Paid media automatic configuration

When you enable the Paid media channel in Content Analytics and save the configuration, Adobe updates the selected connection and data views with reporting configuration for the paid media datasets. You do not need to recreate the default dimensions, metrics, lookup logic, or summary-data groups yourself.

Three layers of objects are created:

Enabling paid media does not automatically connect the paid media data to your site’s orders, bookings, or revenue. The correlation between your experience event data and paid media data requires customer-specific tracking-key mapping and reporting configuration.

Summary datasets

The illustration below shows how summary datasets are generated when you set up the first paid media ad connector (for example, for Google Ads or Meta Ads) in Experience Platform. The relevant APIs from the available ad networks are used to download experience, asset and ad data. That data is normalized into a common data structure and stored in six summary datasets.

All six summary dataset are created by default. Whether each dataset is populated with data depends on the ad network.

See the table below for an overview of the summary datasets with the following information:

Summary dataset
Component suffix
Entity (breakdowns)

Each row represents

Ad Summary
| Ad Summary
Ad (none)

An ad’s daily performance without demographic or geographic breakdowns.

Ad Demo
ad.demographics
| Ad Demo
Ad (age, gender)

An ad’s daily performance
broken down by age and gender.

Ad Geo
| Ad Geo
Ad (country, region)

An ad’s daily performance
broken down by country and region.

Experience Placement
| Experience Placement
Experience (platform, position)

Daily performance associated
with an ad’s creative experience,
broken down by platform and position.

Asset Summary
| Asset Summary
Asset (none)

Daily asset-level performance
in ad/campaign context
without demographic or geographic breakdown.

Assets Demo
| Asset Demo
Asset (age, gender)

Daily asset-level performance
in ad/campaign context
broken down by age and gender.

This table describes dataset coverage, not a guarantee that a particular network populates every metric or metadata field. Check the fields needed for your analysis. An unavailable field or unsupported breakdown is not the same as a measured zero value for a field.

Summary data grouping brings equivalent dimensions together; the grouping does not total the six performance metric totals.

Lookup datasets

Separate lookup datasets describe Account, Campaign, Ad Group, Ad, Experience, and Asset. They provide names and metadata using entity GUIDs. No one-to-one pairing exists between the summary datasets and the six lookup datasets.

The lookup datasets share a common building block containing paid media core metadata. That block contains an Adobe-generated global key and a platform-native ID for each entity; e.g.: accountID and accountGUID, campaignID and campaignGUID, and more. The block also stores common descriptive fields such as name, status, objective, optimization goal, bidding strategy, budget type, budget values, currency, time zone, serving status, dates, ad network, channel, hierarchy path, network, and portfolio identifiers.

Components

Once you enable the Paid media channel in Content Analytics, a number of data view components are genetated. These components are provided with a component suffix to distinguish similar named components from each other.

Metrics

Different ad networks return different performance breakdowns. Content Analytics preserves those distinctions instead of treating every version of a metric as interchangeable.

For example:

Each clicks metric component serves a different reporting context. You cannot total these metric components into a grand total. The same underlying advertising activity can be represented in more than one summary dataset. Due to ad networks’ reporting behavior, geographic or demographic breakdown dataset row aggregation values may not equal the aggregation values of the non-breakdown dataset. This is the reason for separate breakdown summary datasets.

Dimensions

Each summary dataset contains IDs and GUIDs. The ID is the identity (for account, campaign, ad group, ad, experience, and asset) provided by the ad network and is unique within the ad network data. The GUID is an Adobe provided identity (for account, campaign, ad group, ad, experience, and asset) and is unique across ad networks. GUIDs are used to lookup the corresponding names and metadata.

Derived fields

Derived fields are part of the automatic reporting configuration. Derived fields translate identifiers into names and metadata, expose creative attributes, and support the equivalent dimensions used across reporting sources. They do not create additional advertising activity or automatically attribute a website conversion.

Use the same breakdown for the metrics within an analysis, and dimensions supported by that breakdown. Be aware that demographic and geographic totals do not necessarily equal the no-breakdown totals for an ad network and do not imply an ingestion failure.

Reporting and analysis

Once you have finished Content Analytics Paid media setup and ingestion, you can start with reporting and analysis. See the table below for some examples. Use the canonical grouped dimensions where available, and choose metrics from the matching reporting level.

These reports can reveal associations between creative attributes and performance, not prove that an attribute caused a result.

Avoid incompatible combinations: Asset Name (Paid Media) with Ad Summary metrics is not a substitute for an asset report. Use Asset Summary metrics for asset analysis and Ad Geography metrics for region analysis. Empty or zero cells from an incompatible pairing should not be interpreted as proof of no activity.

Examples

Below are examples of how to report on and analyze paid media performance and how to combine Content Analytics experience and assets data with paid media data.

Ad campaign performance

You want to report on campaign performance at the ad level. In Analysis Workspace, use Campaign Name as the dimension (rows) and use the metrics as outlined in the table below. Each metric has the same component suffix.

Optionally break down Campaign Name by Ad Name but keep all five columns at Ad Summary level.

To investigate individual assets, use a separate table with Asset Name (Paid Media) and the matching Asset Summary columns. Do not add the two tables’ totals together.

Identifying best performing ads

You want to understand where your Meta ads are performing best?

To investigate, use additional breakdowns for geography and demographics. Use Campaign Name or Ad Name as the dimension and use the metrics as outlined in the table below. Each metric has the same component suffix.

Join paid media data with experience event data

Join paid media performance with on-site behavioral data to understand how campaigns and ads are associated with website engagement, conversions, and revenue. For example, compare advertising-network clicks and spend with orders attributed to visits from the same campaign.

To configure this reporting, include the paid media summary datasets and your on-site event dataset in the same Customer Journey Analytics connection. Capture stable campaign, ad, or supported asset identifiers from landing-page URL parameters or existing event fields. Use derived fields as needed to parse and map those values to the corresponding paid media identifiers, preserving the required network and account context. Keep identifiers as strings. To associate the matching event and summary dimensions, configure a Summary Data Group in the data view. Enabling the Paid Media channel does not automatically configure this implementation-specific URL tracking and mapping.

In Analysis Workspace, use Ad Summary metrics for campaign or ad comparisons and Asset Summary metrics for supported asset comparisons. Apply an attribution model and lookback window to the on-site conversion metrics that reflect your reporting question.

Be aware of the following:

Compare campaign performance with on-site orders

A landing-page URL can contain several tracking parameters. In this example, the campaign ID in utm_id is used to compare campaign spend with website orders.

https://www.example.com/offer?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=paid_social&utm_campaign=autumn_offer&utm_id=120218706543980215

The parameter used for this comparison: utm_id=120218706543980215. The other parameters describe the source, medium, and campaign label but are not used as a matching field used in this example.

If the URL is captured in website event data and both website event dataset and paid media datasets are part of the same Customer Journey Analytics connection:

The freeform table shows ad network spend alongside website orders attributed to each campaign. Two campaigns with similar ad spend have different numbers of attributed downstream website actions. Use this comparison to identify campaigns and landing-page experiences for further investigation or testing, rather than assessing performance from advertising metrics alone.

The example uses a campaign ID, but the same approach can use ad group, ad, or asset identifiers when matching values can be captured. Content Analytics attributes, such as Asset Foreground Colors, let you compare creative characteristics with paid media performance. With asset-specific tracking and matching attribute dimensions configured across both sources, you can extend that comparison to attributed website orders and use the results to guide creative testing.

Combine asset performance with web data

If you want to report and analyze on asset performance related to your paid media investments, consider adding a specific asset UTM parameter in your ad network paid media configuration. For example, besides standard dynamic parameters like site_source_name, campaign.id, adset.id, or placement, add static custom parameters, like aca_asset_id=999999.

This custom parameter is added to your landing page URL. For example: https://www.example.com/home.html?utm_content=120241705099850539%2Caca_asset_id%3D9999999%2Caca_placement%3DFacebook_Desktop_Feed&aca_id_2=8888888&utm_medium=paid&utm_source=fb&utm_id=120241705099830539&utm_term=120241705099840539&utm_campaign=120241705099830539

You now have a relation between an asset on a page and your paid media data. Use that relation in Analysis Workspace to see how Content Analytics asset metadata (for example Asset Foreground Colors) contribute to paid media campaign success.