Inventory Forecast

The Inventory Forecast is a sophisticated tool to predict the total stock, sold vs. available impressions for a particular period of time and segmentation target.

Having strong knowledge about how inventories are demanded the most or how many impressions will be available during the following months is information very valuable to make the right business decisions.

You can use the system in two different ways:

• Inventory Tool View (Manage/Space/Inventory Forecast) to check stock availability for a particular space or a group of spaces.

• Integrated with Campaign View (Manage/Orders/New Campaign) to check a particular line item before it gets implemented during the first steps of the selling process.

The system will use as input the following fields:

·Amount of impressions/click
·Site/zones/subzones and size targeting
·Start Date / End Date
·Weekly timetable segmentations
·Country targeting
·User frequency caps as Maximum amount of impressions/session or date and Maximum amount of impressions/user (for the whole campaign)
·Priority limit
·Adjustment
·Historical basis
·Estimated CTR (clicks forecasting)

Using trends by day of the week + hour + country + zone, predictions get closer to real traffic.

 

If you are using the integrated campaign form option, the Priority limit, Adjustment, Historical basis,Estimated CTR (clicks forecasting) are inputs to set in “global preference”.

 

Priority Limit
It is the Priority to define the breakup between sold impressions and house/default impressions.
All campaigns assigned to this priority or lower are treated as backup campaigns. They are not taken into account to block inventory.

Manual Adjustment

You can introduce manual adjustments to anticipate traffic fluctuations around key dates, events or seasonalities.
You can select a % between -100 to +100 from the regular trend.

Flexible Historical Bases

The Inventory tool uses data about what inventory was like in the past to calculate the future number of impressions.
According to the traffic trend for a site or network there are different historical bases to choose to provide better estimations.

If you know the tendencies and seasonality related with your traffic, you could choose the best base for a particular network/site or content zones.

Available Historical Bases:

·Last 7 days
·Last 15 days
·Last 30 days
·Last 60 days
·Last 90 days

 

 

How the Inventory Tool Works?

• STEP 1: INVENTORY FORECAST (Gross Forecast)

The system calculates the total amount of impressions for future periods, using Linear Least Squares Regression from historical data and historical bases.
Number of impressions and unique users is obtained by Site/Zone/Subzone/ Space + Hour + Country.

• STEP 2: SIMULATION (Net Forecast)

The system simulates the delivery for all campaigns available in the adserver. The priority limit determines the differentiation between sold impressions and remnant inventory.
The system calculates the “available stock” from the total (step 1).

• STEP 3: CHECK (pass/not pass decision)

The system calculates if the number of impressions available is adequate for order/campaign needs.

The results are showed in:
- Red : Not enough stock
- Yellow: +- 10% from the target
- Black: Stock available

 

How to use the Inventory Tool?

·Inventory Tool View

·Go to Manage/Spaces/Inventory Forecasting

·Indicate:

Amount of impressions/click
Site/zones/subzones and size targeting
Start Date / End date
Weekly timetable segmentations
Country targeting
User frequency caps as Maximum amount of impressions/session or date and
Maximum amount of impressions/user (for the whole campaign)
Priority limit
Adjustment
Historical basis
Estimated CTR (clicks forecasting)

 

The system shows summarizing results:

If you choose the “show impressions details” the system introduces details of impressions per day:

 

Integration with Campaign View

·Go to Manage/ Order/ Add New Campaign.

There is a button to check inventory availability. The system uses the campaign information (number of actions, dates, frequencies, segmentation) as inputs to check for stock availability.
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The system shows summarizing results.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Competitive Campaigns

Next to final result there is a link to see campaigns which could be affected (under delivery) if the new campaign is created despite not having enough stock.

 

 

Wallpapers inventory

Using Advance segmentation criteria; if you choose “log 1 impression per page” the amount of impressions added for the campaign will be the number of impression for each of the slots (companions ads).
The system verifies the spaces group and if all of the spaces into the group have enough impressions the system indicate the availability.

EXAMPLE:

·Amount of impressions: 100.000
·Slots: 300x250 and 728x90
·Impressions to deliver per slot: 100.000
·Amount of impressions input at inventory tool form / add campaign form: 100.000
·Total impressions to deliver : 200.000
·Total impression to block (inventory tool): 200.000