Look-Alike Modeling: Trait Exclusion

Last update: 2021-04-04

Trait Exclusion provides additional controls in your modeling workflow, allowing you to add the necessary guard rails to the model, based on your domain expertise and regulatory requirements. Use the Exclusions option to select which traits to ignore when creating models from one or more data sources.

Use Cases

Here are some use cases you can address with Trait Exclusion:

  • Trait Exclusion enables you to exclude certain catch-all traits, such as site visitor traits, so you don’t bias the model, leading to flat results.
  • You can remove traits that you don’t know about or you don’t trust from a data source, to better understand the influential traits.
  • You can exclude certain traits, such as demographic traits, to help with any compliance obligations you may have.
IMPORTANT

An important note on the third use case. If the third-party data provider adds a new demographic trait to the data feed after you created the model, the trait is automatically picked up by the model. You cannot exclude traits from modeling after creating the model. See Important Aspects & Limitations. Please exercise caution when using this feature and work with the data provider to ensure you are informed of any changes to the feed structure.

How to Use Trait Exclusions

Use the Build a model workflow to build new algorithmic models.

  1. The Exclusions selection is greyed out until you select one or more data sources for modeling.
  2. After selecting one or more data sources for modeling, press Browse All Traits.
  3. In the Select Traits to Exclude window, you can see all traits associated with the data sources you selected previously. Select the traits you want to exclude.
  4. You can filter the traits by trait type, trait population type (Device ID and Cross-Device ID), or you can browse the trait folders. Note that trait folders only display the traits associated with your selected data sources.
  5. Press Exclude Selected Traits.

trait-exclusions

TIP

You can exclude entire folders by excluding the folder trait instead of excluding the traits in the folder, one by one. For example, in a folder with 20 traits, you would only need to exclude the folder trait instead of excluding all the traits one by one.

If you prefer video tutorials, watch our video demonstration for Trait Exclusion:

Additionally, watch the video below for a detailed look at how cross-device metrics work.

Important Aspects & Limitations

Please take note of the following aspects and limitations related to Trait Exclusion:

Item Description

Excluded Traits in Models Summary View

The excluded traits do not show up in the Models Summary view. You can see the excluded traits only in the Edit Model workflow.

Role-Based Access Controls (RBAC)

Note the following limitations for companies using RBAC:

  • If you don't have access to view a trait, you cannot select that trait to be excluded from the model.
  • If you don't have access to view a trait, you cannot view that trait in the excluded traits list.

Modify excluded traits after saving model

You cannot modify the excluded traits after you have created and saved a model. If you want to tweak the results, you can clone the model and change the excluded traits.

Maximum number of traits you can exclude

The maximum number of traits you can exclude from a model is 500. Use folder traits to maximize your exclusions.

Exclude baseline trait

The baseline trait is excluded by default, so it does not show up in the Exclusions list, when building the model.

Watch the video below to learn how and why to exclude specific traits from a Look-Alike Model.

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