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A media buy can sit active for weeks while a package delivers a few percent of its budget. A package’s pacing_index says whether it is on track, and Apostra now tells you when a live package falls well behind.

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Read it

The seller reports pacing_index. It is AdCP’s pacing_index, and Apostra returns the seller’s value as it came, on the package’s delivery. The value is the seller’s own measure, so how it is worked out depends on the seller. A package whose seller sends none has no pacing_index. Apostra does not publish a number of its own in its place.

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When Apostra tells you a package is behind

The behind-pace notification is in beta and is switched on per organization. Ask your Apostra contact to turn it on for your organization.
Apostra checks every live package on every media buy status sweep (hourly). For an organization in the beta, it notifies the buying account when a package:
  • is on an ACTIVE media buy and is neither paused nor canceled;
  • is inside its own flight, with at least 10% of the flight elapsed when the seller’s totals were last stored; and
  • is below a pace of 0.8.
The pace is the seller’s pacing_index when the seller sent one. When it sent none, Apostra estimates the pace from the package’s budget spread evenly over its own flight and the spend delivered so far. The estimate only decides whether to tell you. It is never shown as a pacing_index, and it is withheld when the package has no budget, when less than 5% of its flight has elapsed, or when the budget and the seller’s delivery report are in different currencies. A package whose flight has not opened is never behind, whatever its seller reports. A flighted buy carries one date-bounded package per window, so each window is judged inside its own flight. The notice arrives as a campaign.unhealthy notification with reason: "package_behind_pace". Its data carries the media buy, the package, pacingIndex, pacingIndexBasis (seller or estimate), flightElapsed, and the delivered spend and budget when the package has one. Who is emailed or sees it in the inbox follows the account’s existing notification preferences for campaign.unhealthy, and webhook subscriptions to that event receive it. A package is told about once per week of its flight. A package that stays behind is told about again each week. A one-week package gets one notice. Every notice is stored as a notification on your account, so the record of what you were told and when stays in Apostra. The 0.8 threshold and the 10% minimum match the point where the embedded sales agent starts diagnosing why a package is behind, so you and the seller’s agent agree on which packages are.

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Why a package is behind

Today the notice says the package is behind pace. When a seller reports why through AdCP indicators on the package, such as pacing_risk or inventory_shortfall_forecast, that is the reason to read. Apostra does not yet request or keep those indicators, so the notice does not name a reason. To see how a buy that has drifted from its booking is reported, read Does your buy still match the booking?. To change a live buy whose package is behind, read Change a live media buy.