Fusing Data Between Datasets

Data fusion creates a link between dimensions that don’t already have a data model relationship between them.

For example, campaign and site dimensions have a data model relationship, whereas campaign and a generic dimension don’t. The link created by the data fusion is based on identical values of the fused dimensions. Values that are similar are viewed with attributes and measurements that are associated with one another. In this example, Dimension A is fused with Dimension B, resulting in a link between the two dimensions.

Fusion is a workspace-level setting, so it doesn’t require data stream reprocessing to take effect. It’s created dynamically at run time as part of the query processing, much like calculated measurements and dimensions.

Data fusions in Marketing Cloud Intelligence are transitive. If Dimension A is fused with Dimension B, and Dimension B is fused with Dimension C, then Dimension A is also fused with Dimension C because of their chain relationship. Therefore, the measurements and attributes that are linked to Dimension C are also linked to Dimension A, and vice versa for like values.

Additional information about data fusion:

• Data fusion implemented between the same two entities potentially won't work -- for example, two media buy attributes fused with two social element attributes.
• Multiple fusions between the same entities aren’t allowed, but can happen.
• Transitive fusions between entities that already have a data model relationship between them don’t work. For example, Site Name and Conversion Tag already have a relationship between them by virtue of the data model.

• When to Use Data Fusion
  Use data fusion to unify data that doesn’t naturally harmonize by virtue of the data model based on shared dimension values.
• Create a Data Fusion
  Create a data fusion to link two datasets with a shared dimension together.
• Applying Filters to Fused Dimensions
  When applying a filter to fused dimensions, the filtering impacts the datasets associated with all the fused dimensions.