Before you begin

Where can I set up conventions in Funnel?	Which subscription plan do I need?
Go to Plan > Conventions.	Business or Enterprise plan Note: This is a Beta feature.

Overview

Use Conventions in Funnel to define consistent naming structures for your marketing data, such as campaigns, ad groups, or ads. After you set a convention, you can create dimensions based on the variables in your pattern. These conventions help ensure that key attributes, like business units, tactics, or product categories, are structured in a way that enables reliable reporting and analysis.

Often, platforms do not offer the business-level breakdowns marketers need. Conventions allow you to encode and decode this information across platforms, improving consistency and reducing errors in your data.

To create a convention, you have to first define a pattern.

Patterns and variables

A pattern defines the structure of a convention. You set the number of parts, the delimiter, also called a separator, and the platforms the pattern applies to. You can create multiple patterns in a convention to handle platform-specific variations. After you add or remove parts in your pattern, define a variable for each part.

Each part in your pattern is a variable that holds a specific type of information, for example, Region, Product, and so on. After you configure a variable, you can reuse it in different patterns in the same convention. You can set a variable as an optional part or add validations to it. If you create an optional variable, place it at the end of the pattern.

A convention describes what variables you want to encode. For example, you can configure variables to encode your campaign names along with their possible values.

Supported delimiters

It is important to be consistent in variable placement and the use of delimiters to accurately extract the encoded information at a later stage. A delimiter is a character used to differentiate variables apart and to split the name into parts when decoding it.

You can use any of the following delimiters in your patterns:

Vertical bar (|)
Underscore (_)
Colon (:)
Hyphen (-)
Comma (,)
Space ()
Period (.)

Syntax: <variable A> delimiter <variable B> delimiter ……. delimiter <variable n>

For example, let’s assume you set the following pattern in a convention: Region | Brand | Product category | Product

The example values might look similar to US | Nike | Basketball Shoes | Air Jordan

Benefits of using a convention

Structure your data consistently at the source
Group campaigns easily and create collections for filtering
Enable platform-agnostic analysis using consistent breakdowns
Detect anomalies and enforce naming standards

Guidelines

Start with the broadest variables, and add new detailed ones when you have the need.
Do not change the structure of your old variables. Append new variables at the end of your convention.
Be mindful when you are deciding on the structure for your variable inputs. For example, if your product category is Basketball Shoes, you can represent it as Basketball Shoes, basketball shoes, or basketball-shoes. Decide which convention is more appropriate for your scenario, and ensure to use the same structure with all your inputs.
Choose a delimiter that is not used in the values of the variables. Let’s assume you set the convention as basketball-shoes for the product category. Don’t choose a hyphen as a delimiter, since it will separate basketball and shoes. Use another delimiter in such scenarios.
To maintain consistency, use one convention for all marketing campaigns. If you cannot use the same convention for all your marketing campaigns due to restrictions in specific platforms, you may need to modify the convention. Keep the number of variations to a minimum.
You can add any number of variables to your convention. If you report on a more granular level, consider specific conventions for each level to make sure you capture their attributes instead of adding all variables to one convention.
Use abbreviations in the name to avoid long names and spelling mistakes. Decode them later into full words or phrases. However, don’t use alternative spellings for a variable. For example, use UK for United Kingdom instead of GB.
If you use an optional variable in one of the parts, place it at the end of the convention.
If you think your campaign creator will add an optional free-text variable, place the variable at the end of the convention.
Avoid multiple managers for the convention. Assign the responsibility of creating and maintaining a convention to one user.
Do not use a platform-wide convention, and instead use a naming structure that makes sense for the team managing the campaign.
Fix errors at the source. Don’t clean the output data directly.

Prerequisites

Ensure to connect the required data sources to Funnel.

Create and apply a convention

Complete the following steps to create a convention.

In Funnel, go to Plan > Conventions.
Click + New Convention.

Alternatively, if you are creating a convention for the first time, you can click -> Get started.
Enter a Name for your convention.
Add a pattern for your convention.
1. In the platform field, select the connectors for which you want to create the convention. The default value is all platforms.
2. (Optional) Toggle the Test with sample data selector and select a dimension.
  
  You can preview your data to see the different types of values in the entries. Though this is an optional step, we recommend you to toggle this selector to preview the data and set a convention that works for you more accurately.
3. Select a delimiter to separate the different parts of your convention.
  
  Ensure to select a delimiter that is not used in your dimensions. Test with sample data to preview the entries in your dimensions. You can also add a delimiter of your choice by entering it in the delimiter field.
4. + Add part depending on how many parts you want in the pattern.
  
  Note: Funnel suggests a delimiter and number of parts based on your data. You can Apply the suggestions or ignore them.
5. Define variables for all the parts by entering them in the field by entering a value and clicking + Create as a new variable.
  
  You can add FunID as one of your parts. This is a unique ID that Funnel populates automatically when you apply the convention.
  
  Optionally, you can rearrange the parts in your pattern.
(Optional) Validate all your variables.
Preview your data on the right and repeat step 4 to add or adjust the pattern to cover more data sources.
1. You can see that Funnel validates your variables in real-time when you modify a pattern.
2. Errors and invalid patterns are highlighted with color indicators. This information is displayed along with their scores in percentage at the top row. You can filter these values by clicking the different categories of invalidations.
3. Show or hide the input field in the list next to the parts that are split. To perform this action, click Supporting Columns and toggle the Show field to split selector.
4. The preview displays the variables only for one pattern at a given time. Select another pattern accordingly in your convention to preview variables in it.
Click Continue.
Select an existing field as an Input field.
The convention will check for adherence and create new dimensions accordingly.
Review the dimensions that will be created.
You can uncheck the dimensions that you don’t want to create.
Create and apply convention.

After you apply the convention, you can view the following details:
- Convention name, platforms, and delimiters
- Syntax of the pattern in your convention
- The dimension for which you applied the convention
- Overall adherence score
- The dimensions that the convention created
- Creator and last update details

You can use this convention to generate names in Name builder in Media Plans. You can also Edit or Delete a convention. Create more conventions as needed.

Validate your variable

It is important to set validations for your variables in the convention. Complete the following steps to set validations for your variable.

Click Edit to configure the settings of the variable.
(Optional) Update the name of the variable.
Enter a Description for your variable.
Select one of the following validations:
- None: Use this option if you don't want to validate your variable. This is the default option for all variables.
  
  If you want to set this variable as an optional part, toggle the Set as optional part selector. An optional part does not impact the adherence score. Use this when you have optional information, like a free text, that you do not rely on for your reporting. If you set the variable as optional, you have to move it to the end of the pattern.
- Allowed values: Use this option if the valid values are limited to a specific list of options. You can add the values manually or from your data.
  - Add manually: Enter a value and click Add value to add one value, or copy-paste a group of cells in a column from a spreadsheet to add more than one value. If there are duplicate entries of the same value in your copy-paste list, only one instance of the value is pasted.
    
    For example, if your copy-paste list in the spreadsheet has the following values: display-n-remarketing, search, search, tracking, tracking, affiliate, affiliate
    When you paste this list, only one instance of each value is pasted.
  - Add from data: Select a dimension from the drop-down list and click Add suggestions to see Funnel’s suggestions. You can Undo the suggestions if needed.
    
    If you want to replace any of the allowed values, enter them in the Replace with field. Note that this is optional.
  - Character limit: Select this option if you expect your data to have free-text values. If you are sure that this value will not be a blank space, you can set the minimum character limit to 1.
Select how you want to display failed validations.
You can Keep original value or Skip value.

When you apply the convention and if any other values apart from what you defined in step 4, the previous step, are present in your data, validation fails for such values.
Apply the validations.