Ways to Update an Existing Audience
When you upload additional files for a particular audience, LiveRamp will update that audience in one of the three ways listed below, depending on how the audience has been configured:
When you upload additional files for a particular audience, LiveRamp will update that audience in one of the three ways listed below, depending on how the audience has been configured:
An incremental update (the default configuration), in which data from a new file is used to extend and modify the previously onboarded data for that audience. In this type of update, if you upload data for a previously-onboarded segment, any new members would be added to that segment. If you upload data for a new segment, that segment would be created in Connect. No previously-onboarded data would be removed.
A segment "refresh", in which a new file completely replaces all the previously onboarded data for any field that has the same name as an existing field in that audience and adds any fields that weren't onboarded previously. If a previously-onboarded field is not part of the new file, that field will not be affected by the update.
A full "refresh", in which a new file completely replaces all of the previously onboarded data for that entire audience. Any previously-onboarded segments that are not present in the new file will still be present in Connect but will have no members.
Caution
If you upload single-segment files (sometimes referred to as "file-wide fields", where all the members of the file are members of the segment) into a given audience, do not choose the “full refresh” option for that audience, as each upload will remove all of the segments from previously-uploaded single-segment files.
If you've split a large file into file parts to upload to an audience that uses the “segment refresh” or “full refresh” update method, the last processed file part might overwrite some or all of the previous file parts. Create a Support case before you upload the file parts so that we can modify the update method accordingly to prevent any data from being overwritten.
See the "Example Scenario" section of this article for more information about how these options would impact subsequent file uploads.
Incremental update is the default configuration. To change the update option for a particular audience to either segment "refresh" or full "refresh", create a support case (see "Using the LiveRamp Community Portal" for instructions).
Note
As long as you keep the field names consistent between all files, segment refreshes and full refreshes do not affect existing distributions. Any refreshed segments that were being distributed will continue to be distributed, but with the newly refreshed data. You do not need to set up the distribution again.
Because the number of distinct values can accumulate with each additional file that's ingested in an audience using the "incremental" update option, enumerated fields can become raw fields over time in audiences that use that update option. This would then cause there to be two fields with the same name in Connect: the original enumerated field and a new raw field. If the original enumerated field is being distributed, that field will not get refreshed with the new data. If this occurs, you can create a support case to try to remove any unused values or have LiveRamp perform a segment refresh to change the overall number of distinct values. For more information, see "How Accumulated Values Can Create Raw Fields".
Most LiveRamp customers update their files on a monthly basis, but we can also handle more frequent file uploads. However, if you select the “full refresh” option, uploading new files too frequently (such as more than once a day) can result in files inadvertently overwriting each other. For example, yesterday's file might still be in the process of importing into LiveRamp due to its large file size. If today's file imports quickly (because the file size is much smaller than yesterday’s file), today's file will inadvertently be overwritten once yesterday's file is finally processed.
Caution
Apart from distributions through Record Sync-enabled destination accounts, LiveRamp does not remove data from partner platforms you may have distributed to when performing a full refresh; cookies may remain active.
For more information on Record Sync, including how Record Sync works with the various audience update options, see "Keep Destination Data Fresh with Record Sync".
Example Scenario
Let's say that the first file you upload in a given audience (like the file shown below) contains data about two fields, "Owns Car" and "Likes Cats."
Note
For a more detailed distinction between a field and a segment, see our sections on field and segment in "Activation Terms and Concepts".
CustomerID (used as the Audience Key) | FIRSTNAME | OWNSCAR | LIKESCATS |
|---|---|---|---|
54213 | Bob | Yes | No |
67539 | Carol | Yes | No |
90823 | Dan | Yes | No |
81205 | Steve | No | Yes |
45021 | Sarah | No | Yes |
Note
The example files shown in this section do not include all necessary identifier columns and are intended only to give you an idea of how segment membership is affected by the various update options. The “Customer ID” field is used as the audience key in these examples and is used to determine when a newly-uploaded record is the same record as a previously-uploaded record.
Uploading this first file creates two fields in Connect:
Field "Owns Car", with the following segments:
Segment "Owns Car=Yes", with members Bob, Carol, and Dan
Segment "Owns Car=No", with members Steve and Sarah
Field "Likes Cats", with the following segments:
Segment "Likes Cats=Yes", with members Steve and Sarah
Segment "Likes Cats=No", with members Bob, Carol, and Dan
Then let's say you later upload a second file (like the one shown below) that contains data about only the existing "Owns Car=Yes" segment.
CustomerID | FIRSTNAME | OWNSCAR |
|---|---|---|
54213 | Bob | Yes |
48308 | Saagar | Yes |
27803 | Andrew | Yes |
The table below shows how the members of each segment would be affected by the upload of file 2 in each of the three available update options:
Incremental Update | Segment Refresh | Full Refresh | |
|---|---|---|---|
Impact |
|
|
|
"Owns Car=Yes" segment members | Bob, Carol, Dan, Saagar, and Andrew | Bob, Sagaar, and Andrew | Bob, Sagaar, and Andrew |
"Owns Car=No" segment members | Steve and Sarah | No members | No members |
"Likes Cats=Yes" segment members | Steve and Sarah | Steve and Sarah | No members |
"Likes Cats=No" segment members | Bob, Carol, and Dan | Bob, Carol, and Dan | No members |