S3: Signals and audiences
Members only — Requires Practitioner credential. ~45 minutes with Addie. Combines hands-on lab and adaptive exam.
Scope of AdCP signalsBefore investing time in training, it helps to know what the protocol covers today and where boundaries exist.
- In scope: Identity-derived attributes (income tiers, life stages), behavioral signals (purchase intent, visit frequency), contextual signals (content category, sentiment), geographic audiences (trade areas, store visitors)
- Not yet in scope: Identity resolution and matching (linking devices to people), real-time geofencing triggers (push when someone enters a zone), measurement and attribution pipelines
What you’ll demonstrate
- Discover and evaluate signals from multiple provider types (data providers, retailers, publishers, CDPs)
- Activate appropriate signals for different campaign objectives
- Understand signal value types (binary, categorical, numeric) and how they affect targeting
- Manage audience activation including privacy considerations and deactivation
- Configure event tracking with
sync_event_sourcesandlog_event - Design optimization loops using signals and delivery data
- Reason about the signals ecosystem — who provides data, who consumes it, and how authorization works
Prerequisite reading
Core signals tasks
get_signals
Signal discovery: find targetable audiences, contextual categories, and measurement data.
activate_signal
Activate signals for campaign targeting or measurement.
Supporting concepts
Signals overview
The signals protocol: audience segments, contextual signals, measurement, and optimization.
Signals specification
Formal specification for the signals protocol.
Data providers
How data providers publish signal catalogs via adagents.json.
Signals ecosystem
How different company types — retailers, publishers, CDPs, identity companies — participate in signals.
Conversion tracking
Event sources,
log_event, and attribution setup.Optimization and reporting
How signals feed into campaign optimization decisions.
Lab exercises
The sandbox training agent includes signal providers representing different ecosystem roles. You’ll work with all of them:Exercise 1: Signal discovery
Query the sandbox signals agent for signals matching different campaign objectives. Compare signals across provider types — what does a data provider’s automotive signal look like versus a retailer’s purchase signal?Exercise 2: Signal activation
Activate signals for a sandbox campaign. Observe how activation keys work and how deployment status changes.Exercise 3: Audience management
Activate and deactivate signals. Consider privacy: when does a signal need to be deactivated? How does consent affect signal availability?Exercise 4: Ecosystem scenarios
Addie will present a scenario from a specific perspective — you might be building a signal catalog for a retail media network, choosing signals for an agency’s client campaign, or designing a CDP integration. Apply your protocol knowledge to the scenario.Exercise 5: Build a signal catalog (provider perspective)
The previous exercises focus on the buyer side — discovering and activating signals. This exercise shifts to the provider side. Construct anadagents.json signals entry for a fictional data provider of your choice (geo, retail, identity, etc.). Your catalog should include:
- At least one signal of each value type (
binary,categorical,numeric) - Descriptive IDs, tags, and metadata following the data provider guide
- An
authorized_agentsentry authorizing a signals agent to resell your catalog
get_signals results when queried by tag or description.
Assessment
Passing threshold: 70%.
Start this module
Start S3 with Addie
“I’d like to start the signals specialist module.”