First-Party Onboarding

First-party onboarding allows you to easily activate your valuable customer data on top programmatic and TV destinations.

This guide will help you understand the process and provide specific information to help you construct the files required to onboard first-party data. It provides all the details needed to prepare and format your audience files.

If you have questions during this process, please refer to the below:

• Your Experian Project Manager will be your main point of contact during data onboarding set-up and questions. They will walk you through the requirements, help facilitate the data transfers, and answer any questions you have about the process.
• Experian Account Executive or Relationship Manager. You will work with your Account representative if you are already using or are interested in other products and services.
• General questions about data onboarding. Please email us at EMSDataOnboarding@Experian.com.

Experian requires its Secure Transport Service (STS) to transfer audience data. 

STS supports these delivery methods:

• Web browser, using the STS web application

• SFTP via STS

• AWS S3: Given access, STS can read audience files from an S3 bucket you own.

Ask your Project Manager for the STS User Guide for step-by-step instructions.

You will create one file for each audience you want to onboard. The file and field requirements are outlined below. Several file types are accepted. Please follow these guidelines closely to avoid errors.

• US records only
• Max file size < 20 GB
• File Types

                    pipe-delimited (|) end in “.psv” extension

                    comma-delimited (,) end in “.csv” extension

• Optional compression: Gzip (.gz) only

Audience files consist of a header row containing column names, followed by rows of data that identify the audience members. See Section 5 for the complete list of allowed column names and descriptions for each. PII, email, MAID and IP are all supported.

To build an audience file,

1. Choose the columns that match the identifying information you have for your audience,
2. Write those columns into a header row in any order you choose, and then
3. Fill in the rest of the file with the identifying information rows, ensuring the data meets the formatting rules for each column.

Note: The Column reference section is a full reference for every possible column name. Only include columns that match the identifiers you have (e.g., name, email, IP). Don’t include unused columns. See File examples.

Pipe (the “|” character) and comma (the “,” character) delimited files are accepted.

• Each file represents one complete audience.
• The first row of a file must be a header row containing column names.
• Column names may appear in any order.
• Subsequent rows will contain data records, each consisting of consumer identifiers for individuals in the audience.
• Empty or blank data values look like two consecutive delimiters (e.g., “,,” or “||”), or just one preceding or trailing delimiter at the beginning or end of the file.

Note: None of the data values you provide should contain either of these delimiter characters (known as “embedded delimiters”). However, if a data value does include embedded delimiters, you must put double quotes (″) around that value or the data on that row will not be read correctly.

The naming convention you use for your audience file will define how the audience is displayed within our system. Each file must include your company name and the audience name. You have the option to include up to 3 folders if you want the audience to be displayed within a tree hierarchy. The underscore (_) should be used to separate your company name, folder(s), and the audience name.

Keep file names under 100 characters. Only letters, numbers, spaces, and underscores (_) are allowed.

Examples shown are in comma-delimited (.csv) format.

Let’s say your audience data contains only email addresses and for some people you have two emails. Your audience file would look like this:

The comma after john.smith@example.com is required since there is no email_2

Comma embedded in the address requires quotes, two commas after the addr1 is required because no addr2 is available.

Don't provide both the raw and hashed versions of the same value. IPv4 and IPv6 values can go in the same ip_address column.

We ask that you create a test file once you have established your file transfer method and understand the file requirements. Once delivered to Experian, your PM will review the file, help you correct any errors, and provide approval to start sending real files for onboarding.

Only include the columns for the identifiers you are submitting in the file. Your file cannot contain the same column name multiple times; they must be unique.

Let’s say the last name for a consumer has a value of Smi,th, maybe because someone typed their name in wrong. In a comma-delimited file, this value must be enclosed in double quotes: "Smi,th" and it would look like this:

fname,lname,email_1

John,"Smith"jsmith@example.com

There are no special formatting rules for names and addresses, just

• Keep them under the maximum length listed in
• Only one address is allowed per row, and
• Follow the rule for quoting embedded delimiters.

Email addresses must be in the standard format local-part@domain.

You may include up to four plain text emails and four hashed emails of each type in one row. Each email must appear in a separate column and correspond to the column keyword

Mobile Ad IDs come in two popular forms, IDFA (typically used with Apple devices) and GAID or Google Ad ID (previously known as AAID).

    Both IDs are 36 characters long and look like this:

    38400000-8cf0-11bd-b23e-10b96e40000d

Before hashing a MAID, you must normalize it by trimming leading and trailing white space and by changing all characters to lowercase. See Hashing Data for more details.

IP addresses may be provided in IPv4 or IPv6 format.

    IPv4 – Standard “dotted quad” notation. Example: 127.0.0.1

    IPv6 – For unhashed values, any standard IPv6 format is allowed.

                Example: 2001:0db8:85a3:0000:0000:8a2e:0370:7334

IPv6 values must be formatted prior to hashing.

Note: formatting is not necessary if you are not hashing the IPv6

A hextet is a group of four characters in the address (“25fa”). An IPv6 address is a series of hextets separated by colons (:).

To format prior to hashing, follow these steps:

1. Remove leading and trailing spaces and convert to lower case.
2. Remove the last four hextets.
3. Remove consecutive sequences of 0000 hextets.
4. Remove leading zeros from each hextet.
5. Append ::

Example

Original value: 2603:0000:0000:0DA0:7cd1:6410:25fa:7bf8
Formatted value: 2603::da0::

Let’s say the last name for a consumer has a value of Smi,th, maybe because someone typed their name in wrong. In a comma-delimited file, this value must be enclosed in double quotes: "Smi,th" and it would look like this:

For email, MAID and IP hashing:

1. Convert all values to lowercase
2. Trim spaces before and after
3. Put the hashed value in the appropriate column prefix
       md5_ for MD5
       sha1_ for SHA-1
       sha256_ for SHA-256

Email example: “  JSmith@Example.com ” becomes “jsmith@example.com” 

Do not include raw and hashed versions of the same value in a row.

Updating an audience means replacing the individuals that make up the audience while retaining the existing audience name.

You can refresh existing audiences by sending a new file with the same file name. This will fully replace the previously uploaded audience data.

Audiences expire 180 days after their creation, or after the last refresh, and will be deleted from the platform.

If you want to create your audience file using Excel, it’s easy to convert the Excel file to a comma-delimited file.

1. Open the Excel file that contains your audience data
2. Ensure that you delete any blank columns or rows that previously contained data. Do not just delete the data that was in the cell; delete the entire column or row, or the conversion will not be successful
3. Go to File > Save As
4. Select the location you want to save the file to
5. Under Save as type or File Format, select:
       1. CSV (Comma Delimited)
       2. CSV UTF-8 (Comma delimited)
       3. Comma Separated Values
   All have a “.csv” extension.
6. Save the document

You can view your comma-delimited file by opening it with “TextEdit”.