How-To: Include Custom DSP Cost in Display Reporting

Overview

Alli supports most major DSPs (demand-side platforms) used in programmatic and display advertising. However, some smaller platforms aren’t supported due to the lack of a public API or other technical limitations.

This guide explains how to manually associate ad spend from these unsupported DSPs with corresponding CM360 placements or creatives in a Certified Datasource—enabling more accurate programmatic and display reporting.

Prerequisites

• Certified Datasources exist for your customer

  • See Tutorial: Getting started with Certified Datasources

• Understand how to create view-based reports in Alli

  • Redshift: Tutorial: Getting started with Explorer Reports

  • BigQuery: How-To: Create BigQuery View

Instructions

Before proceeding, run the following query to ensure that the report/datasource doesn’t already exist for your customer:

SQL

select count(*) from {alli_client}.programmatic_cost

• If it exists, modify the report/datasource in Alli

1.) Create a datasource or view named programmatic_cost within the data warehouse environment of your choice with the following schema:

Field name	Data type	Description
date	DATE	The spend date Ensure that this matches the customer’s CM360 account timezone (typically set as America/New_York / EST)
platform	STRING	The name of the DSP, vendor, or publisher
placement_id	STRING	The associated CM360 Placement ID
cost	FLOAT	The spend amount
⬇️ (Optional) ⬇️
impressions	INTEGER	The number of impressions
clicks	INTEGER	The number of clicks

2.) Validate that the table or view exists in the data warehouse:

3.) Run your customer’s ADL 2.0 - Refresh app with DEPLOYMENT set to True

4.) Validate that the cost associated with the corresponding platform is properly added to ad_performance as expected, e.g.:

select
  platform,
  source,
  sum(cost) as cost
from playground_core.ad_performance
where source like '%programmatic_cost%'
and platform = 'AdTheorent'
group by 1, 2;

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