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Enable LiveRamp to Receive DoubleClick Campaign Manager (DCM) Data Transfer Files

Before LiveRamp can start receiving your DoubleClick data transfer files (containing campaign data) into your LiveRamp account and processing them with our Measurement Enablement workflow, you'll need to set up a few things on your Google account. We can only start collecting and matching your data after the following steps are completed.

  1. Enable Google Data Transfer.

  2. Implement LiveRamp as a DMP partner.

  3. Provide your LiveRamp CSM with your bucket ID and file naming conventions.

Enable Data Transfer

LiveRamp receives DoubleClick data through Google’s Data Transfer, an advanced feature that allows us to receive raw campaign files directly from Google. If you have never used Data Transfer before, call your DoubleClick representative to enable the service.

Tip

You can learn more about Data Transfer here.

Implement LiveRamp as a DMP Partner

There are two steps to ensure that LiveRamp can appropriately access the necessary Data Transfer files with all of the correct columns:

  1. Add both of LiveRamp's data access e-mail accounts - 29900041943-compute@developer.gserviceaccount.com and acxiom.dcmusers@gmail.com - to your Data Transfer Google Group as outlined here.

    Caution

    You must directly add, not invite, the users or the process will not work. The linked DoubleClick documentation provides step-by-step instructions, including what to do if you accidentally invite rather than add. This group is managed on the client's end - DoubleClick representatives are unable to modify access. If you are not sure which Google Group you gave DoubleClick when setting up Data Transfer, contact your DoubleClick Account Representative and ask them to verify the Google Group you used for the Data Transfer setup in question.

    Note

    Why two email addresses? LiveRamp uses one (29900041943-compute@developer.gserviceaccount.com) for automated file retrieval and the other (acxiom.dcmusers@gmail.com) for manual troubleshooting access.

  2. Contact your DoubleClick representative and ask them to ensure that the Data Transfer setup is modified to include LiveRamp as an encryption partner. This is also known as adding LiveRamp to the Partner1 or Partner2 column in "Data Transfer setup."

Provide LiveRamp with Bucket ID and File Naming Conventions

Ask your DoubleClick representative for the information listed below and then use the Set Up Exposure Logs quick case to create a support case that includes that information:

  • Bucket ID: Your Google Data Transfer files will be stored in the Google cloud under your specific Bucket ID. Contact your Google representative if you are unsure of your Bucket ID. Typically it looks something like ”dcm_account1234,” where "1234" is your specific account number.

  • File naming conventions: The flle naming conventions that will be used for your files (see the "File Naming Conventions" section below).

  • File types: Which of the three file types (Impression, Click, and Activity) you'll be using.

  • Start date: The date we should start pulling the files.

File Naming Conventions

Each file name will have a string of numbers, for example: "dcm_account1234_impression_2016022601_20160225_234912_218211994.csv.gz."

  • "2016022601" is in YYYYMMDDHH format. This is the UTC hour for events in that file (hours are numbered 0 to 23).

  • "20160225_234912" is in YYYYMMDD_HHMMSS format. This is the time at which the report was generated.

  • "218211994" is the file ID.

DoubleClick Data are generally divided into multiple files (Impression, Click, and Activity files). You get 1 Activity file per day and 24 Click and Impression files per day.

Each of these file types has its own naming convention, something like:

dcm_account7312_impression_2016072717_20160728_012355_268381795.csv.gz
dcm_account1234_click_2016072717_20160728_012331_268381796.csv.gz
dcm_account1234_activity_20160727_20160728_035750_268669761.csv.gz

How LiveRamp Processes Duplicate Data Transfer Files

Google occasionally generates duplicate Data Transfer Files (aka DCM logs) for the same date/hour timestamp. Google's guidance on duplicate files states:

"If more than one file has the same date/hour stamp, use the one with the latest minutes/seconds [stamp], based on the filename timestamp."

LiveRamp programmatically cancels the processing of duplicate Data Transfer Files to avoid counting duplicate records. We will only cancel the processing of files that can be identified as duplicates based on Google's guidance and, consistent with this guidance, we will always keep the most recent version of any duplicate files.

Note

Duplicate files can only be recognized and canceled if they are present within the Measurement Enablement (Measurement Enablement) pipeline at the same time. This means that if a duplicate file is generated several days after the original file is sent, the second file will not be recognized as a duplicate since the original has already left our systems. Based on testing, this case is comparatively rare, as most duplicates will be generated in fairly quick succession, but it is worth noting.

Tip

For more info on the duplicate files, Google generates, see Google's documentation on duplicate files and file naming conventions.

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