Overview

This article describes common issues you may face when using the forecast. Issues in the forecast can originate from:

• known limitations
• problems with counting impressions
• errors in campaign/insertion setup

Note that this article does not explain how to use the forecast, but focuses on common problems. For a complete documentation, see next chapter “Complete documentation”.  

Forecast displays inexplicable overbooking

Competing insertions

The scope (websites, pages, targeting criteria etc.) of your insertion may be displayed as overbooked due to other competing insertions taking the volume; to check this:

• go to the forecast UI
• locate your insertion on the List of insertions tab
• click the Forecast button (piechart icon - see screenshot below) to set the criteria of the insertion’s scope

• Switch to the Split per criterion tab
• select Volume Per Day
• check the chart to see which insertion priority layers occupy the inventory; there may be an Exclusive or other higher priority insertions that occupy the inventory; also look at the last days of your insertion - a competing insertion may slow down your insertion which may not be able to recover
• sort the List of insertions by Volume to see the large volume insertions at the top
• check the indicators in the Overbooking column (Note: in case of insertions with a group volume, the forecast is based on the group volume the insertion belongs to); click on the See the delivery history graph link in the tooltip to view a chart showing the past, future and target (ideal) delivery; detailed documentation in Troubleshoot insertion progress

Capping

Overbooking may be displayed because frequency capping settings in your insertion is limiting its delivery; query the forecast for your insertion and check if the summary on the top right corner shows capping settings.

Custom timeframes

The forecast considers custom timeframes of insertions (delivery on specific weekdays or specific hours of the day); if an insertion is displayed as overbooked, check the summary on the top right corner of the forecast UI for such custom timeframes

Slider

If you want the forecast to ignore insertions beneath a specific priority level, you can move the slider: the volumes of insertions with priorities beneath the slider position will be considered as available by the forecast (i. e. shown as inventory you can sell) 

Links and exclusions

Linked insertions are always displayed together to a user on the page while excluded insertions are never displayed together. If an insertion A is linked to an insertion B and insertion B is overbooked (not enough available volume), then insertion A will be displayed as overbooked as well. Likewise, in case of exclusions, an insertion may be displayed as overbooked because it must not appear together with one or multiple other insertion. Links and exclusions only work properly with OneCall tagging (see One call and Standard call compared); if you are using the standard tagging, the forecast will still calculate as if you used OneCall tagging; however, the limitations of links and exclusions with standard tagging will lead to imprecise forecast data!

Orphan insertions

Orphan insertions may still occupy your inventory unwantedly. Putting an insertion offline or setting the campaign of the insertion to status “Booked” or “Prebooked” is not sufficient to free up the occupied inventory. Make sure you set the campaign of your insertion to status “Draft” to exclude the insertion from the forecast.  

Forecast is not up to date

Any insertion modification impacting the delivery will change the current or future delivery situation of other competing insertions, if their scope fully or partially overlaps with your insertion. To be sure that recent modifications of other insertions are taken into account, check the “Last computation date” in the top right corner of the forecast UI:

• in the free forecast version, wait for the next day (forecast computation is done overnight)
• in the premium version, wait for approx. 5 minutes after the insertion modification (computation is done instantly and takes approx. 5 minutes)

Forecast is not precise

By nature, the forecast is a projection of the past data into the future. The forecast precision depends on sufficient and significant data in the past. The forecast considers all the past data, but the previous 60 days represent 99% of the influence. Imprecision can occur in these cases:

• new inventory: the forecast needs 4 weeks of incoming traffic from a new page/website/format to be reliable and take cycles into account (working days vs. weekends etc.)
• sampling: Equativ cannot count all traffic events; instead, Equativ works with a sample which is then extrapolated and used in the forecast; if the forecast scope is very narrow and covers less than 100 000 impressions, the forecast can be imprecise due to the applied sampling

Forecast is “0” despite past traffic

For criteria with very little past traffic per day, the forecast will indicate 0 impressions:

• criteria with 10 impressions/day as an average is very likely to be removed
• criteria with more than 50 impressions/day as an average is almost surely included

See also next chapter: “Forecast criteria are hidden” below.  

Forecast criteria are hidden

If you are missing a criterion on the criteria pane, check the chapter “Conditions for criteria availability” in the Forecast criteria availability article. In the same article, read the chapter “Forecasting criteria without past targeting” to learn how to forecast a criterion you have never used in the past and is currently hidden from the forecast.  

Forecast ignores traffic peaks

The forecast minimizes the effects of sudden and rare traffic peaks. Taking such peaks into account would be risky since these peaks do not follow a specific pattern (cycle). However, the forecast always takes regular cycles into account (hour of day, day, week, week of year and global growth/decrease trend of traffic by page).  

Forecast is not meaningful due to irregular traffic 

If the traffic on your sites is highly irregular, forecast data may not be meaningful at all since the forecast is based on past data. In this case you may want to consider using the forecast data injection. With this feature, you can feed the forecast with your own custom traffic data, which will be used for calculations instead of the past traffic data.  

Forecast tooltips do not match with volume column

In the forecast UI, on the List of insertions tab, you can mouse over the thumb icon to get a black tooltip with exact numbers. Here, insertions which do not use the option “Stop insertion at end date, even if all impressions are not delivered” (see “General settings” tab in insertions) are displayed as follows:

• in the black tooltip, the numbers are based only on the timeframe till the defined end date of the insertion
• in the Volume column, the number is based on the timeframe beyond the defined end date of the insertion (if your forecast query is for the maximum future time frame, i. e. 6 months).

Contact Equativ support

If the solutions and explanations provided above do not resolve your forecast issue, you may want to consider Equativ's support team. Make sure you provide the following information:

• the involved insertion IDs
• the exact settings of your forecast query (time frame, criteria etc.)
• the investigation you made so far to resolve your issue

Ideally, contact Equativ's support team when the insertion(s) are still online to allow for quick interventions to fix the issue.