Model data for an ads platform

Q: Model data for an ads platform

This is a System Design interview question from Netflix for Software Engineer roles. View the full question and solution on PracHub.

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Question

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Problem

Design a data model for an online advertising system that supports creating ads and analyzing delivery/performance.

Core product needs

The system should support:

Advertisers with multiple campaigns .
Campaigns containing ad groups (or similar grouping) and creatives/ads .
Targeting (e.g., geo, device, interests, custom audiences).
Budgeting and pacing (daily/lifetime budgets).
Reporting/analytics on delivery events: impressions, clicks, conversions .

Tasks

Propose a relational schema (tables + key columns) for the “source of truth” entities.
Decide how to represent targeting in the model (normalized tables vs JSON/kv vs hybrid), and justify.
Design how event logs (impression/click/conversion) should be stored for high volume and how they join back to ads/campaigns for reporting.
List the most important indexes/partition keys.
Provide 2–3 example queries the business will need (e.g., campaign spend yesterday, CTR by creative, conversions by audience).

Assumptions

You may assume a typical ads hierarchy: Advertiser → Campaign → AdGroup → Ad/Creative.
Event volume is large (analytics-scale). State any additional assumptions you need.

Model data for an ads platform

Problem

Core product needs

Tasks

Assumptions

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