Pacing Control Strategy Group FAQs

Updated 

4 months ago

  • It does away with any restrictions on how old Campaigns can be tagged with Strategy Group Pacing Control.

  • You also have Automated Pacing mode as an option.

  • It combines Pacing Group and Budget Source capability and goes beyond.

The key difference between Budget Source and Pacing Control is that Pacing Control will take into account any spend that has happened since the start date of the Pacing Control (even if it is applied on a campaign after a few days).

For example, if Pacing Control is for 1st January to 31st January; even if the Pacing Control is applied on a campaign on 15th January, it will take into account the spend on the campaign from 1st January onwards. This is, however, not the case with Budget Sources.

Pacing Control works across all Sprinklr supported channels in Strategy Groups.

No, only one Pacing Control Strategy Group can be applied to a Campaign at a time.

Yes. You can create a Pacing Control Strategy Group using All Channels.

For all sections, the data is refreshed after every 15-minute interval.

Yes, it can be added to existing Campaigns that are running. It will update backfill and take into consideration any old spend within the duration specified by Start and End date in the Pacing Control.

Yes, you can use Pacing Control on Reach and Frequency campaigns. The pausing action, however, will not pause those campaigns if spend limits have already been reached since Reach and Frequency campaigns cannot be paused mid-flight.

The Campaign will get paused on the End Date regardless of whether the Spend threshold is met.

No. It will respect the manual pause and not activate the campaign.

Yes. You can select a Strategy Group with Pacing Control and leave the Budget Source field empty when the Budget Source field is mandatory.

Using the Optimization metric does not impact performance in any way. Basically, you can use an optimization metric if you want to check the performance of a campaign with respect to any metric other than spend along with the Spend metric (for which performance is calculated by default). If you don't add the optimization metric, then the performance will be tracked on the basis of the Spend only.

There is no limitation as to how far back you can go for both criteria.

The following criteria for Campaigns should satisfy:

  • The Start Date and End Date of a Campaign may or may not lie in between the Start Date and End Date of the Pacing Control Strategy Group.

You will need to set the campaign Start and End Date only for Manual Pacing Control. It is not needed for Automated Pacing Control.

No, the End Date cannot be set as Ongoing. As a workaround, you can set it far ahead in the future.

No, you cannot use the Pacing Control option to pause campaigns when the Spend limit is reached for Google Ads.

Yes, Strategy Groups having 'All Channels' can be applied to Google Ads.

Yes, Reporting-only partners can leverage Pacing Insights via Strategy Groups.

To learn more about using Strategy Groups in Ads Manager if you have only reporting permission, please work with your Success Manager.

No. Pausing based on daily/lifetime budget or custom limit will only happen if the Allow Pausing Campaigns when Spend Limit is reached toggle is turned on in the Pacing Control setup.

The frequency of running Pacing Control in the background is 15 minutes.

No, it is not possible to use the same Budget Source under a different Strategy Group.

Yes, the Campaign will be re-activated, based on the Pacing Control settings, it should no longer be paused. Examples:

  • If the Campaign was paused due to Pacing Control reaching the Daily Spend limit, then it will be activated the next day.

  • If the Campaign was paused due to the End Date being passed, then if you update the Pacing Control end date to a future date, the Campaign will be activated again.

No. It is mandatory to enter the Lifetime Spend Limit to be able to use the Customized Duration Spend Limit.

Yes. Pacing Control will override the CBO and Lifetime Budget.

Yes, You can use the Customized Duration capability. However, it is important to note that Pacing Control will not cause the campaign to spend more. It will only pause campaigns to ensure that the spend is restricted within the specified spend limits.

  • For Pacing Control: In the Pacing Control, you can configure when and at what deviation you want to receive notifications. Everyone with view permission on this Pacing Control would receive a notification (unless globally visible, in which case, only the creator will get a notification) when the budget is under pacing or over pacing.
    The frequency of the notification will be based on the option selected, i.e. Every day, Once in 3 days, Once in 7 days. The notification will depend on the value specified in 'Under Pacing/Over Pacing Percentage'. For example, if 20 is specified, you will receive a notification when the expected spend deviates from the actual spend by 20% or more. Note that if no Under Pacing/Over Pacing Percentage value is specified, you will not receive any notification.

  • For Ad Entities (Campaign, Ad Set) via Rule Engine: You can achieve this use case for individual Campaigns and Ad Sets via Rule Engine. Notifications on the following metrics can be controlled via Rule Engine.

These notification metrics are based on the Pacing Control Deviation Rate.

If you are using the Pacing Control optimization capability in Strategy Groups, you will need either daily spend limits or lifetime spend limits set in order to run it.

For Automated Pacing, the Campaign must have a Spend Cap or Lifetime Budget at Paid Initiative Level present for Pacing Control to perform as expected. If either of the two is missing, the system will not take that Campaign into consideration.

There is no limitation on the kind of campaigns which can be added to a Pacing Control. They can be added cross-channel and cross-account across multiple currencies and timezones.

Customizing Daily Spend will not update your ad entity budget; it will only control the Pacing Control Daily Budget. For more information, see Customize Daily Spend.

  • Not supported: No metric or condition related to the Pacing Control is supported in Rule Engine currently.

  • Supported: 4 Pacing metrics for individual Campaigns and Ad Sets are supported in Rule Engine. Refer to the question above (How can you send a notification if your Campaign is Overspending or Understanding?) for details.

Below are the details:

Values Specified/Available

  • Pacing Control Total Lifetime Budget

  • Spent on each Campaign tagged to the Pacing Control

  • Pacing Control Start/End date

  • Spend Cap for each Campaign

Terms

Values Calculated

Overall Pacing Control

  • Expected Spent = Time Elapsed(%) * Total Budget

  • Time Elapsed % = (From Start Time to Present Time) v/s Total Time (difference in Start time and End time calculated on most granular level i.e. milliseconds and then divided by total time in milliseconds)

  • Total Spent = Sum of spent on each Campaign tagged to the Pacing Control Strategy Group

  • Remaining Budget = Pacing Control Total Lifetime Budget - Total Spent

  • Underspending/Overspending = Expected Spent - Total Spent| / Expected Spent (%)

  • Required Daily Spent = Pacing Control Total Lifetime Budget / Total Duration (in days)

  • Average Daily Spent = Total Spent till now / Days elapsed

  • Pacing Control Spent vs Ideal Pacing Percentage = (Spend to Date/Total Budget) – (Days Elapsed/Total Days in Flight)

  • Paid Initiative Pacing Control Spent vs Ideal Pacing Percentage = (Spend to Date/Total Budget) – (Days Elapsed/Total Days in Flight)

  • Ad Set Pacing Control Spent vs Ideal Pacing Percentage = (Spend to Date/Total Budget) – (Days Elapsed/Total Days in Flight)

For Each Campaign

Facebook (when CBO is off)

  • Calculated Budget = Spend Cap of Campaign (if available) else,

  • Calculated Budget = Sum of Ad Sets’ Lifetime Budgets (if available) else,

  • Calculated Budget = Summation over Ad Sets (Daily Budget * Duration of Ad Set)

Facebook (when CBO is on)

  • Calculated Budget = Paid Initiative Lifetime Budget (if available) else,

  • Calculated Budget = Spend Cap at Paid Initiative level (if available) else,

  • Calculated Budget = Paid Initiative Daily Budget * Duration of Paid Initiative

LinkedIn

  • Calculated Budget = Spend Cap of PI (if available) else,

  • Calculated Budget = Sum of Ad Sets’ Lifetime Budgets (if available) else,

  • Calculated Budget = Summation over Ad Sets (Daily Budget * Duration of Ad Set)

Other Channels

  • Calculated Budget = Paid Initiative Lifetime Budget (if available) else,

  • Calculated Budget = Paid Initiative Spend Cap (if available) else,

  • Calculated Budget = Paid Initiative Daily Budget * Duration of Paid Initiative (if available) else,

  • Calculated Budget = Sum of Ad Sets Lifetime Budgets, else,

  • Calculated Budget = Summation over Ad Sets (Daily Budget * Duration of Ad Set)

Valid for All Channels

If Daily Budget changes in between,

  • Calculated Budget = Spent + (Remaining days * Current Daily Budget)

  • Average Daily Spent = Spent / Days Elapsed

  • Required Daily Budget = Remaining Budget / Remaining Duration (Days)

  • Expected Spent = (Calculated Budget / Duration (Days)) * Days Elapsed

  • Pacing Rate = (Expected Spent - Spent) / Expected Spent %

Note

​The Time-Duration filter on the dashboard has no effect on the Pacing dashboard except for the Pacing Distribution Along with Paid Initiatives, Distribution of Spent by Channel, and Distribution of Spent by Account widgets. It only considers the time-duration to filter Campaigns and not the data.

Basically, the Time Duration filter only works at Campaign level widgets to filter the time range. However, it does not work for Pacing Control entities.

Yes. Once the capability is enabled, all calculations for various Pacing metrics will exclude data from the Current Day. For example, let's say, today is 11th May. If you have a Pacing Group that is set to be active between 1st May to 31st May and you want to view the data from 1st May to 10th May excluding the Current Day spend, i.e. 11th May, then you can do so using this capability.

The formulas of the following metrics will be updated as follows to calculate the desired Pacing data once this capability is enabled:

  • Spend to Date - [Spend] - [Total Spend] Days Elapsed - [Yesterday] - [Pacing Group Start Date]

  • Expected Speed - [Total Budget] / [Days Elapsed]

  • Budget Pacing Percentage - [Spend to Date] / [Total Budget]

  • Lifetime Percentage Spent - [Spend to Date] / [Days Elapsed]

  • Time Elapsed Percentage - [Days Elapsed] / [Pacing Group Flight]

  • Spend Remaining - [Total Budget] - Spend to Date

  • Average Daily Spend - [Spend to Date] / [Days Elapsed]

  • Required Daily Spend - [Spend Remaining] / [(Pacing Group End Date) - (Days Elapsed)]

To learn more about getting this capability enabled in your environment, please work with your Success Manager.

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