Supports multiple values within a key

This feature allows you to upload data in a single row with multiple values for a single key.

The following Global Schema keys can support multi-values:

• Cookie ID
• Email
• Home Phone Number
• IPv4/IPv6
• Mobile Advertising ID (e.g. AAID, IDFA)
• Mobile Phone Number
• Vehicle Registration Number

All custom keys can also leverage multi-value columns.

How does this work?

Let’s take a scenario of a customer importing an identity data. In some circumstances, a user can be identified by multiple email addresses or multiple cookies. 

This is how a customer imports data without Multi-value key feature: 

Here is how the data is transformed by the Multi-value key feature:

With this feature, the Platform can accept a file with multiple identifiers per individual in a single row. In the above example, the customer can import a file with 4 rows instead of 7 rows. 

The primary benefit is that you can have more rows in your file if any of your keys has multiple values. The multi-value keys produce the same aggregation output as a single value. Every value in a multi-value key is treated independently when used in matching.

Implementation

Upload

In the first version, InfoSum will only accept the data already in the form of an array/list type for CSV files uploaded or transferred via SFTP/S3/GCP. Click here for details of dataset limitations.

That means you will need to merge your rows prior to upload into InfoSum platform. In later versions, we can support merging the rows inside InfoSum platform.

Merging will be achieved using dual delimiters in the file. One to split the columns and the other to split the entries in a list within a column. 

In the below example, we are uploading a file containing multi-value key columns (Email & Vehicle Registration Number). The data is already in the form of an array/list type.

In preview settings, the Platform will show the delimiter used in the multi-value column. If it’s not the correct delimiter, select the right delimiter in the dropdown list.

Click on the toggle next to the column header and enable a multi-value column.

Repeat the same process for all your multi-value columns. You can perform some other optional minor manipulations to the source data here, please see this article for information. 

Click “Accept Preview Config” when you are ready to normalize your data, before publishing it. 

Normalization

There is no difference in normalizing your data for Multi-value columns or single value columns.

Matching

Matching happens in the same way as before. Every value in a multi-value key is treated independently when used in matching. Matching happens between each individual identifier in a multi-value column against a single value column or each individual identifier in a multi-value column.

The Platform shows the matched audience total at each individual (row) level rather than at the identifier level.

Let’s take some scenarios.

Scenario 1:

We are matching between two datasets and both of them contain a multi-value column (Email) and we are using Email as the key to match these datasets.

Dataset A

Dataset B

When the Platform matches Dataset A and Dataset B, it will report the matched audience total as 3 (total no. of rows matched), not the identifiers matched. The Platform reports the total number of the combined audience on an individual level rather than the identifier level because an individual can be represented by multiple identifiers. 

For example, John can be represented in two emails (#email1,#email2) but the Platform reports this as one match because those two emails belong to one individual.

Scenario 2:

We are matching between two datasets and only one of them has a multi-value column. Both datasets have Email but Dataset A has a multi-value column and Dataset B has single value column

Dataset A

Dataset B

When the platform matches Dataset A and Dataset B, it will still report the matched audience total as 3 because joining happens using Email Key and the counting using the Internal ID Key. The Platform reports the total number of the combined audience on an individual level rather than an identifier level because an individual can be represented by multiple identifiers. 

Activation

InfoSum Platform supports multi-value keys as output columns. In the above Dataset A example, you can activate using the Email multi-value key or any single value key, such as Internal ID.