Dimensions

Custom Dimensions can be set up in a similar way to Calculate metrics using TiKiLa.

The most commonly used ways to create custom dimensions are splitting a name by a delimiter similar to the Text To Columns option in a spreadsheet or using IF / ELSE logic or using Regular Expressions to extract information identified by set of characters.

Example 1: Extracting the “video length” as a new custom dimension with IF ELSE

Note that these are 6 IF() functions nested in one another. TiKiLa provides some validation to make sure you cannot save an incorrect formula

Example 2: Extracting the video length from the ad name

Assume your names all have the same structure, where, for video ads, you include the video length between the second and third _, e.g. video_us-vs-them_16-30s_XMAS23_homepage.

Using the splitString() formula, we can break the name into its individual parts and the select() the part that we want to use for our video length dimension:

splitString() breaks up the ad name into it’s individual parts: ["video", "us-vs-them", "16-30s", "XMAS23", "homepage"]

We can use /2 as a pointer to the extract the item at index 2, which translates to the third item.

/0 → first item

/1 → second item

etc.

This now would set the video_length to 16-30s for this ad.

Example 3: Extracting the main creative idea from an ad name

Assume your names do NOT have the same structure, but you use a character to define an element. E.g. your ad names might be “A1234_B06_C192_D101” and “A1235_D102_C193”

Using the stringExtractsRegex() formula, we can find all matches of a specific pattern and then use the select() formula to select the first occurrence:

stringExtractsRegex() finds each occurence of a C followed by a set of numbers: So for the first ad this would return an array with one element ["C192"] and for the second ["C193"] . Selecting the element at index 0 would return C192 and C193 .