Budget Carryover

In Topsort, campaign budgets can have a “carryover” feature that allows for potential overspending on a given day to compensate for previous underspending. This mechanism helps campaigns utilize their full budget over time.

How Budget Carryover Works

If a campaign spends less than its set daily budget on previous days, the unspent amount accumulates as “unused budget”. This can happen due to factors like low traffic or insufficient vendor funds. On a subsequent day, if conditions improve and funds are available, the campaign is allowed to spend up to double (2x) its usual daily budget to make up for the accumulated unused budget.

For example, if a campaign has a daily budget of $100 but only spends $50 on Day 1, it will have $50 of unused budget carried over. On Day 2, if there’s more traffic, the campaign could potentially spend up to $150 ($100 daily budget + $50 carryover).

Campaign Activation and Carryover

Even if a vendor’s account has no funds when a campaign is initially activated, the system still considers the campaign “active.” During this period, the campaign is technically accumulating unused budget because no spending is occurring. Once funds are added to the vendor’s account, the campaign could spend up to 2x its daily budget, as it catches up on the previously underspent day.