targets have a character limit of 40. If a single target would exceed 40 characters, consider using advanced targeting.
To manage targets in Adhese, click the Targets - Manage targets link in the administration screen. The following screen is then displayed:
The screen is divided into two parts:
Select target types on the left side
Add new target values on the right side
The Select target types part shows all the available target types and indicates whether they are editable or not. Ticked boxes are editable. Empty boxes are not editable. When you select a target type, the colour changes from yellow to orange, and your selection is displayed in the Add new target/target values part of the screen.
Click Add new target if you want to add a new target value. To add a new target, fill in a name, give it a code and hit the Add Target button.
The code has to be unique to be accepted by the application.
a search box
a back and next button showing the number of pages for this particular target
a checkbox to hide or show inactive entries.
The list can be sorted by clicking the #, name or code.
You can edit the name of each target. After editing, you can save your changes by clicking the save button.
To deactivate a target, simply click on the deactivate button. Once deactivated, the button's label will change to activate.
To find out more about how targeting can be used within a booking, see the Targeting section of the Bookings page
Target Tags
In the manage targets screen, next to the target types and the editable column, there is a tags column with dropdown options:
The tags allow you to assign a certain target type to a booking type. Allowing you to restrict target types to certain booking types. i.e. DOOH Store ID's as targets will only be available to DOOH bookings when configured with an In-store tag. There are three tags available:
Display
In-store (DOOH)
Sponsored Products
Negative targeting
As explained in the introduction on this page, you can use a request parameter as a targeting variable. You can also reverse this logic by using a parameter to exclude bookings targeted by it. For instance, a negative target could be 'all countries except Belgium'.
Joining targets and negative targets
You can join two targets values in an AND relation by creating a combined target with '&'. To do so, follow these steps:
Make sure both target values already exist within the relevant target type (ex. "code1" and "code2")
Create a new target value, give it a name and join the two target codes with & (ex. "code1&code2")
You can now select the combined target in the target type in the booking header screen. When selecting the combined target, both values (code1 AND code2) will need to be present for the booking to be delivered
You can also exclude delivery when a certain value is present by creating a negative target value with '!'. To do so, follow these steps:
Make sure a positive target value already exists within the relevant target value (ex. "code1")
Create a new target value, give it a name (ex. Not Code1) and exclude the value with ! (ex."!code1")
You can now select the negative target value within the target type in the booking header screen. When selecting the negative target value, the booking will not be delivered if the excluded value is present
Combined targets and negative targets can also be combined. If you want to deliver on a broad target within a target type, but you want to make sure you exclude a certain value, you can join the positive target value with a negative one:
For example: You want to deliver on code, which includes code1, code2 and code3, but you want to exclude code 2. You can join the targets like this: '!code2&code'
Note that when combining a negative with a positive target value, '!' must be the first character.
Targeting options
Contextual targeting
Contextual targeting ensures that a booking is relevant to the content of the website. The text of a website is scanned for content keywords, article tags, or topics. Bookings targeted on those keywords are subsequently returned to the website. For example, if a visitor is reading a movie review, Adhese can show a booking from a nearby movie theatre that is playing the same movie. This targeting method is custom-implemented per client.
External data sources
Adhese can also take external data sources into account when targeting. Variables such as stock indexes, product inventory, and weather can be used. Imagine an advertiser who sells tyres. They could change the content of the creative based on a weather forecast for the visitor's location. This targeting method is custom-implemented per client.
Competitive exclusions
Campaign variables can be used to ensure that certain bookings are not served together simultaneously. This feature is similar to our delivery multiples solution, but it is relevant to the campaign level.
For instance, you can opt not to deliver bookings from the same client or two competitor companies, such as car manufacturers, at the same time. If you are interested in this custom feature, please contact us.
More targeting options
To learn more about the various targeting options in Adhese, consult the following pages:
Brand Targeting
Behavioural Targeting
Retargeting
Hierarchical Targeting
Advanced Targeting

User Agent targeting
UA Targeting is a custom feature. Please contact support if you are interested in implementing one or more user agent targeting variables.
UA Targeting in older accounts will still be called Brand targeting.
User agent targeting enables you to target your audience by technical aspects, for example:
Internet service providers, such as Telenet, Proximus, VodafoneZiggo or KPN;
Browser, like Chrome, Safari, or Firefox;
Brands like Apple or Samsung;
Device, for example, a tablet, smartphone, or desktop;
Operating systems, for instance, iOS, Android, Windows, Linux or macOS.
You can use UA Targeting to focus ad delivery on specific device types, but only when this information is available. For example, if you only want to deliver to computers and tablets, but not smartphones, tick the Device - Desktop and Device - Tablet boxes, but do not tick the Device - Phone box. See the screenshot below.

Hierarchical Targeting
With hierarchical targeting, each different targeting group is given a priority, which allows a targeting group with the lowest volume to be given priority over other targeting groups.
Hierarchical targeting is not compatible with channels. Bookings with hierarchical targets must be booked on individual positions.
Hierarchical targeting is an option that is not included in the default Adhese set-ups. If you want to add this option, please contact support.
An example:
There are three different target groups:
Main category (for example, Electronics - green)
Product group (for example, Computers - yellow)
Super category (for instance, Laptops or Tablets or Monitors - red)
In the example above, bookings targeted at the Super category (red) take priority over bookings targeted at the Product group (yellow). Bookings targeted at the Product group (yellow) take priority over bookings targeted at the Main category (green).
It is possible to target both the Product group and Super category when making a booking. For example, if you target the Super Categories Laptop and Tablets and the Product group Computers, the Laptop and Tablets targets will receive the highest priority. All other targets under the Super category (such as Monitors) will also show the booking because they fall under the Product group Computers, but only if there is no competing booking targeted on that particular Super category.
When booking with the target Main category (Electronics), each Product Group (Sound & Vision, Mobile and Computers) and all underlying Super Category sections can display the booking, but only if there is no competing booking targeted at a particular Product Group or Super Category.

Advanced Targeting
Advanced Targeting is a feature that must be enabled and requires additional setup. Please contact Support if you would like to make use of this feature.
Targets that fall under advanced targeting do not contain forecast data. They are best used in combination with SOV delivery.
Introduction
Advanced targeting allows the Adhese instance admins to create complex targeting rules and save them with a label. Sales and Operations can select these targets when booking a campaign.
Creating and Editing
To manage Advanced Targeting in Adhese, click on the Advanced Targeting link in the Administration screen. The following screen will appear:
The screen is divided into two parts:
Add new advanced target
Advanced target table
Click Add new advanced target to add a new one. To add a new target, enter a label, give it a value and click the Add Advanced Target button. The code must be unique for the application to accept it.
The Advanced Targets table lists the advanced targets that have been created.
Creating a new Targeting Expression
Targeting expressions contain target identifiers and functions. The identifiers allow you to tell the system which targets you want to check, modify, etc.… With the functions, you can express what you want to do with the values.
By 'target values' we mean the incoming values of an ad request, regardless of how they were injected into the request. So, this could be a value sent by the browser or app, a segment picked up by a server-side mapping, or a combination of both.
Defining which targets to use
Targets are referred to by their two-letter prefix code: “dt”, “co”, etc... just like in the POST body of an ad request. The exact values available for your Adhese instance can be found in the documentation of your account.
The values of each target are always considered to be multi-valued. Their type is List<String>, a list of alphanumeric characters.
If you know that a target is single-valued (as can be set in the 'definitions' of your instance), you can use last() to change the type to String (or Void if an empty list).
Functions to express what to do with a target value
Each function acts on the values sent by the request and is identified by the given 2-character target code. For example, given a request like the one below and using the target code 'sg', which is often used for 'segments':
https://ads-myadheseinstance.adhese.com/json/sl123/tlall/sgfamily;sports/ag45/dtdesktop/II456d676e8d6878s687/
We can identify the target by its two-letter code, ‘sg,’ and see two values: ‘family’ and 'sports'.
List of all functions
1. Check the presence of the target
defined(target_code)
Checks if a target is present, even if it has an empty string value.
Example
defined(sg)
will match the following requests
https://ads-myadheseinstance.adhese.com/json/sl123/tlall/sgfamily;sports/ag45/dtdesktop/II456d676e8d6878s687/
https://ads-myadheseinstance.adhese.com/json/sl123/tlall/sg/ag45/dtdesktop/II456d676e8d6878s687/
but not match this one
https://ads-myadheseinstance.adhese.com/json/sl123/tlall/ag45/dtdesktop/II456d676e8d6878s687/
2. Count number of target values
size(target_code)
Counts the number of values for a given target code.
Example
size(sg) > 1
will match
https://ads-myadheseinstance.adhese.com/json/sl123/tlall/sgfamily;sports/ag45/dtdesktop/II456d676e8d6878s687/
https://ads-myadheseinstance.adhese.com/json/sl123/tlall/sgfamily/ag45/sggourmet/dtdesktop/II456d676e8d6878s687/
but will not match this one
https://ads-myadheseinstance.adhese.com/json/sl123/tlall/sgfamily/ag45/dtdesktop/II456d676e8d6878s687/
3. Check the presence of value
target_code intersects {'value'}
Returns true if ‘value’ is part of the values for the given target_code
Example
sg intersects {'sports'}
will match
https://ads-myadheseinstance.adhese.com/json/sl123/tlall/sgfamily;sports/ag45/dtdesktop/II456d676e8d6878s687/
https://ads-myadheseinstance.adhese.com/json/sl123/tlall/sgsports/ag45/sggourmet/dtdesktop/II456d676e8d6878s687/
but will not match
https://ads-myadheseinstance.adhese.com/json/sl123/tlall/sgfamily/ag45/dtdesktop/II456d676e8d6878s687/
4. Logical operators
(condition1 && condition2) || (condition3 && condition4)
&& expresses ‘and’,
|| expresses ‘or’,
( ) round brackets can be used for grouping expressions
Example
sg intersects {'family'} || (sg intersects {'sports'} && dt intersects {'desktop'})
will match
https://ads-myadheseinstance.adhese.com/json/sl123/tlall/sgfamily;sports/ag45/dtdesktop/II456d676e8d6878s687/
https://ads-myadheseinstance.adhese.com/json/sl123/tlall/sgsports/ag45/sggourmet/dtdesktop/II456d676e8d6878s687/
but will not match
https://ads-myadheseinstance.adhese.com/json/sl123/tlall/sgsports/ag45/dtmobile/II456d676e8d6878s687/
5. Numerical comparison operators
atoi(last(target_code)) operator integer 
Compares the value of a target_code (converted from a string to an integer) with a fixed integer.
Available operators
< : less than
<= : less than or equal
> : greater than
>= : greater than or equal
<> : not equal
= : equal
Example
atoi(last(ag)) > 35 && atoi(last(ag)) <= 65
will match
https://ads-myadheseinstance.adhese.com/json/sl123/tlall/sgfamily;sports/ag45/dtdesktop/II456d676e8d6878s687/
https://ads-myadheseinstance.adhese.com/json/sl123/tlall/sgsports/ag65/sggourmet/dtdesktop/II456d676e8d6878s687/
but will not match
https://ads-myadheseinstance.adhese.com/json/sl123/tlall/sgsports/ag25/dtmobile/II456d676e8d6878s687/
6. Decode urls and split
last(split(decode64(last(target_code))),'/') = string
Converts the last value of the given target_code from base64 encoded to a string, splits it by slash and compares the last item with a string
Example
last(split(decode64(last(br)),'/')) = 'index.html'
will match
https://ads-myadheseinstance.adhese.com/json/sl123/tlall/sgsport/ag25/dtmobile/II456d676e8d6878s687/rfL2Zvby9iYXIvaW5kZXguaHRtbA==/
but will not match
https://ads-myadheseinstance.adhese.com/json/sl123/tlall/sgsport/ag25/dtmobile/II456d676e8d6878s687/rfL2Zvby9iYXIvb3ZlcnZpZXc=/

Managing Targets
Important rules to keep in mind when working with targets:
1. The code cannot contain any punctuation. The only exceptions allowed are an underscore (_), an ampersand (&) (to add two or more codes in one target), and an exclamation mark (!) (for negative targets). 
2. Using a '-' will cause problems in the backend (rotation file) once the target is used in a booking
3. Targets have a character limit of 40. If a single target would exceed 40 characters, consider using advanced targeting.
To manage targets in Adhese, click the Targets - Manage targets link in the administration screen. The following screen is then displayed:
The screen is divided into two parts:
Select target types on the left side
Add new target values on the right side
The Select target types part shows all the available target types and indicates whether they are editable or not. Ticked boxes are editable. Empty boxes are not editable. When you select a target type, the colour changes from yellow to orange, and your selection is displayed in the Add new target/target values part of the screen.
Click Add new target if you want to add a new target value. To add a new target, fill in a name, give it a code and hit the Add Target button.
The code has to be unique to be accepted by the application.
a search box
a back and next button showing the number of pages for this particular target
a checkbox to hide or show inactive entries.
The list can be sorted by clicking the #, name or code.
You can edit the name of each target. After editing, you can save your changes by clicking the save button.
To deactivate a target, simply click on the deactivate button. Once deactivated, the button's label will change to activate.
To find out more about how targeting can be used within a booking, see the Targeting section of the Bookings page

Adobe Destination Connection
Send audience segments to Adhese for targeted ad delivery on publisher-owned inventory. Files are exported to Adhese's secure S3 bucket.
Adhese connection
Overview
You can send audience segments from Adobe Experience Platform to Adhese and use them for targeted ad delivery on Adhese-served inventory.
Audience exports are delivered as files to Adhese's secure cloud storage.
This destination connector and documentation page are created and maintained by Adhese. For any inquiries or update requests, contact us at Support Adhese.
Use cases
To help you better understand how and when you should use the Adhese destination, here are sample use cases that Adobe Experience Platform customers can solve by using this destination.
Use Audience Segmentation for advertising campaigns
A publisher or retailer builds first-party audiences in Adobe Experience Platform, for example: frequent readers of a content category, regular buyers of selected product categories, loyalty program members; and sends these audiences to their Adhese instance to enable advertisers to target them with relevant campaigns on the retailer's or publisher's own inventory.
Prerequisites
Before you can send audiences to Adhese, you must be onboarded as an Adhese customer. Contact your Adhese account manager or Support Adhese to set up the integration. During onboarding, Adhese provides you with:
An Amazon S3 access key ID and secret access key, used to authenticate the connection
The Adhese customer name to export to
Your active Adhese region
No data is shared with other Adhese customers: your credentials grant write access exclusively to your own folder.
Supported identities
Adhese supports the activation of identities described in the table below.
Use the identity that you also use to identify users on your website or app, so Adhese can match the exported audience members at ad-delivery time.
See the following link for more information on configuring identities in Adobe Experience.
Target Identity
Description
Considerations
GAID
Google Advertising ID
Select the GAID target identity when your source identity is a GAID namespace.
IDFA
Apple ID for Advertisers
Select the IDFA target identity when your source identity is an IDFA namespace.
ECID
Experience Cloud ID
A namespace that represents ECID. This namespace can also be referred to by the following aliases: "Adobe Marketing Cloud ID", "Adobe Experience Cloud ID", "Adobe Experience Platform ID". Read the following document on ECID for more information.
email\_lc\_sha256
Email addresses hashed with the SHA256 algorithm
Both plain text and SHA256 hashed email addresses are supported by Adobe Experience Platform. When your source field contains unhashed attributes, check the Apply transformation option, to have *Experience Platform* automatically hash the data on activation.
extern\_id
Custom user IDs
Select this target identity when your source identity is a custom namespace, for example your own first-party user ID that is also available to Adhese at ad-delivery time.
Supported audiences
This section describes which types of audiences you can export to this destination.
Audience origin
Supported
Description
Segmentation Service
Yes
Audiences generated through the Experience Platform Segmentation Service.
All other audience origins
Yes
This category includes all audience origins outside of audiences generated through the Segmentation Service. Some examples include: custom upload audiences imported into Experience Platform from CSV files, look-alike audiences, federated audiences, audiences generated in other Experience Platform apps such as Adobe Journey Optimizer, and more.
Supported audiences by audience data type:
Audience data type
Supported
Description
Use cases
People audiences
Yes
Based on customer profiles, allowing you to target specific groups of people for marketing campaigns.
Frequent buyers, cart abandoners
Account audiences
No
Target individuals within specific organizations for account-based marketing strategies.
B2B marketing
Prospect audiences
No
Target individuals who are not yet customers but share characteristics with your target audience.
Prospecting with third-party data
Dataset exports
No
Collections of structured data stored in the Adobe Experience Platform Data Lake.
Reporting, data science workflows
Export type and frequency
Refer to the table below for information about the destination export type and frequency.
Item
Type
Notes
Export type
Audience export
You are exporting all members of an audience with the identifiers (such as ECID, hashed email, or a custom user ID) used in the Adhese destination.
Export frequency
Batch
Batch destinations export files to downstream platforms in increments of three, six, eight, twelve, or twenty-four hours. 
Connect to the destination
To connect to the destination, you need the View Destinations and Manage Destinations access control permissions. Contact your product administrator to obtain the required permissions.
To connect to this destination, follow the steps described in the destination configuration tutorial. In the configure destination workflow, fill in the fields listed in the two sections below.
Authenticate to destination
To authenticate to the destination, fill in the required fields and select Connect to destination.
Access key ID: The Amazon S3 access key ID provided to you by Adhese during onboarding.
Secret access key: The Amazon S3 secret access key provided to you by Adhese during onboarding.
Fill in destination details
To configure details for the destination, fill in the required and optional fields below. An asterisk next to a field in the UI indicates that the field is required.
Name: A name by which you will recognize this destination in the future.
Description: A description that will help you identify this destination in the future.
Adhese Region: The region provided by Adhese during onboarding.
Customer ID: Your customer ID, provided by Adhese (for example 
customers/acme-corp/).
Enable alerts
You can enable alerts to receive notifications on the status of the dataflow to your destination. Select an alert from the list to subscribe to receive notifications on the status of your dataflow.
When you are finished providing details for your destination connection, select Next.
Activate audiences to this destination
To activate data, you need the View Destinations, Activate Destinations, View Profiles, and View Segments access control permissions. Contact your product administrator to obtain the required permissions.
To export identities, you need the View Identity Graph access control permission.
Read Activate audience data to batch profile export destinations for instructions on activating audiences to this destination.
Map attributes and identities
The Adhese destination exports identities only — no profile attributes are exported.
In the Mapping step of the activation workflow, select the identity namespace that you use to identify users on your website or app as the source field. The mapped identity values become the contents of the exported file. Mapping an identity is mandatory; selecting profile attributes is not supported for this destination.
Schedule audience export
In the Scheduling step, configure the export schedule for each audience. By default, audiences are exported once per day as a full export. You can also select 6-hour, 8-hour, or 12-hour increments.
In the filename configuration, the audience (segment) name and a date-time stamp are appended to the filename by default. Keep the audience name in the filename — Adhese uses it to identify which segment the file belongs to.
Exported data / Validate data export
Data is exported to Adhese as GZIP-compressed CSV files, one file per audience per export. Each file contains a single column with the identity values you mapped in the activation workflow, with the identity namespace as the column header. For example:
ECID
14575006536349286404619648085736425115
66478888669296734530114754794777368480
The filename contains the destination name, the audience name, and a date-time stamp, for example:
Adhese_Frequent-Readers-Sports.csv
To validate the integration, activate a test audience and confirm with your Adhese contact that the file arrived and the audience appears in your Adhese account. Audiences typically become available for targeting in Adhese within one hour after the export completes.
Data usage and governance
All Adobe Experience Platform destinations are compliant with data usage policies when handling your data. For detailed information on how Adobe Experience Platform enforces data governance, read the Data Governance overview.
Additional resources
Adhese documentation
Contact Adhese support: Support Adhese