Traits

Managing how traits are organized, configured and displayed across your DCN.

What are Traits?

Traits are specific attributes used to enhance the calculation of insights within your DCN. They determine how data is organized, configured, and displayed across the platform. To effectively use traits, they must be properly set up and assigned a data type. Traits can encompass a wide array of user data, such as demographics, behavior, or preferences.

The Traits page.

The Traits page is used to configure which traits are used when computing insights as well as how they are organized and displayed across the platform. Traits that are not configured can still be loaded into your DCN, but will not appear in insights or exports.

On the Traits page, the main listing displays all traits that have been explicitly configured. Each listing shows:

  • Trait Name: This is how you can identify this trait across the platform.

  • Trait Type: This represents the specific data type for a given trait.

  • Coverage (%): This represents the proportion of all ID clusters in your dataset that have a value for any given trait.

  • Cluster Count: This represents the number of clusters that have even a single value of a given trait.

You can click into any trait to view its configuration details, insights, or to update it. You can also configure a new one by clicking the "Configure" button within the utility bar.

The Data Configuration -> Traits page.

Trait Computation Settings

By default, trait insights are computed and display the top 15 values, all remaining values are consolidated into "other values", this is both for DCN performance and interface clarity.

Additionally, trait insights will show all trait values by default, regardless of their rarity. If you want to filter trait insights on minimum value counts (for example to exclude outlier, or test values) or the maximum number of values to show, you can do so in this page.

  • Number of Values Computed: This setting controls the maximum number of trait values to compute insights for. By default the maximum is 15 values, if you require advanced analytics for a particular trait, or if the index metric often returns N/A, you can increase this value to a maximum of 256 values.

  • Minimum Value Count Shown: This setting controls the minimum count required to display a specific trait value in insights. Trait values with counts lower than this minimum will be hidden from insights.

  • Maximum Values Shown: This setting controls the maximum number of trait values to display in trait insights. All other trait values will be consolidated into "Other Values". By default, the maximum is 15 values, with a maximum of 256 values.

If "other values" are less than your Minimum Value Count Shown threshold setting, they will be hidden from insights as well.

Changes to trait settings will apply upon the next insights computation.

How to configure Traits.

To configure a new trait, click "Configure" in the utility bar of the main Traits listing. This will bring you to a form where you can select the trait key you wish to configure as well as any configuration options.

The following options are available when configuring a trait :

  • Name

  • Description

  • Type (Boolean, Integer, Float, String or List)

  • Add to Advanced Query Interface

    • Column Name

When first configuring a trait, your DCN will suggest associating the Default label to it. You can remove its association if desired. The Default label control which traits are shown in various insight sections by default.

Additionally, these options become available when selecting type List

  • List Type

  • Delimiter

  • Merge Policy

By default, the DCN assumes that you send unique lists of values that should overwrite previous ones. By selecting to "Merge" values in the list's Merge Policy, the DCN will consider that these values are instead complementary and should be added to the current list.

Traits are considered strings by default. You can type them differently (boolean, integer, float, list), and add them to your Advanced Query Interface (typed traits are added as new column in your ID graph), facilitating your advanced queries. The Column Name is the name of the column in BigQuery.

Trait values have a character limit of 2048.

The Name is used as the display name of the chosen trait in place of the trait key. The Description is displayed in a tooltip visible when hovering over the trait's key or name in the Insights page.

Below, an example of configured values for a trait, and insights related to the selected trait are displayed.

An example of a configured trait.
An example of a configured traits insights.

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