Understanding Properties

Properties are the core building blocks of your Formulas. They represent the specific data fields, performance metrics, and configuration settings available within Merch Jar that you can use to filter your datasets, define calculations for Custom Properties, or perform actions on in Workflows.

What are Properties?

Think of properties as the columns available in the dataset you selected as your Source. You use properties in expressions to compare their values against specific criteria.

• Example: In the condition clicks(7d) > 10, clicks is the property.
• Example: In the condition state = "enabled", state is the property.

Time-based vs. Static Properties

Properties fall into two main categories, which dictates how you use them:

1. Time-based Properties:

These represent performance metrics that accumulate or are measured over a specific duration (e.g., clicks, sales, acos, spend, orders, impressions).

They always require a Time Period specified in parentheses () immediately after the property name: property(time_period).

Examples:

sales(14d)
acos(30d..60d)
clicks(lifetime)

Learn more about Time Periods

2. Static Properties:

These represent current settings, configurations, or attributes that don't inherently change based on a date range (e.g., campaign name, ad group name, bid, budget, state, match type, target acos, campaign start date).

They do not use a Time Period. Adding parentheses will cause a syntax error.

Examples:

bid > 0.50
state = "paused"
campaign name contains "Brand"

Dataset Specificity

The properties available to use in your Formula depend on the Dataset selected as the Source in the Composer. For instance, budget is available in the Campaigns dataset, while bid is available in the Targeting dataset.

Using Properties in Formulas

You typically use properties on the left side of a comparison operator, comparing them to a specific value or another property/expression.

// Comparing a time-based property to a value
acos(30d) > 45%

// Comparing a static property to a value
state = "enabled"

// Comparing properties to each other (using a variable for clarity)
let $target_bid = cpc(14d) * 1.1;
bid < $target_bid

For a complete list of available properties, their data types, descriptions, examples, and which datasets they belong to, please consult the filterable Syntax Reference.

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