Edit

Rokt Secure FTP Setup

For security and privacy reasons, Rokt encourages all its clients to implement automated solutions to handle PII data, rather than manual handling. This applies to both, where Rokt is sending you consumer PII data (such as referrals), and where you are sending to Rokt consumer PII data (such as custom audience lists or conversions).

By preference, we suggest that you use real-time API integration to automate PII data transfer. That is, for Rokt to deliver referral data to you, we encourage you to set up an API that we can call each time we generate a referral for you. And for you to deliver custom audience lists or conversion data, we encourage you to call our APIs (including the upload of CSV files).

If your CRM or ERP doesn't support APIs, we also support FTP (in the form of SFTP or FTPs) as transfer mechanism, to deliver referral files to you (as a CSV file), or to receive custom audience or conversions files. For files that we export to you, we can deliver these to your FTPs/SFTP server. If you do not have an FTPs/SFTP server, we can alternatively deliver the files to our own FTPs/SFTP server, and we can create an account which your CRM or ERP can use to collect those files from the server. Please note, though, that in the interests of security we will not store these files on our server for more than 7 days.

If you wish to have your CRM or ERP automatically send us custom audience lists or conversions data as CSV files, you will need to have your system put those files on our FTPs/SFTP server, using an account which we will create for you.

If your CRM or ERP is not capable of automating transfer of PII data via API or FTPs/SFTP, and you need to receive this data manually, then you can use the One Platform web UI to upload files to us, and we can set up a task which regularly emails you a link from which you can download new referrals.

Referrals or Transaction Data Download

Purpose

  • If you don’t have an FTP server of your own, you can use Rokt’s FTP server to transfer files.

How does it work?

  • You can do this by creating an FTP task in One Platform. FTP tasks will routinely send a .csv file containing all of your new referrals with the data you want, when you want it, to an FTP server of your choice.
  • Click here to learn how to create a new FTP task. Make sure you select the “Use Rokt hosted FTP server” in step 7 when setting up the FTP task.

Conversion Import

Purpose

  • As an alternative to integrating with the Rokt tag, using Conversion API or manual import, you can import conversion data into One Platform via Rokt SFTP.
  • Sending this information to One Platform in real-time will help improve conversion tracking for the purposes of understanding campaign performance.

How does it work?

  • You will need to drop your conversion file (see "Required File Formats" below) into the Rokt FTP server. Once a file is dropped, the system will automatically pick up the conversion file and add it to your Rokt account.

Custom Audience Import

Purpose

  • Rokt SFTP enables you to add or remove one or more email addresses (or MD5 or SHA-256 hashes of email addresses) from your Rokt custom audience list. This Rokt custom audience list is then used for inclusion or exclusion targeting in your campaigns on the Rokt platform.

How does it work?

  • You will need to drop your custom audiences file (see "Required File Formats" below) into the Rokt FTP server. Once a file is dropped, the system will automatically pick up the file and add it to your Rokt account.

Nurture Unsubscribes

Purpose

  • As an alternative to the Nurture Unsubscribe API, you can immediately send unsubscribed users back to the Rokt system for real-time removal of all brand communications.

How does it work?

  • You will need to drop your nurture unsubscribes file (see "Required File Formats" below) into the Rokt SFTP server. Once a file is dropped, the system will automatically pick up the file and add it to your Rokt account.

How to Get Access?

Contact your Account Manager and assess whether an FTP solution is suitable for your situation. Setup of the FTP account will be organized by your Account Manager and access credentials securely submitted to all nominated recipients.

FTP Folder Structure

Your provided FTP space on Rokt's server is divided into a purpose-based folder structure outlined below.

Referrals or Transactions Data Download Provided by Rokt's Data Platform:

PathDescription
/downloadsDownload the referrals or transaction data provided by Rokt.

Conversion Import:

PathDescription
/upload/conversionUpload conversions attributed to Rokt.

Custom Audience Import: Using Rokt's default custom audience list - AdvertiserDatabase

PathDescription
/upload/custom-audience/include/AdvertiserDatabaseList of customers you want to add to the list associated with your account.
/upload/custom-audience/exclude/AdvertiserDatabaseList of customers you want to remove from the list associated with your account.

Creating a specific custom audience list:

PathDescription
/upload/custom-audience/include/MyListList of customers you want to add to a non-default custom audience list named "MyList";
"MyList" - is a sub-folder you have created in the "include" folder.
/upload/custom-audience/exclude/MyListList of customers you want to remove from a non-default custom audience list named "MyList";
"MyList" is a sub-folder you have created in the "exclude" folder.

Data Sharing Between You and Your Account Manager: Additionally, Rokt FTP offers the ability to securely share data in a non-automated fashion (e.g., quarterly results, design assets, etc.) between you and your Account Manager.

Please do not send us under any circumstances files with PII data via email directly.

How to Connect to Rokt SFTP?

Establishing a connection from a host computer (e.g., your laptop) to a secure FTP server requires third-party client software. This tutorial suggests the popular and free client FileZilla which is available for Windows, Mac and Linux operating systems.

  1. Navigate in your browser to https://filezilla-project.org/ and click on "Download FileZilla Client".
  2. Install FileZilla on your computer (in case you already have FileZilla installed, please update to the latest version).
  3. You should have received an email from Rokt with the subject "You've been granted access to Rokt's SFTP server".
  4. Download the attached file, unzip the encrypted file with the password provided in a second email "Email for password for file with instructions".
  5. The encrypted file you have just unzipped contains a .pem file which is your key file to access Rokt SFTP.

The following steps are the same for Windows, Mac and Linux operating systems and are based on the latest version of FileZilla.

  1. Open FileZilla and navigate to File > Site Manager

Rokt SFTP Setup

  1. Click on New Site on the left and fill in the following:

    • Protocol: SFTP – SSH File Transfer Protocol

    • Host: ftp.rokt.com

    • Port: 22

    • Key file: Browse to your local key file (.pem) and select it from your local drive (see image below).

      Rokt SFTP Setup

Click the Connect button. Now you should be connected and see your accessible folders to upload files.

Required File Formats

Files uploaded to the secured FTP server must meet below standards in order to process correctly in the Rokt data platform.

  • File format must be .csv or .txt
  • Charset UTF-8 (UTF-16 or UTF-32 with an appropriate byte-order mark).
  • Email addresses must be:
    • in one single column,
    • without a column head.
  • Email addresses can either plain text or hashed.
  • If you provide hashed email addresses please meet the following criteria:
    • We accept MD5 or SHA256 hash algorithms.

    • Ensure that all email addresses are lowercased before hashing them.

    • Do not mix plain and hashed email addresses per file (they must be either all plain, all MD5 or all SHA256).

Any file not matching the above format will be rejected by Rokt’s system and not processed accordingly.

Frequently Asked Questions

Q: What if I don’t have the option to choose a key file as logon type?

  1. Go to Edit > Settings (on Mac: FileZilla > Settings).

Rokt SFTP FAQs

  1. Navigate to SFTP > Add key file > Browse and select the key file from your local drive.
  2. Navigate to File > Site Manager > New Site.
  3. Choose Protocol SFTP and fill in the Host and Port, but select as Logon Type "Normal" and enter username found in your email - leave the password blank.
  4. Click Connect and you should be able to access the server now.

Q: What if FileZilla only accepts .ppk key files but not .pem?

← Export via APIRokt IP Addresses →