Self-Reported Usage File Upload and Restricted Activation

If you are sending audience data to activation partners that contains 2nd and / or 3rd party data (including lookalike segments), you are required to provide monthly usage reports. 

Some activation partners are providing monthly usage reports on behalf of our mutual customers, a subset of partners provide daily ad logs, others require our mutual customers to self-report, and a small number restrict to 1st party data only and don't require usage reporting.

The activation partners that require customers to self-report are the partners that will be listed on the Usage Report upload page.

Restricted Activation

If monthly usage is not provided by an activation partner or customer, 'Restricted Activation' will be enabled until usage is reported. When Restricted Activation is enabled, customers may continue to activate non-billable data (1st party or subscription-based data), but billable data would be disabled for the specific activation partner and prevented from being sent.

When a user attempts to activate billable data with an activation partner that has been restricted, the user will be informed to provide usage to lift the restrictions or modify the segment criteria to only include non-billable data. Also, any data previously delivered to the partner that contains billable data will be removed upon initial restrictions to activation due to missed usage reporting.

Note: Subscription-based data must be designated as subscription in Audience Studio in order for the subscription data to be activated when in a restricted activation state. Some second party data is available as subscription, and a third party data provider may choose to provide subscription, direct-billed data to a customer. Again, the data provider must inform us to designate the data as subscription, direct-billed to customer. By designating as subscription, usage reporting is not required by the data provider.

Reporting Monthly Usage

File Format

When a file is uploaded, it will be validated and must be formatted according to our required format. The system will prevent files from being uploaded if they do not adhere to these requirements.

The monthly file should be provided as a CSV and should contain usage (impressions) for the previous month aggregated by segmentid. One file per month and one record per segment within columns provided in the exact order as follows.

Note: The file must contain a header as the first row in the file.

1. Date: Must be in Text (text format) and YYYY-MM-DD format is preferred.  It must be provided as the first column and header title must be Date
2. Segment ID: Must be in General (text format) only one ID and no commas etc. This is the SFDMP segment id and what we would refer to as long uid and must be provided as the second column
3. Impressions: Must be in General (text format), whole numbers and no formatting. This must be provided as the third column

If any additional information is included in the file, it must be included after the the required information as described above. For example, campaign name, campaign id, etc. may be included as the fourth and fifth column. Additional data will not be processed or included in reports at this time. Only date, segment id and impressions are processed.

Date	Segment ID	Impressions
2019-03-01	sgico9mxd	96592

 

Self-Reporting Usage Upload

Audience Studio users that have 'Partner Management Full Access' permissions have access to upload monthly usage files. Reminder emails will be sent to users that have 'Partner Management Full Access' permissions on the 6th day and 9th day of the month informing users of the partners that require self-reported usage for the previous month. Reminder emails will not be sent if usage reports have already been provided.

Files must be uploaded by the 12th day of the month. Example: usage for the entire month of Feb 2019 by March 12, 2019.

Only partners that require self-reported usage will be included on the usage reporting upload page. If you have no usage to report for a specific partner, you may select the 'No usage to Report' checkbox. Otherwise, you may upload a usage report for each activation partner listed by selecting the 'Report Usage' button, choosing 'Upload', selecting the file to upload, and finish by selecting 'Save'.

If you never include 2nd or 3rd party billable data in segments sent to activation partners, then there's no need to provide 'No usage to Report' each month. 

Once uploaded, the file name will be displayed in the 'Uploaded Usage File' column. You may overwrite the file at any time before the current month's deadline by choosing the 'Edit' option next to the partner file. You must always include a complete file (one file per month) and you'll be informed that you are replacing the existing file.

If you miss the deadline for reporting usage, you may navigate to the 'history' page for each activation partner to provide historical usage. See more about late usage reporting in the History section below.

History

You may navigate to history by selecting the action icon next to a specific activation partner and selecting 'View History'. Within the History section, you may review previously reported usage by month and report late usage for up to the past 3 months. 

If there is no usage to report, you may select the 'No Usage to Report' checkbox for historical usage reporting as well.

Once usage is reported for all missing months, activation restrictions will be lifted within 24 hours and the usage will be included in the next billing cycle. Example: If January and March usage are provided in April, then usage for those months will be included in the Data Provider Billing report that processes April 13-15th.

FAQs

• How do I obtain usage reports from my partner? This is very specific to each activation partner. Your partner should be able to provide instructions for how to obtain the appropriate data from their system.
• Where can I direct my partner to find out more about what type of usage reporting is required to ensure I provide the correct information? Activation Partners may review the Activation Partner Monthly Usage Report article 'File Format' and 'Data to Include or Not Include' sections to learn more about the data requirements to help inform you of how to obtain the required information from their system.
• Why don't I see all activation partners listed in usage reports? Only the subset of activation partners that require customers to self-report are listed on the page. It's possible that activation partners may change their status to provide or not provide usage on behalf of our mutual customers, and the list of required activation partner reports will reflect those changes on a monthly basis.
• How do I find out which partners require me to self-report usage? You may log in to Activation > Partner Management and edit an existing partner account, or choose 'create account' to view usage reporting configurations for each activation partner. Please keep in mind that configurations are subject to change from the 13th to the end of the month in preparation for the next billing cycle.
• What if I have no usage to report? If you are sending segments that contain billable data to activation partners, then you must still login to check the box indicating 'No usage to report'. If you are not and do not plan to do so, then you don't need to do anything.
• What if I make a mistake or report the wrong data? You may overwrite the file at any time before the deadline by choosing the 'edit' option next to the partner file. You must always include a complete file (one file per month) and you'll be informed that you are replacing the existing file. Once data has been processed (13-15th of the month), it cannot be corrected in the UI. Manual reconciliation may be required.
• How do I receive reminder emails? Audience Studio user accounts with 'Partner Management Full Access' will receive reminder emails on the 6th and 9th day of the month if usage has not yet been provided.
• Why didn't I receive a reminder email? Reminders are only sent to users with 'Partner Management Full Access' permission, and emails are only sent if the activation partner requires customers to self-report and the customer has sent billable data to the partner within the previous month 
• Who has access to provide usage reports? Audience Studio user accounts with 'Partner Management Full Access' have the ability to access the Self-Reporting Usage file upload UI
• What's the definition of each status? Additional details may be accessed by hovering over a status.
• Where will I see the usage data? Usage reports are used for the Data Provider Billing report and are available by end of day Monday following the 15th of the month or the 15th of the month if it occurs on a weekday.
• What is the usage reporting deadline? The deadline will be communicated within the interface. As of now, it is the 12th day of the calendar month.
• What if I miss the usage reporting deadline? You may navigate to the history section for the respective activation partner to provide historical usage and that usage will be included in the following billing cycle. Example, if March usage is provided on April 20th, usage would be included in the May billing cycle.
• What happens if I don't provide usage reports or select the 'No Usage to Report' checkbox? Activation will be restricted for the specific activation partner that is missing usage. This will occur upon missing the monthly usage report deadline. If billable data wasn't delivered to the partner within the previous month, then no usage reporting will be expected and restrictions will not apply.
• Activation has been restricted for some of my activation partners. How do I lift those restrictions? You may provide late usage and the restrictions will be lifted within 24 hours. However, the usage will appear within the next billing cycle. Navigate to Activation > Usage Reporting and select the history option next to the partner to view historical usage that may need to be reported.
• Can 'Send to Site' usage reporting be automated? Depending on how you are utilizing billable data, the partner systems may be able to provide monthly usage to Salesforce directly. Please inform your Salesforce Solutions team member of your use cases and partners involved in using billable data activated via 'Send to Site' to identify usage reporting automation options. Customers that are using an ad server as their use case and usage is reported via adlogs, automation may already be configured and 'Send to Site' will not require self-reported usage.