Generalize paid-media-creative variants for Google Ads customizers (deprecate localeVariants)

[ejsuncy]

Background

PR #2174 added xdm:localeVariants to the paid-media-creative datatype, modeled on Meta's asset_feed_spec language_label (multi-language ads).

During connector implementation review, it surfaced that Google Ads CustomizerAttribute substitution produces materially different rendered headlines/bodies that are not keyed by locale. Example: a headline Get {CUSTOMIZER.discount} on Adobe Creative Cloud Subscription with a discount attribute linked at the ad-group-criterion level can resolve to 5%, 10%, 15%, 20% across different keywords. Each of these is a distinct served impression that downstream consumers (CJA Content Analytics → feature extraction → LLM sentiment analysis) need to snapshot independently.

Storing only the unresolved template string loses fidelity for the analytics pipeline.

Proposed Change

• Soft-deprecate xdm:localeVariants on the paidMediaCreative definition (meta:status: deprecated + description prefix "Deprecated: Use xdm:variants instead..."). Connector has not yet implemented populating this field, so deprecation cost is minimal.
• Add a more general xdm:variants array. Each variant carries:
  • xdm:variantID — stable identifier
  • xdm:language — BCP 47 tag, optional (set for Meta-style multi-language variants)
  • xdm:customizers[] — optional, list of resolved customizer attributes (name, type, value, scope). scope enum: customer | account | campaign | adGroup | adGroupCriterion | asset | other
  • Per-variant overrides of title, body, callToAction, destinationURL, displayURL, trackingURLs, assets
• Add new creativeCustomizer and creativeVariant sub-definitions.
• Migrate paid-media-creative.example.4.json from xdm:localeVariants to xdm:variants.
• Add paid-media-creative.example.5.json demonstrating Google Ads customizer expansion (4 rendered variants for 5 / 10 / 15 / 20 % discount).

Network Coverage

Ad network	Variant signal	Stored in
Meta multi-language ads	language_label	xdm:language
Google Ads CustomizerAttribute	resolved attribute name/value/scope	xdm:customizers[]
Meta + Google with both axes	both	both fields populated
TikTok / Snapchat / LinkedIn	locale and/or template substitution	same shape

Reference

• Google Ads – CustomizerAttribute resolution & RSA customization
• Meta Marketing API – Multi-Language Ads

Related

• Original PR: Add locale variants to paid-media-creative datatype #2174
• Predecessor issue: Add locale/language variants to paid-media-creative datatype #2173
• Internal Adobe Jira: AN-451840 (predecessor AN-451211, design AN-450480)