AdOps Core
DELIVERY & PACING

Why is my guaranteed campaign underdelivering despite enough inventory?

When forecast inventory is healthy but a campaign still underdelivers, the constraint is usually not supply. It is a frequency cap or a targeting or creative rule shrinking the eligible pool. Raising priority will not help if most matched requests are being filtered by the cap.

It is easy to confuse matched inventory with eligible inventory. Forecasting can show plenty of matched requests while a strict frequency cap, a narrow audience rule, or a missing creative size removes most of them before the line item can serve. The campaign then paces behind even though supply looks fine.

A frequency cap is the classic example: a one-impression-per-user-per-week cap can filter the large majority of matched requests, and no amount of extra priority brings those users back. The delivery log usually makes this visible, showing a high matched count but a much lower eligible count with the difference attributed to the cap.

To fix it, separate matched from eligible in the delivery data, confirm the contracted frequency and creative requirements, then correct the cap period or creative association and reforecast the delivery that is actually reachable in the remaining flight.

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FAQ

Why does a campaign underdeliver with enough inventory?

Because matched inventory is not the same as eligible inventory. A frequency cap or targeting rule can filter most matched requests, so the reachable pool is far smaller than the forecast.

Will raising line item priority fix underdelivery?

Not if the cause is a frequency cap. Priority decides who wins eligible requests; it does not restore users that a cap has already made ineligible.

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