Targeting Rules Not Evaluating Correctly
Expected Behavior
When a visitor matches the configured audience criteria:
- SFP should evaluate the targeting rules.
- The eligible decision should be selected.
- The experience should render.
Actual Behavior
- Targeting rules are not evaluating as expected.
- Eligible users are not consistently receiving the expected experiences.
- Decision selection appears inconsistent.
Anyone ran into this issue lately ? How did you resolve it?
#Personalization
Hey Gokul,
Salesforce's own Decisioning API diagnostics doc covers exactly this pattern. Two documented causes for targeting rules not evaluating as expected:
1. Targeting rules were misconfigured, check the rule configuration in the UI directly for the affected decision
2. Rules couldn't be evaluated at runtime due to unexpected data format in the associated profile data graph, this is the "inconsistent" part you're seeing, if the visitor's profile data doesn't match the expected format/type the rule is checking against, evaluation silently fails for that individual even though the rule looks correct in the builder
Since you're seeing inconsistent results (works for some eligible users, not others) rather than a total failure, cause #2 is more likely, worth checking the actual Data Graph feeding your targeting rule for inconsistent or missing attribute formats across profiles, rather than assuming the rule logic itself is wrong.
Practical next step: check the Decisioning API diagnostic codes returned for the failing requests (via PersonalizationLog for unauthenticated requests), that'll tell you definitively whether it's a rule misconfiguration or a data format mismatch at runtime, rather than guessing from the UI alone.
Reference:
https://developer.salesforce.com/docs/marketing/einstein-personalization/guide/decisioning-api-pipeline-diagnostics.html
