There are several areas in TapClicks where you may be asked to select a Data View. The most common is when creating widgets on a dashboard. After selecting a Data Source (referred to as a data category in the widget creation interface), you must choose from a dropdown list of available Data Views.
This article explains what a Data View is and how it is used.
What is a Data View?
Data Views organize data into structured groups to help you analyze information and make business decisions more efficiently.
Example: Playing Card Analogy
Imagine you connect your Facebook Ads account to TapClicks. Think of all the data available from the Facebook API as a deck of playing cards:
- Each card represents a single field from that data source, such as a metric (e.g., CPM, impressions, clicks), a dimension (e.g., Campaign, Ad), or an attribute (e.g., Start Date).
- You can group cards by color, or by face value. Each grouping method is a way to organize data based on a shared trait.
Data Views work the same way, they group fields in meaningful ways so you can analyze them more effectively.
Components of a Data View
Each Data View contains one or more of the following:
Metrics
- Numerical fields that measure performance.
- Examples: Impressions, Cost, Click-Thru-Rate (CTR).
Dimensions
- Fields that add granularity and can increase the number of rows in a dataset.
- Examples: Campaign, Ad, Site, Pixel, Action.
Attributes
- Descriptive fields that provide additional context to dimensions without increasing granularity.
- Examples: Campaign Start Date, Ad Size, Target Audience.
Why TapClicks Uses Data Views
TapClicks organizes data from Data Sources into Data Views to:
- Help users derive insights from raw data.
- Group fields that work well together in reports and analysis.
- Work within limitations of how data is provided by the source platform.