Why You Can't “OR” Resonate Elements with Connected Profile Attributes

When building an audience in the Segmentation Center, you can use logic statements such as and, or, exclude, and include to build out your custom audiences.  Our infrastructure is currently not able to combine our data universes in all Boolean Logic combinations. To make it clear what combinations are not supported, we have included notifications in the Audience Builder to inform you that the combination of certain data types are not allowed because the audience metrics wouldn’t reflect the audience you intended to build. 

Let’s look at an example. One of the data combinations that is not supported is OR’ing together Resonate Elements with Contextual Data to build an audience. In the example below, the audience includes people reading about heart diseases or vascular diseases online OR people who have had a heart attack in the past year. This combines Resonate Elements and Contextual Data via an OR statement so this type of data combination is not allowed.  

Resonate's Data Universes

You may know that our data comes from two different “data universes.”   

The first data universe is NCS data known as our Resonate Elements – which is stated data, or data that we get by asking people survey questions. NCS data is projected onto the Online Adult Population to give you insights at scale. NCS data also includes Spark Study attributes. 

Our second data universe is the modeled Connected Profiles data universe, where data is predicted based on our survey ground truth from the NCS and observed online behavior which is then modeled.  Once you include a Connected Profile data attribute to your audience, or if you have a Connected Profile data only audience, data is predicted onto the modeled devices we see.  Attributes that leverage our Connected Profiles consist of Tags, Contextual Studies, Flash Studies, Imported First- and Third-Party data, and Geography data. 

Our infrastructure is currently not able to combine these two data universes in all Boolean Logic combinations.  

One example of this is OR’ing together Resonate Elements with a Connected Profile attribute. For example, Women (Resonate Element) OR Home Page Tag (Connected Profile attribute). When these types of data are OR’d together, the data combination is only looking at the Connected Profile data set so it will not produce metrics that are reflective of your intended audience.  In this case it will only be looking at people who came to your Home Page Tag. Not Women OR People who came to your Home Page Tag, which was your intended audience. 

However, if you AND together Resonate Elements with a Connected Profile attribute – this is okay and supported and encouraged! Example, Women (Resonate Element) AND Home Page Tag (Connected Profile Attribute).

So, what does this mean?

Previously, we allowed users to create audiences with conflicting Boolean Logic statements between data sets.  To reduce confusion and ensure audience metrics are reflecting your intended audience in the future, we will prevent these audiences from being built. We have also created messaging within the platform so that if you are trying to combine these data sets together, it is clear why you are unable to do so.

In the example above, we attempted to OR together a Resonate Element attribute with a Connected Profile (Geographic Data) attribute to create a new audience. You will now see that OR is not clickable along with an explanation why.  

There are only a small number of existing audiences that will be affected by this change. If you try to edit one of the existing audiences in this state, you will see an error messaging similar to the examples below on the audience list page and within the audience definition.  

Data Combinations Not Supported 

Below is a complete list of the data combinations that are now unable to be built in the platform.

Please note that all the rules below for Resonate Elements also apply to Spark Study attributes, since both data types are from the National Consumer Study and therefore have the same set of guidelines. Preventing the combinations outlined below ensures that the audience’s metrics represent what you intended.   

Resonate Element OR Connected Profile Combinations Not Allowed 

1. Resonate Element OR Geography Data (DMA, State, Congressional District)  
2. Resonate Element OR Tag  
3. Resonate Element OR Standard Contextual  
4. Resonate Element OR Custom Contextual  
5. Resonate Element OR Flash Study 
6. Resonate Element OR First-Party Data 

Resonate Element AND + Exclude Connected Profile Combinations Not Allowed 

1. Resonate Element AND + Exclude Tag  
2. Resonate Element AND + Exclude Standard Contextual  
3. Resonate Element AND + Exclude Custom Contextual 
4. Resonate Element AND + Exclude Flash Study  
5. Resonate Element AND + Exclude First-Party Data 

Geography Data (DMA, State, Congressional District) AND + Exclude Connected Profile Combinations Not Allowed 

1. Geography Data AND + Exclude Tag  
2. Geography Data AND + Exclude Standard Contextual  
3. Geography Data AND + Exclude Custom Contextual 
4. Geography Data AND + Exclude Flash Study  
5. Geography Data AND + Exclude First-Party Data

Resonate Element OR + Exclude Connected Profile Combinations Not Allowed 

1. Resonate Element OR + Exclude Tag  
2. Resonate Element OR + Exclude Standard Contextual  
3. Resonate Element OR + Exclude Custom Contextual 
4. Resonate Element OR + Exclude Flash Study  
5. Resonate Element OR + Exclude First-Party Data 

Geography Data (DMA, State, Congressional District) OR + Exclude Connected Profiles Combinations Not Allowed 

1. Geography Data OR + Exclude Tag  
2. Geography Data OR + Exclude Standard Contextual  
3. Geography Data OR + Exclude Custom Contextual 
4. Geography Data OR + Exclude Flash Study  
5. Geography Data OR + Exclude First-Party Data 

Connected Profile OR + Exclude Connected Profile Combinations Not Allowed 

1. Tag OR + Exclude Connected Profile 
2. Standard Contextual OR + Exclude Connected Profile 
3. Custom Contextual OR + Exclude Connected Profile 
4. Flash Study OR + Exclude Connected Profile 
5. First-Party Data OR + Exclude Connected Profile