Budgets, caps and pacing

Each campaign has a daily budget in USD. The day is the UTC day, from 00:00 to 24:00 UTC. On a new account, a campaign saved without a budget gets 200 USD, the account's daily limit, so two campaigns without a budget already exceed it. Once the limit is lifted, an empty budget means no cap: the campaign then spends as long as it wins auctions and the account has a balance.

Spend counted against the budget is refreshed every few minutes, so a day can end slightly above or below the amount you set.

• Even (spread over the day): the default. The campaign keeps its spend in line with the part of the UTC day that has passed, so it buys all day long instead of stopping in the morning.
• As fast as possible: the campaign buys every visitor it wins until the daily budget is reached.

Pacing only applies when there is a daily budget.

• Balance: campaigns spend from your prepaid balance. At zero they stop, and start again after a deposit is credited (see Fund your account).
• New accounts: at most 200 USD per day across all campaigns. A single daily budget above 200 USD cannot be saved; a campaign whose budget would take the account's total above 200 USD is refused when you send it to review.
• Saving a live campaign through its form pauses it until you put it live again. A new daily budget also sends it back to review, up to one business day; pacing does not. Rather than editing a campaign that works, duplicate it and change the copy.
• Spend is an estimate until the day is settled, the next morning UTC. Reports show it per day, campaign, site, zone, country, device and creative.

In the campaign targeting you can cap how often one visitor sees the campaign: 1 to 1,000 times per 1, 6, 12 or 24 hours. Once a visitor reaches it, the campaign leaves the auction for that visitor and the next bid wins. It is a close limit, not an exact count.

You can also pick hours of the week, in the time zone you choose: outside them, the campaign does not buy.

Publishers set their own limits on top: one ad per visitor per zone per window (24 hours by default), interstitials once per 24 hours, in-page cards once per 6 hours.

Both are optional, in UTC, and set in the campaign settings. Before the start date and after the end date the campaign does not run. Its status stays the same: a live campaign that passed its end date still reads Active, with the note End date passed, until you change the date or pause it.

The end date is the last day: the campaign stops from 23:40 UTC that day. Stopping can take a few minutes to take effect, and spend in that time is charged.

A change of dates needs no new review, but saving a live campaign pauses it until you put it live again. A start date does not put a campaign live by itself: it must be live by then. A copy does not keep the dates of its source. Fixed-price placements follow their own dates.

1. 1Open Reports and break down by country and device: check that the traffic you target exists.
2. 2Compare your bid with the public minimums on the Formats page.
3. 3Widen the targeting on a copy: duplicate the campaign and change the copy. Wider targeting sends a campaign back to review, so the original stays as it is.
4. 4Raise the market bid, or test As fast as possible pacing on a copy.