Google Display & Video 360: Tips and best practices

Google Display & Video 360: Tips and best practices#

Validating combinations of metrics and dimensions#

To validate possible combinations of metrics and dimensions, use the Google Display & Video 360 user interface. Create an offline report where you select the desired combination of fields and set additional options. If you select invalid options and try to save the report, Google Display & Video 360 informs you about the correct options. Until you use the correct options, you are not able to save the report.

Hint

For example, to save the audience composition report type, set one of the following filters in the Google Display & Video 360 user interface:

  • Partner

  • Advertiser

Configuring the dimension filter with a JSON expression#

When configuring a Google Display & Video 360 datastream, you can configure a dimension filter for most datastreams. Enter a JSON expression into the dimension filter to collect data on certain fields. Use the dimension filter to collect highly-specific data from your data source.

To configure data collection from a datastream, follow these steps:

  1. Go to the Datastreams page.

  2. Open the Google Display & Video 360 datastream by clicking on its name.

  3. In the top navigation panel, click Settings.

  4. In Dimension Filter, enter a valid JSON expression. See below for an example of a valid JSON expression.

  5. Click Save.

Examples of a JSON expression#

Typically, a JSON expression would take the following format.

{
  "type": string,
  "value": string
}

Where type is the name of the column that contains the value you want to include in the filter. Find the name of the dimension in this list of filters.

And value is the value by which you want to filter your data.

You can use multiple expressions within a single JSON expression. For example, use a JSON expression to retrieve two specific values from a Google Display & Video 360 datastream as follows:

  • The values to retrieve are 8069163 and 8067471 for the FILTER_ADVERTISER.

To retrieve this set of data, enter the following JSON expression into Dimension Filter.

[
  {
    "type": "FILTER_ADVERTISER",
    "value": "8069163"
  },
  {
    "type": "FILTER_ADVERTISER",
    "value": "8067471"
  }
]

Selecting metrics#

If you leave Metrics empty, Adverity collects every metric available for the selected report type. For the Standard report type this is more than 250 metrics, which makes the data extract significantly larger and slower to fetch.

Select the metrics you need explicitly, even when you want most of them.

Note

Metrics that are not valid for the selected report type are removed from the request without an error. Dimensions are not checked in the same way, so a dimension that does not apply to the report type is sent to Google Display & Video 360 and causes the fetch to fail.

Collecting data broken down by date#

If your datastream does not include a Date or Month dimension, Adverity requests the whole date range as a single report. The values you receive are totals for the entire period, and it is not possible to break them down by day afterwards.

To collect data per day, add the Date dimension to your datastream.

Identifying the currency of your data#

Google Display & Video 360 reports monetary values in three separate metrics: one in the currency of the advertiser, one in the currency of the partner, and one in US dollars. Adverity collects these as separate metrics and does not convert between them.

Adverity also removes the currency symbol from the values it collects, so a cost column contains numbers without any indication of their currency. Keep the Advertiser Currency dimension selected, which is included by default for the Standard report type, so that each row identifies its own currency.

Note

The US dollar values are not a conversion of the advertiser currency values. Google Display & Video 360 converts to US dollars when it bids and converts back when it records spend, so the two do not reconcile using a single exchange rate.

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