DocumentationTargetTarget Guide

Real-time profile syncing for mbox3rdPartyId

Last update: Mon Mar 14 2022 00:00:00 GMT+0000 (Coordinated Universal Time)

The mbox3rdPartyId in Adobe Target is your company’s visitor ID, such as the membership ID for your company’s loyalty program.

When a visitor logs in to a company’s site, the company typically creates an ID that is tied to the visitor’s account, loyalty card, membership number, or other applicable identifiers for that company.

When a visitor accesses a page on which Target is enabled, that visitor is assigned a Target PCID. If the visitor then logs in, and the implementation passes the mbox3rdPartyId to Target, Target connects that visitor’s mbox3rdPartyId with the Target PCID.

Updates are synced with the profile store every 5-10 minutes. When the visitor’s session ends, the merged data replaces the previous data associated with the mbox3rdPartyId, creating a complete record of that visitor’s actions. If the same attribute exists in both IDs–for example, the PCID has category=hats and the mbox3rdPartyId has category=skis, or if the visitor saw experience A before logging in, but experience B is stored in the mbox3rdPartyId–the attribute stored in the mbox3rdPartyId overwrites the attribute from the PCID. If the visitor was in one activity or experience before logging in, but a different activity and experience are stored in the mbox3rdPartyId, after logging in, that visitor is placed into the mbox3rdPartyId activity and experience.

PCID (Not Logged In)
mbox3rdPartyId (Logged In)
Merged and Saved to mbox3rdPartyId
category=hats
category=skis
category=skis
store=94103
store=94103
Activity 1, Experience A
Activity 1, Experience B
Activity 1, Experience B
Activity 1
Activity 1

When the visitor logs out, the merged profile is maintained.

NOTE
If you want to distinguish between authenticated (logged-in) users versus non-authenticated users, use the Adobe Experience Cloud Identity Service (ECID) instead of mbox3rdPartyID. After a user is associated with mbox3rdPartyID, it remains associated with the user even after signing out.
NOTE
Adobe Analytics goals are not tracked in cases where the Adobe Experience Cloud ID (ECID) changes (for example, the visitor changes devices), even though the Target profile might be merged based on the mbox3rdPartyId and still has activity information. For visitors identified with the same ECID (those who access the page with the same device), Analytics for Target (A4T) should work as expected.

Considerations considerations

  • If your page contains several mboxes and only some use 3rdPartyID, Target does not have a separate visitor profile/context for each visitor request. The 3rdPartyID context takes priority over the PCID context. It’s enough for one mbox to pass 3rdPartyId for its context to take priority over PCID.

    For example, suppose that a visitor accesses a page before logging in and sees an experience. The global mbox does not use 3rdPartyID. After logging in, the visitor sees one of three experiences with child mboxes, some of which use 3rdPartyID. The visitor visits various pages on the site and then uses the Back button to return to the main page accessed before logging in and sees a different experience. In this scenario, the global mbox did not pass 3rdPartyID, but one or more of the child mboxes did. 3rdPartyID took priority over PCID.

  • You can send visitors’ customer IDs to Target using two approaches:

    1. Use mbox3rdPartyId/thirdPartyId.

      • mbox3rdPartyId is the parameter name when you use targetPageParams or targetPageParamsAll
      • thirdPartyId is the parameter name you set in the Delivery API payload directly.
      • You can send only one value in this parameter.

    2. Use the setCustomerId/customerIds function of ECID Service.

      • setCustomerId is a function you can use on client-side (browser) implementations when VisitorAPI.js is available on the page.
      • customerIds is the parameter name used when you set it in the Delivery API payload directly and is usually done on server-side or IOT (Internet of Things) implementations.
      • Unlike mbox3rdPartyId/thirdPartyId, you can send multiple IDs as a list in this approach, but because Target supports only a single customer ID per TnT Id, it uses the first ID in the list with a known alias (alias configured in the Customer Attributes UI).

    You can use mbox3rdPartyId/thirdPartyId if Target is your only Adobe Experience Cloud solution and you do not want to use Customer Attributes. For all other cases, we recommend that you use setCustomerId/customerIds for sending your customer IDs.

    note important
    IMPORTANT
    Using both approaches mentioned above interchangeably for a single visitor can result in incorrect profile merges of the unauthenticated and authenticated Target profiles.
    Adobe does not recommend that you use both mbox3rdPartyId/thirdPartyId and setCustomerID/customerIds together.
    If you must use both approaches interchangeably, ensure that the first ID in the list used by setCustomerID/customerIds is what is used by thirdPartyId/mbox3rdPartyId and vice versa.
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