Supermetrics for data transformation: Top 7 use cases for marketers

Since we introduced the Supermetrics Marketing Intelligence Cloud in 2023, data transformation features like custom fields and data blending have quickly become our users’ new favorites.

In this article, I’ll discuss seven ways you can use custom fields and data blending to manipulate, customize and get a holistic view of your data, including: 

• Convert currencies dynamically
• Manage campaign naming convention
• Normalize text
• Calculate agency markup
• Monitor performance across paid channels
• Track organic social performance
• Calculate the ROAS of different paid channels

Manipulate and customize data with custom fields

Custom fields allow you to go beyond raw data and turn it into something more useful and suitable for your needs. You can: 

• Create new metrics: Functions like addition, subtraction, multiplication, and divide help you create new metrics for your reporting and analysis needs. For example, you can calculate ‘net revenue’ by subtracting ad spend from total revenue.
• Keep your data consistent: With VLOOKUP, you can ensure your data is consistent and show up the way you want in your reports. This is especially useful when you want to compare different platforms to each other. For example, if your data have ‘US’, ‘USA’, or ‘United States’, you can set a rule to turn all variations into ‘United States’. 
• Set conditions: ‘IF’ and ‘THEN’ statements help filter and highlight specific data. Let’s say you’re doing budget pacing. You can create an alert to flag campaigns exceeding 90% of their budget. For example:
  • IF: This part specifies the condition that needs to be met. In the example, it could be ‘Spend greater than 900’.
  • THEN: This defines what happens if the condition in the ‘IF’ part is true. In the example, it would be ‘Warning: Over 90% budget’.
  • ELSE (optional): This defines what happens if the condition in the ‘IF’ part is not true (false). In the example, it’s ‘Within budget’.

You can also add multiple transformations in one custom field to get more granular data. Next, I’ll walk you through four common transformation use cases using custom fields, including:

• Dynamic currency conversions
• Manage campaign naming convention
• Normalize text 
• Agency markup 

Use case 1: Dynamic currency conversions

Let’s say you’re running campaigns in different countries with different currencies. Using custom fields, you can convert all that data into your preferred currency based on the exchange rate of the specific date. This helps you get a consistent view of your report across all regions.

Simply select the field you want to convert, such as cost, budget, or revenue. Then, choose a date you want to use for the conversion. Compared to some other platforms, Supermetrics uses dynamic currency conversions. This means the conversion happens on the date you selected. You can align the conversion based on your business needs and reporting cycles.

Use case 2: Manage campaign naming convention

Campaign names hold valuable information about the campaign, but the problem is that splitting this into multiple parts is typically a manual task done in a spreadsheet. 

You can use the function ‘Split text, pick part’ to split your campaign name into multiple parts. This will let you:

• Decode identifiers: Identify regional campaigns (US, EU, Global) for targeted analysis and see which market has performed better than others. 
•  Compare Products: Transform cryptic product IDs into user-friendly product names for more clear reporting. 
•  Rename platform IDs: F, M, and G IDs may sound familiar to you, but for others, these are just letters. Change these into platform names like Facebook, Meta, Google, etc. 

Using this function, you’ll be able to follow your marketing data governance guidelines and make sure your data is consistent.

Use case 3: Normalize text

Manually fixing inconsistent date formats and letter cases in reports is tedious and error-prone You can easily manage upper and lower cases, date formats, decimals, and more using ‘Function’ custom fields. Data consistency is the key to smooth reporting, even if this may seem like a little task.

Use case 4: Calculate agency markup

This is a popular use case among our agency marketers. Let’s say you want to calculate the agency markup to your reports to report to clients. First, you’ll select ‘Function’ as the custom field. After that, select the field cost and multiply it by your agency markup. Name the field Agency markup, and you’ll have a consistent way to report the total cost—the cost of the ads and the agency fee— for your clients. 

Combine data for a holistic view with data blending

Data blending helps you bring siloed data together to see the overall picture of your performance across channels. Imagine analyzing your marketing spent across platforms, not with separate metrics, but with a combined “overall marketing spent”. 

Here are some of the most used data blending combinations Supermetrics users love. 

• Paid channels performance
• Conversion funnel
• Social media analysis

Use case 5: Monitor performance across paid channels

Choose the paid media platforms you want to blend, and Supermetrics will map fields and create shared metrics. This allows you to compare performance across channels at a glance. By combining siloed data, you’ll understand your overall marketing performance and spend.

Use case 6: Track your organic social media performance

Similar to paid media, blend your organic social media data to help you measure engagement across channels. You’ll gain a holistic view of your performance, including post engagements and follower growth, and understand audience differences across platforms. It’s also good for comparing similar channels like TikTok and Instagram.

Using custom fields and data blending together

You can use the custom fields in your blended data to create much richer and more detailed reports. I’ll walk you through a common example for this use case—calculate the ROAS of paid channels. This means you can use those new metrics and dimensions to create a holistic report, such as comparing product sales across several platforms. You can also create a custom field for your created data blend. 

One of our most used use cases is calculating the return on ad spend for your paid campaigns. 

Use case 7: Calculate ROAS of different paid channels

Advertising platforms tend to attribute the conversions to themselves, which can over-emphasize the impacts of certain channels and provide inaccurate data. While the Google Analytics 4 conversion calculation provides a more accurate view of your conversions, it doesn’t have ad data, for example, costs. That’s why the only way you can see the holistic view of your campaigns and calculate ROAS is to combine web and paid data. 

First, you need to create a custom field to translate Google Analytics 4 source/medium data into consistent channel names. This will make sure all data follows the same naming convention for easier comparison later. Then, create a data blend that combines ad data with website data. Lastly, create a custom field to calculate ROAS. You can use a function to divide total revenue by total ad spend. Finally, set up your report in your destination platform to see how each channel performs. 

This report shows you how much revenue each channel is driving compared to the ad spend on that channel. From there, you can identify which channels you should focus on to get more bang for your buck. Check out our support article for step-by-step guidance.

Your turn

Custom fields and data blending are powerful data transformation features in the Supermetrics Marketing Intelligence Cloud that help you go beyond raw data and get exact, meaningful data for reporting and analysis. Hopefully, the examples I’ve shared inspire you to get started. Once you get the hang of it, you can test different ways to transform and enhance your data

If you’ve got other cooler use cases you want to share with the community, we’d love to hear from you. Don’t hesitate to share them on social media and tag us on LinkedIn.