How To Create an Amazon Ads Python Pipeline with PyAirbyte

10 min read
April 5, 2024

Extracting and managing data from Amazon Ads presents numerous challenges, from handling API limitations to ensuring data is timely and accurately processed for analysis. These tasks often involve complex, resource-intensive coding that can be burdensome for data engineers.

PyAirbyte offers a streamlined solution to these problems. With its easy-to-use Python library, PyAirbyte simplifies the data extraction process, reduces the technical overhead, and speeds up the time from data collection to insight generation. By leveraging PyAirbyte, developers can more efficiently manage Amazon Ads data pipelines, making it easier to focus on analyzing data and deriving valuable insights.

Traditional Methods for Creating Amazon Ads Data Pipelines

The creation of data pipelines for Amazon Ads using conventional methods, primarily through custom Python scripts, has been the go-to approach for many developers and data engineers. This method involves writing code to extract data from Amazon Ads, transform the data as needed, and then load it into a destination for analysis and reporting. While this approach offers flexibility and control, it also introduces several challenges and pain points that can significantly impact the efficiency and maintenance of these data pipelines.

Pain Points in Extracting Data from Amazon Ads

  1. API Complexity and Limitations: Amazon Ads API provides access to advertising data, but dealing with its complexity and limitations can be daunting. Developers need to understand the intricacies of API requests, handle pagination, manage rate limits, and process different formats of data returns. This complexity requires a high level of technical expertise and considerable development time.
  2. Authentication and Security: Securely managing authentication tokens and credentials is critical for accessing Amazon Ads data. Custom scripts must incorporate robust security measures to handle authentication and ensure data security, adding another layer of complexity to the development process.
  3. Data Transformation Challenges: The data extracted from Amazon Ads often requires significant transformation to make it useful for analysis. Writing custom code for data transformation is error-prone and can become a bottleneck, especially as the volume and complexity of data grow.
  4. Maintaining and Updating Scripts: Amazon Ads API can change over time, with new features added or existing features deprecated. Custom scripts must be regularly updated to accommodate these changes. This maintenance work is time-consuming and can divert resources from other critical tasks.

Impact on Data Pipeline Efficiency and Maintenance

The challenges outlined above have a direct impact on the efficiency and maintenance of data pipelines built with custom Python scripts for Amazon Ads.

  • Increased Development Time and Costs: Dealing with the complexity of Amazon Ads data extraction and transformation can significantly increase development time and costs. This is especially true for teams that may not have specialized expertise in dealing with APIs or data processing.
  • Reduced Flexibility and Scalability: As business requirements evolve, data pipelines need to scale or adapt. Custom scripts that are tightly coupled to the current version of the Amazon Ads API or specific data structures can be difficult to modify, reducing flexibility and scalability.
  • Risk of Data Pipeline Failures: With custom scripts, there is a higher risk of data pipeline failures due to unhandled API changes, security issues, or bugs in the data processing logic. These failures can lead to data loss, incomplete data, or inaccuracies, impacting business decisions.
  • Resource Intensive Maintenance: The ongoing need to update and maintain custom scripts as APIs change or as security practices evolve requires continuous investment in skilled resources. This can divert attention from other value-added activities and innovation.

In summary, while custom Python scripts for creating Amazon Ads data pipelines offer control and customization, they also come with significant challenges that can impact efficiency, scalability, and maintainability. Recognizing these challenges is crucial for organizations looking to optimize their data integration and analysis capabilities.

Implementing a Python Data Pipeline for Amazon Ads with PyAirbyte

Implementing a Python Data Pipeline for Amazon Ads with PyAirbyte involves several steps, from installing the required PyAirbyte package to configuring the source connector and eventually reading the data into a preferable format such as a pandas DataFrame. Each code snippet plays a crucial role in setting up and executing the data pipeline.

Step 1: Install PyAirbyte

pip install airbyte

This command installs the PyAirbyte package, which is necessary for interfacing with Airbyte connectors programmatically in Python. Airbyte is an open-source data integration platform that allows you to move data from various sources into destinations like data warehouses, databases, and S3 buckets.

Step 2: Configure the Source Connector

import airbyte as ab

# Create and configure the source connector, don't forget to use your own values in the config:
source = ab.get_source(
   source-amazon-ads,
   install_if_missing=True,
   config={
       "auth_type": "oauth2.0",
       "client_id": "your_client_id_here",
       "client_secret": "your_client_secret_here",
       "refresh_token": "your_refresh_token_here",
       "region": "NA",
       "start_date": "2022-10-10",
       "profiles": [123456789],
       "marketplace_ids": ["ATVPDKIKX0DER"],
       "state_filter": ["enabled", "paused"],
       "look_back_window": 3,
       "report_record_types": ["campaigns", "adGroups"]
   }
)

This section imports the airbyte library and configures the Amazon Ads source connector. You need to replace placeholder values with your actual Amazon Ads account details such as client_id, client_secret, and refresh_token for OAuth authentication. Configuration also includes defining the region, start_date for fetching data, Amazon Ads profiles and marketplace_ids you're interested in, filters for the state of the ads, a look back window to specify how far back in time to retrieve data from, and the types of reports you want.

Step 3: Verify Configuration and Credentials

source.check()

This command verifies the connectivity and access to the Amazon Ads account based on the provided configuration and credentials. It's a critical step to ensure that your setup is correct before proceeding with data extraction.

Step 4: List Available Streams

source.get_available_streams()

After setting up the source connector, this code snippet lists all available data streams (or data types) that the Amazon Ads connector can fetch. This could include data on campaigns, ad groups, product ads, etc., depending on the connector's capabilities and your account permissions.

Step 5: Select Streams to Load

source.select_all_streams()

This command selects all available streams for data extraction. If you wish to narrow down the data to specific streams, use the select_streams() method instead and specify the streams of interest.

Step 6: Read Data into Cache

cache = ab.get_default_cache()
result = source.read(cache=cache)

Here, the code initializes a local cache (using DuckDB by default) and then reads data from the selected streams into this cache. DuckDB acts as an intermediary storage from where you can further process or analyze data. You can also configure a custom cache such as Postgres, Snowflake, or BigQuery if required.

Step 7: Load Stream Data into a Pandas DataFrame

df = cache["your_stream"].to_pandas()

Finally, this snippet shows how you can pick a specific stream from the cache ("your_stream" should be replaced with the actual stream name you're interested in) and convert it into a pandas DataFrame. Pandas makes data manipulation, filtering, and analysis convenient and is a popular choice for data scientists and analysts.

In summary, these steps showcase setting up a PyAirbyte-powered data pipeline to extract data from Amazon Ads, from installation and configuration through data extraction to loading into a pandas DataFrame or other formats suitable for analysis. This approach combines Airbyte's powerful data integration capabilities with Python's flexibility and rich ecosystem for data processing and analysis.

For keeping up with the latest PyAirbyte’s features, make sure to check our documentation. And if you’re eager to see more code examples with PyAirbyte, check out our Quickstarts library.

Why Using PyAirbyte for Amazon Ads Data Pipelines

Easy Installation and Configuration

PyAirbyte simplifies the initial setup process by offering an easy installation method via pip, requiring only that Python is already installed on the system. This makes it accessible to a wide range of users, from beginners to advanced developers. Additionally, PyAirbyte allows users to effortlessly get and configure the available source connectors, including the option to install custom source connectors if the need arises. This flexibility ensures that users can quickly adapt their data pipelines to include data from a variety of sources, not just Amazon Ads.

Efficient Data Stream Selection

One of the key advantages of using PyAirbyte is its capability to enable the selection of specific data streams. This feature allows users to focus on the most relevant data for their analysis or application, conserving computing resources and streamlining the data processing workflow. By avoiding unnecessary data extraction, users can optimize the efficiency of their data pipelines and reduce processing times.

Flexible Caching Backends

Support for multiple caching backends, such as DuckDB, MotherDuck, Postgres, Snowflake, and BigQuery, gives PyAirbyte an edge in terms of flexibility. Users have the freedom to choose the cache that best fits their infrastructure and data needs. If a specific cache is not defined, DuckDB is used by default, offering an out-of-the-box solution for quick setup and development without compromising on performance.

Incremental Data Reading

PyAirbyte’s ability to read data incrementally is crucial for efficiently handling large datasets and minimizing the load on data sources. This feature is especially important for applications involving Amazon Ads data, which can grow rapidly in volume. Incremental reading ensures that only new or updated data are fetched in subsequent pipeline runs, dramatically reducing data transfer volumes and processing times.

Compatibility with Python Libraries

The compatibility of PyAirbyte with various Python libraries, including Pandas for data manipulation and analysis and SQL-based tools for database interactions, opens up a wide array of possibilities for data transformation and analysis. This integration into existing Python-based data workflows, orchestrators, and AI frameworks enables users to leverage the full power of the Python ecosystem to derive insights, build models, or automate processes based on the data collected through PyAirbyte.

Enabling AI Applications

Given its efficiency, flexibility, and tight integration with Python’s extensive libraries and frameworks, PyAirbyte is ideally positioned to enable AI applications. Whether it's feeding cleaned and processed Amazon Ads data into machine learning models for predictive analytics, customer segmentation, or ad performance optimization, PyAirbyte provides the necessary infrastructure to support data-driven AI initiatives.

Conclusion

In conclusion, streamlining your Amazon Ads data pipeline with PyAirbyte presents a robust solution that marries the flexibility and power of Python with the efficiency and ease of use offered by Airbyte. This approach allows you to navigate the complexities of data extraction, transformation, and loading with greater agility, enabling you to focus on deriving actionable insights and value from your Amazon Ads data.

Whether you're aiming to enhance your analytics, feed into machine learning models, or simply streamline your data processes, PyAirbyte stands out as a capable and versatile tool in your data engineering toolkit.

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