Forecasting in Ads Manager

The forecasting tool within Ads Manager enables you to gain deeper insights into whether your campaign can maintain proper pacing and deliver fully, considering both your targeting parameters and budget. It's an important tool that should be used when setting up a campaign.

It's important to note that this tool provides estimated results, not guaranteed results. These numbers are provided to give you an idea of performance for your targeting configuration. Estimates are based on many factors, including past campaign data, location targeting, audience targeting, bid prices, budget, and market data.

Overview of the forecasting tool

While configuring your campaign in Ads Manager and progressing through the various stages (choosing device type, refining targeting parameters, uploading creatives, and determining budget), the tool will populate with the following information:

• Daily Available Impressions: Daily available impressions represent the projected range of impressions available for selected targeting tactics each day.
• Daily Budget Impressions: Daily budget impressions represent the number of impressions that need to be delivered each day to fulfill the budget. Note: For ad groups using time period budgets, this value is calculated based on the budget for the current time period.
• Audience Daily Reach: Estimated amount of device IDs reached daily.

How it works

Step 1 - Entering Targeting Parameters

As you set up your campaign, you'll see on the forecasting tool, the daily available impressions and audience daily reach estimates populate.

• Example: In this example, you can see that based on the brand audiences chosen and the location filter chosen, we have an estimated daily available impression range of 4,000 - 4,400 and an audience daily reach of 2,100 - 2,300.

Step 2  - Uploading Creative

The next step in building your campaign involves uploading your creatives. It's important to note that prior to adding creatives, our estimation encompassed all ad requests regardless of creative format and dimensions. However, once a creative is added, the forecast is tailored to mirror the proportion of impressions accessible for that particular size and type.

Step 3 - Entering Budget and Bid Price

The next step is to establish the bid price and budget for the ad group/campaign. When you do, you will see the daily budget impressions populate.

• Example: In this example, you can see that based on a bid price of $5 and an overall budget of $100, we have daily budgeted impressions amounting to 2,500. Since that value falls within the daily available impressions range of 4,000-4,400, our system estimates that the campaign will be able to deliver in full without any issues, given the campaign parameters and budget. 

Continuing on the above example, let's say we changed the budget of the ad group or campaign to $200. Based on that budget and bid price, we now see that the daily budget impressions have increased to 5,000. This value is higher than the daily available impressions signifying that the campaign is at risk of underpacing and under-delivering. 

When daily budget impressions are greater than the daily available impressions, you will see the slider color go from green to orange, as well as a warning icon. If you get this warning icon, there are several things you can do:

• Add additional audiences to increase your reach.
• Broaden the geographical area you are targeting.
• Modify the budget.

Ensuring that the daily budgeted impressions always fall within or below the daily available impressions is what we recommend to ensure optimal performance for all campaigns. 

Limitations of the forecasting tool

• Forecasting is not available for Canadian campaigns.
• Forecasting is not available for campaigns using Weather Targeting as the tactic.
• Forecasting is not available 3rd Party Segments / Custom Audiences.
• Forecasting is not available for filters such as: Income / Publisher Categories / Device Targeting / Alcohol Age.

Frequently Asked Questions

1. Why are the daily impressions less than 1000? Within Ads Manager, the forecasting tool provides an estimate to determine the potential impressions we can deliver based on the chosen parameters. It's crucial to ensure a daily available impression count surpassing 1000, otherwise, the campaign may not achieve its full impression potential. If impressions are indicated as less than 1000, it's advised to add additional audience segments and locations to target.
2. Why did my not campaign not deliver in full if I followed the Projected Daily Impressions? Projected Daily Impressions are based on historical footfall for Blueprinted locations and are meant as a guideline rather than a guarantee. The number provided estimates the impressions available but doesn't ensure that all those impressions will be served. Generally, you can anticipate that your campaign will serve about 70% of the Projected Daily Impressions available. This range accounts for variations due to factors such as ad request volume and bid competition.