Budget and Scheduling

Bidding

Bid Type

By default, and for most self-serve users, the only available bid type is CPM (Cost per Mille), meaning the bid price is set for 1,000 impressions.

Bid Price

Bid price varies depending on the media type your ads will serve on. Below are the minimum bid prices for each media type:

• Mobile & Desktop: Minimum CPM is $3.50. For event or short-flight campaigns, a CPM of $10–$15 is recommended. To ensure optimal pacing for video campaigns, we suggest setting a $8 CPM.

• CTV & OTT:

  • CTV Standard Categories: Minimum CPM is $25.

  • CTV Premium Categories (Top Networks): Minimum CPM is $35.

• Audio:

  • Streaming audio minimum CPM is $19.

  • Podcasts require a minimum CPM of $25.

  • If targeting both streaming and podcast formats within the same ad group, the minimum CPM is $25.

Budget and Flight

There is no minimum budget requirement on Ads Manager for any media channel.

Determining a Budget

To determine the ideal budget for your campaign:

1. Use the forecasting tool on the right side of Ads Manager.

2. After setting your campaign’s targeting parameters, you’ll see daily available impressions estimates.

3. Enter your campaign’s flight dates in the Timeframe box, along with your bid price and budget.

4. View the estimated daily budgeted impressions.

💡 Pro Tip: Ensure your daily budgeted impressions are lower than the daily available impressions for optimal performance.

For more details, visit our forecasting tool help page.

Time Period Budget

Time Period Budgets allow you to allocate different budget amounts for specific time periods within your campaign. Unspent budgets from earlier periods carry over to later periods, ensuring full budget utilization.

Budget Carry-Over Rules:

• Active Ad Group: If a time period underdelivers, any unspent budget rolls into the next period.

• Paused & Relaunched Ad Group: If an ad group is paused mid-flight and later relaunched, all remaining budgets from previous periods are added to the next active period.

Note: If you do not want your unspent budget rolling over to the next time period, we recommend creating a separate ad group for each time period, or to contact us at selfservehelp@groundtruth.com to enable daily budget for your tenant.

Example Scenarios:

• Scenario 1 – Active Ad Group:

  • 3 Time Periods: T1, T2, T3, each with $100 budget.

  • T2 underpaced and delivered only $50.

  • T3 will serve $150 ($100 from T3 + $50 from T2).

• Scenario 2 – Paused and Relaunched Ad Group:

  • 3 Time Periods: T1, T2, T3, each with $100 budget.

  • T1 was paused mid-flight, and the ad group was relaunched at the beginning of T3.

  • T3 will spend a total of $250 ($50 remaining from T1 + $100 from T2 + $100 for T3).

Note: There cannot be any gaps between time periods.

Day Parting

Day parting allows you to specify certain hours or days of the week for ad delivery. By default, your ad group is set to show ads "All Times", meaning your ads can appear 24/7.

Day Parting Options:

• Weekend: Saturday and Sunday (All hours)

• Weekdays: Monday through Friday (All hours)

• Early Morning: 5 AM – 10 AM (All days)

• Evenings: 5 PM – 1 AM (All days)

• Late Night: 10 PM – 4 AM (All days)

• Working Hours: 9 AM – 6 PM (All days)

• School Hours: 8 AM – 4 PM (Monday – Friday)

• Happy Hour: 6 PM – 9 PM (Monday – Friday)

• Custom: Choose your own days and hours

Advanced Settings

Tracking Pixels

Tracking pixels can be added to your ad group through the account settings page. For details on creating, validating, and adding a tracking pixel, please visit our pixel help page.