Dynamic rotation

When working with dynamic creatives, you may have several versions of a creative (or rows of your feed) that match your dynamic strategy and rules at impression time. For example, consider the example feed below:

 

ID	Reporting_label	City	Headline
01	NYC Totes	New York	Everyday totes you'll love
02	NYC Fashion	New York	Thoughtful details you'll love
03	SF Totes	San Francisco	Everyday totes you'll love
04	SF Fashion	San Francisco	Thoughtful details you'll love

The feed is filtered by city, meaning there are two headlines available to show for New York, and two for San Francisco. Select a rotation type to decide which headline to show.

Types of rotation

Optimized rotation

Use optimized rotation to try out different content for the same audience, and over time, show the best performing content.

How optimized rotation works

1. When your campaign begins, each time there are multiple creative versions (or feed rows) available to serve, the ad server randomly selects one.
2. Over time, after enough performance data has been collected, the ad server begins to serve the better-performing creative version more often.

Optimization is calculated separately for each ad impression, so when the same creative is served on different sites, the ad server optimizes not just the best performing creative, but the best performing creative for that site. Creative performance is calculated based on clickthrough rate (CTR), and if the creative is assigned to a Campaign Manager 360 ad that's being optimized for conversion rate (CVR), the conversion rate is also factored in. View through conversions are not included in optimization calculations.

At serving time, if only one creative version (or feed row) is selected based on your dynamic strategy, optimized rotation is not applied. Rotation only works if there's more than one eligible row.

Example

When a creative using optimized rotation is linked to the example feed above and served on a website with an audience that's shopping for tote bags, the ad server is likely to select row 1 for people near New York, and row 3 for people near San Francisco. Meanwhile, when the same creative is served on a website with an audience that's shopping for clothing, the ad server is likely to select row 2 for people near New York, and row 4 for people near San Francisco.

Campaign Manager 360 creative rotation and dynamic optimized rotation

Optimized rotation in Studio controls the selection of content from a dynamic feed. Campaign Manager 360 creative rotation controls the rotation of multiple creatives assigned to a single Campaign Manager 360 ad, some of which may or may not be dynamic creatives. Each feature is set up and controlled separately, so there should be no concern about an overlap of strategies. However, if you have a lot of creatives rotating in the same Campaign Manager 360 ad your dynamic creative is assigned to, it may take longer to gather enough performance data and begin optimizing the dynamic creative.

How optimized rotation works with dependent selection

• Multiple child feeds are optimized independently
  When you have multiple dependent (child) feeds, each feed is optimized separately. For example, if one feed has a CTA, and one feed has a headline, the ad server will select the best CTA and the best headline separately. The ad server does not optimize the best combination of both headline and CTA when they're in dependent feeds. Learn more about dependent selection
• Optimization happens only at the lowest level
  If you have multiple levels of dependent feeds, optimization is only applied at the lowest level. For example, if you have a grandfather feed, father feed, and child feed, optimization is only applied at the child level if there's more than one eligible row to serve. Eligible rows in the grandfather and father feeds will be randomly selected.

Turn on optimized rotation

1. Open your dynamic profile in Studio, and navigate to Step 3: Manage Rules.
2. In the Rotation drop-down, select Optimized. 
3. Proceed with your profile setup.

Random rotation

Use random rotation if you want to randomly select which creative version to show.

Random rotation does not guarantee that each feed row will be served the exact same number of times. Selection is random, like the flip of a coin. It's not guaranteed to be heads 50% of the time and tails 50% of the time. However, over time, each version will serve approximately the same number of times. For feeds with many rows, it may take a long time and a large number of impressions to reach an approximately even distribution.

Turn on random rotation

1. Open your dynamic profile in Studio, and navigate to Step 3: Manage Rules.
2. In the Rotation drop-down, select Random. 
3. Proceed with your profile setup.

Weighted rotation

Use weighted rotation if you need more control over how often certain creative versions are shown. For example, you may need to rotate at a percentage of the overall campaign to meet budget or cost allocations.

Common uses of weighted rotation

• Allocation of budgets between brands
• Ability to spot-check results by brand and adjust settings quickly
• Allocation of budgets/impressions based on availability of inventory

At serving time, if only one creative version (or feed row) is selected based on your dynamic strategy, weighted rotation is not applied. Rotation only works if there's more than one eligible row.

How weighted rotation works

Weighted rotation allows you to enter a creative weight as an additional column in the feed. The rows will be selected according to their strategy and their proportional weight. For example, let's add weights to this feed:

ID	Reporting_label	City	Headline	Weights
01	NYC Totes	New York	Everyday totes you'll love	30
02	NYC Fashion	New York	Thoughtful details you'll love	70
03	SF Totes	San Francisco	Everyday totes you'll love	60
04	SF Fashion	San Francisco	Thoughtful details you'll love	40

After a large number of impressions, the result is:

• In New York:
  • Row 1 will show 30% of the time
  • Row 2 will show 70% of the time
• In San Francisco:
  • Row 3 will show 60% of the time
  • Row 4 will show 40% of the time

Early in a campaign, or any time when there's a smaller number of impressions, these numbers may not align, because there's not enough impression data to see the full distribution.

The weight values you set for each row don't need to add up to 100. If the total of the weights assigned to each row does not add up to 100, then each row will be weighted according to the percentage of the weight for that row over the total. For example, let's see what happens if you add a row 5 to the example above and set the weight to 50.

ID	Reporting_label	City	Headline	Weights
01	NYC Totes	New York	Everyday totes you'll love	30
02	NYC Fashion	New York	Thoughtful details you'll love	70
03	SF Totes	San Francisco	Everyday totes you'll love	60
04	SF Fashion	San Francisco	Thoughtful details you'll love	40
05	SF Watches	San Francisco	Stylish watches for every day	50

After a large number of impressions, the result is: 

• In New York:
  • Row 1 will show 30% of the time
  • Row 2 will show 70% of the time
• In San Francisco:
  • Row 3 will show 40% of the time (60 of 150 total)
  • Row 4 will show 26.66% of the time (40 of 150 total)
  • Row 5 will show 33.33% of the time (50 of 150 total)

If you're using different strategies within the same feed, set weights for each strategy, not for the feed as a whole. Weights will only apply when selecting eligible rows for rotation.

Turn on weighted rotation

1. Add a column to your feed called "Weights" (or whatever name you prefer). Set a weight for each row in this column. Weights must be whole numbers only. Do not leave any rows blank or feed transformation will fail. If you're using a default row, it must also have a weight value, but this value is not used for calculating rotation weights.
2. Upload the feed to Studio, and go to Step 2: Manage Data. In the "Data types and filters" section, find the "Weights" column in the list of field names, then select Weight for the field type.
   
   
3. Open your dynamic profile in Studio, and navigate to Step 3: Manage Rules.
4. In the Rotation drop-down, select Weighted. 
5. Proceed with your profile setup.