Schedule and pricing

Testing start date: You can set a testing period for a new placement, giving you time to coordinate with the publisher and ensure that your ads are serving correctly.

During the testing period, Campaign Manager 360 serves impressions to the placement as if it your ads were already running on the publisher's site. However, reports for the testing period will show the associated media cost and eCPM for these impressions as zero.

Placement start date and end date: These dates are for reporting purposes only. Impressions serve to your placement regardless of these dates. All that matters for ads to serve to your placement is that the ads are live and the tags are implemented.

Default dates for new placements: When you create a placement, Campaign Manager 360 sets the testing/start/end dates for you by default. The dates chosen by Campaign Manager 360 depend on when your campaign starts. You can edit these dates at any time. Here's how Campaign Manager 360 chooses your default dates:

Select the cost structure for the placement. The cost structure is used for reporting purposes only.

Flights divide the pricing information in your placement into separate blocks. Flighting information is used for reporting purposes only. Actual delivery patterns may vary.

Manual flighting

• To add flight rows manually, click New in the "Flights" section in Campaign Manager 360. Edit flight information in-line.

  Your flights must run from the placement start date to the placement end date. So the first flight must begin on the placement start date (the first date under "From" should be the same as the placement start date). The last flight you add will extend from the flight start date until the placement end date. 

• You can also paste flighting information in from a spreadsheet: Click Paste from spreadsheet and paste in rows that match the format shown in the field below in Campaign Manager 360. Steps:

  1. Create a spreadsheet for your flights. The required format depends on the cost structure you choose.

     • CPM/CPC/CPA: Create a spreadsheet with three columns: start date, number of units, and rate (USD). You may add a fourth column for notes.

     • Flat rate (impressions or clicks): Create a spreadsheet with three columns: start date, number of units, and cost (USD). You may add a fourth column for notes.

  2. Enter values for each row in your spreadsheet.

     For example, a spreadsheet with three flights might look like this:

     1/31/2016	2,000	1,100.25
     2/28/2016	2,000	1,100.25
     3/31/2016	2,000	1,000.25

  3. Copy your flight rows. Do not copy column headers.

  4. Click Paste from spreadsheet. Paste in your flight rows and click Create.

Automatic flighting

Switch this on to divide your pricing periods into calendar months. Pricing and units are recalculated to be spread evenly across the campaign.

You can still manually adjust the pricing data for each date range. However, you cannot adjust the date ranges, because they're set automatically. All flighting must be monthly.

If your placement does not begin at the beginning of a calendar month, Campaign Manager 360 inputs the first flight as the period of time between the placement start date and the end of that month. The same goes for your end date.

Note that the number of units may be smaller for partial months. For example, if your placement starts 1/24/2013 and you activate automatic flighting, the first flight runs from 1/24 to 2/1, so that the next flights can start and end with each calendar month. Your unit number for 1/24 - 2/1 will be smaller because there are only a few days in that flight. When the number of units varies, so does the Cost.

If you switch automatic flighting OFF, all your automatic flights will be removed, except for those you edited manually.

Cap cost sets the maximum media cost your placement can reach in Reporting. Once your placement delivers enough units to reach the cap cost, no further cost is reported.

Cost is based on the number of delivered units times the rate in your flight. Units are impressions, clicks, or activities.

There are two cap cost options:

• Cumulative: Campaign Manager 360 stops recording media cost as soon as your placement receives enough units to equal the sum of the cost for all the flights in your report.

  Check the "Cost" column in your flights table. Add up every cost value in every row. As soon as Campaign Manager 360 reaches the sum, your reports will stop recording media cost for the placement, even if there are still more flights. This could happen in the first flight if your placement does much better than expected. Once your placement reaches the cap cost, your reports stop adding any additional costs for delivered units.

  • For example, say your placement has 4 flights with a cost of $10 per flight. The sum cost for these flights in Campaign Manager 360 is $40. If you set a cumulative cap cost, Campaign Manager 360 will never record more than $40 media cost for your placement. As soon as your placement delivers enough units to cost $40, Campaign Manager 360 stops adding to the cost. This can happen at any time during the run of your placement. If your first two flights add up to $40 in cost, then your reports will not record any further costs.

• Monthly: This caps the cost for each automatic flight in your placement. This is only available if you enable automatic flighting. It's called "monthly" because automatic flights are almost always monthly.

  Check the value under "Cost" in your flights table. If you set a monthly cap cost, this is the cap for each flight. If your placement delivers enough units during a flight period to reach the cap cost, Campaign Manager 360 stops adding to the cost for that placement. When the next flight begins, Campaign Manager 360 starts over at zero. The cost of one flight does not affect the others. Each flight is counted separately.

  • For example, say your placement has four flights. Your units and rate add up to $10 for each flight. At the beginning of the first flight, your placement delivers enough units to reach a cost of $10. There are still a couple weeks in the flight, but Campaign Manager 360 does not report an additional media cost for that flight. Even if there are more units delivered, they do not raise the cost of the flight past $10. When the second flight begins, Campaign Manager 360 starts over. Campaign Manager 360 records the media cost of the second flight until it reaches $10. Of course, if your placement does not deliver enough units during a flight to reach a cost of $10, your reports simply show the cost of the flight (e.g., $7 or $8).

When should you use this feature? You might use cap cost if you've agreed with your publisher on a limit of how many units you can be charged for, regardless of how many units your placement actually delivers. Sometimes placements deliver more units than you booked in the "Flights" section of Campaign Manager 360. Since you agreed on a maximum cost for your placement, you don't want your placement reports to show a higher cost than the maximum.

Why did my reports stop counting cost for a placement? There are two common reasons: (a) You set a cumulative cap cost and your placement delivered enough units to reach the cap. This means that the sum of the cost for your flights so far reached the cap cost. (b) You set a monthly cap cost and this particular flight has already reached that cap. By the next flight, your report will start over.

Click Modify > Units to change the number of units for all flights (then click Apply to all). With automatic flighting activated, you can do the same for rate.

Units can be impressions, clicks, or Floodlight activities. It depends which cost structure you use.