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LiveRamp for Developers Recap – Session 6: Data Marketplace – Buyer API

  • 7 min read

The sixth session of our LiveRamp for Developers webinar series was held on Tuesday, August 10. LiveRamp’s Peter Dang, Director of Business Development; Jenny Golden, Activations Product Manager and Interim Product Manager for Data Networks and Data Marketplace; and Lake Mossman, Software Engineer for Data Networks, provided an overview of the Data Marketplace and the Buyer API. 


Data Marketplace overview

At a very high level, the Data Marketplace exists to bring both data suppliers and data buyers together. LiveRamp provides a platform to easily transact, buy, and sell data for various use cases, all linked to LiveRamp’s people-based identifier, the RampID. At LiveRamp, we’re focused on data democratization, and the Data Marketplace allows us to make it as easy and as seamless as possible to buy and sell data. 

LiveRamp also simplifies terms and conditions through a single contract. For both data providers and data sellers, one contract with LiveRamp allows access to a large inventory of integrations to send data to, as well as a multitude of data provider options to power advertisement campaigns or other use cases.

LiveRamp Data Marketplace features

The LiveRamp Data Marketplace is completely neutral, meaning there are no LiveRamp-owned or operated data assets (there’s no LiveRamp-branded retail audience or B2B audience, for example). LiveRamp works with over 160 premium data providers that provide over 200,000 segments from a multitude of verticals (retail, travel, B2B, CPGs, etc.). International data is also available in the UK and France. For international clients, or anyone wishing for greater reach, LiveRamp makes it easy to access data across different geographies in one place. 

The Data Marketplace offers flexible pricing. Rather than using standard CPMs, LiveRamp operates under a percent of gross media spend for certain platforms or use cases. For example, social platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest operate on a flexible pricing model versus a standard CPM. For other cases where a usage-based model may not make sense, for example if a client wants to license the data for an internal analytics use case, LiveRamp operates on a monthly flat fee versus a standard CPM. Essentially, there are different models available based on the platform or the preferred use case(s). 

LiveRamp Data Marketplace also provides premium services for top platform partners. LiveRamp has various data providers that allow different segments, which can be overwhelming for clients. Advertisers can simply email the alias, datamarketplace@liveramp.com, with their campaign goals, needs, and budget, and LiveRamp’s Audience Solutions Team will respond with recommendations for a given campaign with their particular KPIs in mind.

Data Marketplace use cases

There are a range of different use cases for advertisers coming to the Data Marketplace. Here are some of the most common:

  • Measuring campaign effectiveness: Discover the ad-driven actions that a user has taken, whether a user has added an item into their cart online, purchased it, or gone to a physical store to buy it. 

 

  • Creating custom segments: If a customer doesn’t have a specific segment or dataset in mind, or it isn’t available in the Data Marketplace, LiveRamp can create custom segments specifically for a campaign or advertiser. 

 

  • Greater segment granularity: If “off-the-shelf” segments are not granular enough, LiveRamp data providers can offer more granular-level data, such as transaction data at the UPC brand, category, or store level, to find where people have purchased a product.

 

  • Geo-location targeting and mobile data: If an advertiser wants to target users who have shopped at a particular store within a particular time frame, LiveRamp also works with a handful of location-based data providers who collect this information from mobile SDKs, apps, or mobile websites.

 

  • Third-party audiences and TV: LiveRamp also has a collection of third-party audiences that are available for advanced targeting on TV, and this includes measurement as well. TV partners like Hulu or Roku are also accessible, allowing a multitude of different third-party audiences.

 

  • Online and offline data: Offline data is also available. If a retail client has first-party CRM data, they can utilize the Data Marketplace to augment known data. Additionally, if an advertiser has an email address but not much additional information beyond that, we can append information like household income, demographic data, or any other leveraged attributes so they can create a more informed campaign for offline use cases, like direct mail targeting.

Understanding data delivery

Today, platform partners, typically DSPs like the Trade Desk, MediaMath, Adnexus, etc., access data by logging in to the LiveRamp Connect UI, going into the Data Marketplace, searching and browsing for segments they want to leverage, and setting up destinations for the segments that are sent out to their platform. In addition to being a manual process, not all the available data is in their platform through this method, because they won’t house the entire data marketplace on their side. Instead, platforms preload a full or a partial taxonomy—a tactic commonly referred to as “stocking the shelves.”

“Stocking the shelves” is a commonly used analogy akin to going to the supermarket. Supermarkets typically have a good selection of common items customers purchase. Although it’s probably a decent selection, not everything is going to be available compared to an online supplier/store like Amazon. On the supermarket shelves, items are readily available to purchase and utilize right away. 

The Buyer API is more of the e-commerce or Amazon model; there’s a much wider breadth and selection of data attributes or segments a client can use, but there is going to be a drawback in terms of delivery times. LiveRamp requires one to three days to deliver the data to the platform. So, there’s a much wider breadth and depth of data options, and more time needed to get the data delivered.

Stocking the shelves approach: benefits and considerations

The stocking-the-shelves approach enables a better experience by making searching and selecting segments for campaigns easier. Instead of logging in to the LiveRamp UI, a preloaded partial taxonomy is readily available, eliminating the manual task of switching between interfaces. Since the data is readily available, client service teams or their managed services team can use and search for the data right away. In addition, segments can be activated immediately, because the data has already been pushed over to the platform side.

That being said, there are also a few considerations to be aware of. Increased data storage and processing costs can be incurred from pulling high amounts of data from the 160+ data providers and over 200,000 segments. To combat this, some platforms preload a limited amount of segments most used by their clients, instead of taking all 200,000 segments. Lastly, there are less frequent metadata updates. If a data provider changes their segment names, descriptions, pricing, or metadata, they might not be updated downstream in that platform right away, so the platform is not getting up-to-date information.

An improved approach: the Buyer API

Utilizing the Buyer API affords a different approach, and helps with:

  • Reduction in manual work: The Buyer API can house or show all 200,000 segments on the platform side, as well as all 160 data providers. Client service teams save time by avoiding the work of logging in to the LiveRamp UI and searching for the segments. 

 

  • Self-service: Now the client service team, or the client, can directly log in to their DSP of choice (Trade Desk, Mediamath, etc.) and browse and search for those segments on their own, directly in the platform UI, without the need to switch interfaces.

 

  • Increased options: Instead of housing a limited number of segments, the entire Data Marketplace taxonomy can be displayed. 

 

  • Customized, brandable experience: A customized experience allows the platform to build these capabilities directly into their native, branded UI. 

 

  • Metadata updates: The buyer API pushes more frequent metadata updates allowing the platform to have the most current pricing and changes, like descriptions of use cases or advertising restrictions.

 

  • Faster scaling: All the aforementioned benefits enable platforms and their clients to scale much faster. Clients can browse and use data without having to navigate between data delivery and availability issues, and have access to the entire Data Marketplace if needed.

Buyer API case study: a leading DSP

A leading DSP was preloading their platform with the stocking-the-shelves approach but had to log in to the LiveRamp UI every time they wanted to browse for segments that were not already preloaded. Their client service teams had multiple reps who were logging in to the LiveRamp Connect UI to push datasets or segments that clients were asking for. After working with this approach, they contacted LiveRamp to explore other options to increase efficiency and autonomy, and to reduce unnecessary data storage expenses.

So LiveRamp Engineering and the DSP partnered together to build, test, and use the Buyer API. Instead of preloading a specific subset of the Data Marketplace taxonomy or segments, they were able to pull Data Marketplace’s full taxonomy. In turn, the DSP’s clients had full access to all segments available. Their client service teams no longer need to log in to LiveRamp and handle the distribution there. This enabled them to build self-serviceable functionality for clients to find and use the data directly in their own native UI.


Buyer API endpoints and demo 

Peter gave an overview of the API endpoints and Lake ran through each of the endpoints in a Postman demo. 


Next steps

If you’re interested in learning more about using the Buyer API, or if you have questions about the Data Marketplace, check out the session on demand by registering. To take a deeper dive, please reach out to us via the contact form to get in touch with experts who can lead you through the solutions we have to offer.

The next session in the series will be given by Authenticated Traffic Solution (ATS) Product Lead, Ian Meyers, providing an overview of ATS as well as the ATS API, on Tuesday, August 17, at 12:00 pm PT. 

I encourage you to explore ATS API via the developer portal prior to next week so you can familiarize yourself with what we’ll be talking about and come prepared with questions you may have.