Please review basic campaign setup to make sure you have covered the minimum requirements for running a campaign.
There are many reasons why a campaign may not be delivering as expected. These range from incorrect AIP settings to competing campaigns to insufficient inventory. This guide will take you through the main things to look out for when investigating why a campaign might not be delivering as many impressions as expected.
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Ensure your campaign is set up to deliver as intended.
- Series: Ensure the intended series are added to the campaign, and that they are 'Active'.
- Positional Targeting: Ensure that the intended positional targets are set up on the Campaign-Series detail pages. To do this scroll down to the Series card on the main campaign page, click into your Series, and then scroll down to 'Positional Targeting'. Do not use the Positional Targeting Defaults on the main campaign page, as these may differ from the series-level settings. Series-level campaign settings always override defaults.
- Ads: Ensure your ad(s) is uploaded and active, and that it doesn't exceed the Max Total Time set in the AIPs (see below).
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Check campaign targeting.
Targeting reduces the amount of inventory for your campaign to serve into. Remove any unnecessary targeting restrictions to ensure maximum campaign delivery.
Check Episode Targeting on the Campaign-Series detail pages, i.e.:- Geotargeting
- Device/Platform Targeting
- Episode Targeting
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Ensure your targeted AIPs in your episodes are set up as intended.
- Ensure Priorities are as intended. In most situations, you want it to be “All Live Reads & Spots.”
- Ensure all episodes have the intended markers. For example, if there are no mid-rolls marked in the episodes, no campaigns can deliver into mid-rolls.
- Ensure your Max Total Ads is set up as intended.
- Ensure your marker Max Total Time settings match your ad length. For example, if your Max Total Time for a marker is 60 seconds, and your ad is 90 seconds long, the ad will not be inserted.
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Check that your series downloads match the inventory you've sold.
Impressions require downloads, so it can be that you don't have enough series downloads to meet your impression goal. An impression occurs when a campaign successfully delivers an ad into the AIP in an episode download. To estimate available inventory, look at historical downloads in the series for the same length of time as the flight and multiply that by the AIPs you are targeting. If your campaign goal is 10,000 impressions in one month, but the series typically gets 2,000 downloads a month, it will likely underdeliver. Keep in mind that competing campaigns (see below) as well as the AIP settings in the episodes also impact available inventory.
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Check for other campaigns that might be inhibiting delivery.
This can happen when other campaigns are targeted at earlier positions, or at higher priority.- Frequency: Campaigns default to a Brand Max of 1 per download. If there are other campaigns of the same brand running simultaneously that might affect delivery.
- Exclusivity: If a sequential exclusive campaign is selected for a download, no other campaigns will be inserted. If any other campaign has been selected, an exclusive campaign will not be inserted.
- Competitive Separation: Campaigns can apply competitive separation, so that once that campaign is selected, no campaigns on its “block” list of brands or industries will be inserted. Check to see if any active campaigns are blocking your desired campaign via campaign separation.
- Pacing: If you have multiple campaigns using “Evenly” for pacing, the campaign that is furthest behind in delivery will be prioritized. Check to see if any other “Evenly” paced campaigns might be interfering.
- You can check how this campaign’s frequency and competitive separation matches up against other campaigns by downloading a CSV of the campaign list, filtered on campaigns that are targeting the same series over the same timeline.
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Adjust campaign delivery tools.
To learn more about how campaigns are prioritized for delivery, read our Ad Selection Guide.- Priority: Campaigns with a higher priority deliver over campaigns with a lower priority. You can raise the priority of the campaign in the campaign Information card, so it will be delivered over other competing campaigns.
- Pacing: When using “Evenly” the system will attempt to deliver the campaign evenly over it’s flight. If you are using “Daily Goal”, the campaign will stop delivering once it hits that daily goal. You can switch to “As Fast As Possible” to speed-up delivery. Please note that a Paced campaign that is under-pacing will be delivered over “As Fast As Possible” campaigns of equal priority, regardless of CPM.
- CPM: Campaigns with higher CPMs deliver over campaigns with lower CPMs. This can be controlled for each series on the campaign. Again, a Paced campaign that is under-pacing with a lower CPM will be delivered over a campaign with a higher CPM of equal priority.
- Fill Rate: Make sure Fill Rate is set to 100%.
- You can check how this campaign’s priority matches up against other campaigns by downloading a CSV of the campaign list, filtered on campaigns that are targeting the same series over the same timeline.
FAQs:
- Is there a better time of day to review and adjust underdelivering campaigns?
For maximum impact, you want to want to adjust a campaign before it receives a lot of its impressions. Considering that many apps auto-download new episodes at midnight, you may see the biggest results from your changes around then. For campaigns that target a specific re-occurring series, try to make changes before the next episode drops to see the greatest impact. - Do we have an average response time for the ad picker when changes are made to campaign settings?
Changes to the campaign are applied immediately. However, it takes about an hour for any download to be recorded. Thus, we recommend waiting at least in hour to check for differences in campaign delivery.