Campaign Forecasting estimates how a campaign is likely to perform before it
goes live. It turns a campaign setup into a projection of expected results, so
advertisers and ad operations teams can plan spend, set expectations, and
compare configurations without having to launch and wait.
What a Forecast Tells You
For a given campaign setup, a forecast projects the outcomes that matter for planning: how often the campaign is expected to be shown, how much engagement it is expected to generate, how much of the budget it is expected to use, and the sales it is expected to drive. Every projection is returned as a range rather than a single number. The range reflects how much natural variation to expect for a campaign of that size and duration, and it is the part of the answer that should drive planning decisions.What the Forecast Takes Into Account
A forecast is built from three kinds of context. No advertiser needs to supply historical data, because everything beyond the campaign setup itself comes from the marketplace’s own activity.The Campaign Setup
What is being promoted, where it is eligible to appear, when the campaign runs, how much it can spend, and which bidding strategy and performance goal it uses.Recent Marketplace Performance
How the marketplace as a whole has been behaving lately: the level of shopper activity, how engaged shoppers are with ads, and the prevailing cost of advertising on it. This is what makes a forecast specific to each marketplace instead of a generic industry benchmark.Demand on the Targeted Inventory
How much shopper attention the campaign’s specific targets attract, across the products, searches, categories, or placements it is set up around, and how contested that inventory is by other advertisers.Supported Campaigns
Forecasting is available for sponsored listings, banner, and sponsored brand campaigns, under both automated and manual bidding. The projected metrics offered depend on the format, since not every format is measured the same way.Where Forecasts Appear
Forecasts are shown in the campaign creation flow of the ad platform, so advertisers see expected results as they configure a campaign and can adjust budget, dates, or targeting and see the projection update. They are also available as a standalone component of Ad Intelligence, so marketplaces can surface projections inside their own planning tools and workflows.How to Use a Forecast Well
Plan With the Range
The range is the forecast. Planning against the single midpoint value
overstates how precise any pre-launch estimate can be.
Forecast One Campaign at a Time
Each forecast describes a single campaign configuration. Adding forecasts
together does not describe what a set of campaigns would do collectively.
Re-Run After Changes
Budget, dates, targeting, and bidding strategy all move the projection.
Forecast again after editing a campaign rather than reusing an earlier
estimate.
Keep the Horizon Short
Forecasts are built for near-term planning, roughly up to a month ahead.
Longer horizons are better handled as a sequence of shorter plans.