Use API Connectors

Learning Objectives

After completing this unit, you’ll be able to:

• Identify API connectors.
  
• Upload data into Marketing Cloud Intelligence using API connectors.
  
• Connect and configure API connectors.
  
• Save and view API connector data streams.
  

What Are API Connectors?

If you’re looking for an easy way to connect to an external source platform with an API—such as Google Ads or Facebook—API connectors are a good option. Marketing Cloud Intelligence offers over 100 different API connectors. All you have to do is enter your credentials and authenticate your account and Marketing Cloud Intelligence does the rest. 

Once you connect, a data stream is created and your data is mapped for you. Plus, all APIs that are supported by Marketing Cloud Intelligence are maintained and updated according to any data changes that take place on the source platform.

In this unit, we cover how to connect your data using an API. Check out this video to see the steps in action.

Choose an API Connector in Marketing Cloud Intelligence

You can find all the available API connectors when creating a data stream. Let’s take a look.

To find what you’re looking for, you can search for a specific API connector (1) in the search bar, or just scroll down through the list of available connectors (2).

Once you select an API connector, the setup screen appears. This screen is dynamic and changes according to the API you selected. Here’s an example of the Google Ads API setup screen.

The first step is to enter your API credentials. API credentials are the username and password you use in order to log in to the different platforms you wish to connect to Marketing Cloud Intelligence. Once you enter the username and password, your credentials go through an authentication process. After authentication, you define how you want Marketing Cloud Intelligence to pull data and what data you want included. 

API Connector Setup

Since each API connector has its own setup, you may not see all the settings, or the settings may look different. That said, all API connectors contain three different sections under Setup: General, Initial Data Fetch, and Extended Properties. You can collapse and expand these sections easily.

• General: Here you set up an account, select a profile that’s connected to the account, and so on.
  
• Initial Data Fetch: Here you can select the initial date range for which data should be pulled from the source.
  
• Extended Properties: Here you choose additional breakdowns or measurements to be pulled from the source platform. The extended properties vary per API connector.
  
  

View Your New Data Stream

Once you finish configuring the API connector, save your settings to start processing the data. A new data stream is created for you in the Data Streams List. In the table, you can see more information about the data stream, including run status, last run date, and last data date (1). If you select a data stream from the list, extra options are enabled in the menu. Mapping (2) displays all the data fields that were mapped for the data stream selected. Log (3) displays a list of all the processing jobs executed by the data stream. And Process (4) allows you to initiate data retrieval using the selected data stream.

In addition to an API connector’s initial data fetch, each data stream retrieves new data from the source platform daily, so your data is always accurate and up to date. 

Next Up

Join us in the next unit to learn how to upload data using Marketing Cloud Intelligence’s custom connector, TotalConnect.