Forecasting of underdelivery

Google Ad Manager predicts when your line items will underdeliver and alerts you in several places, giving you the opportunity to stop underdelivery before it happens. Underdelivery is a lost opportunity for your line item to meet its goals. Insufficient inventory, or not enough available impressions, is the primary reason for underdelivery of a line item. With forecasting of underdelivery, you’ll know in advance which line items may not have enough inventory, and have the time to take action and give your line items a better chance to deliver.

If you have a line item that is currently underdelivering, you can troubleshoot nondelivery reasons. 

Line items that can receive underdelivery warnings

To be eligible to receive an underdelivery warning, a line item must:

• Have not started delivering yet.

• Start in the next 30 days.

• End within the next year from today.

• Have an absolute goal (for example, number of impressions for a standard line item) instead of a percentage-based goal.

Where to see underdelivery warnings

Ad Manager offers underdelivery warnings in a variety of ways:

Warning	Description
Expected to underdeliver status	In Ad Manager, click Delivery  Orders to see the Orders summary page. In the Line items column, Expected to underdeliver is a line item status indicating the number of line items in the order that are predicted to underdeliver because of insufficient inventory. If you then click an order on the page to see its summary of line items, the line items that are predicted to underdeliver will include a icon with "Expected to underdeliver" in the Name column. If you then click a line item on the page, you’ll also see Expected to underdeliver in the header of the line item details page that appears.
Filter for orders or line items that are Expected to underdeliver	These are the options for filtering: Click Delivery  Orders  More  Expected to underdeliver Click Delivery  Line items  More   Expected to underdeliver If you’re already on a page that lists orders or line items, you can click Add new filter above the table, select Expected to underdeliver  Is  True from the drop-downs, and click Apply filters. Filtering gives you a tightly focused overview of the orders or line items that may need attention because of insufficient inventory, and simplifies the process for making updates as needed.

You can use underdelivery details in the Progress column to get a more complete view of the line item’s likelihood to achieve its goal under the current settings.

What should I do when I see an underdelivery warning?

When you see the underdelivery warning for a line item, we recommend you run a forecast before taking action.

• If the forecast also predicts underdelivery, try to determine what will improve your chances of delivery. Experiment with changes to settings or targeting in your forecast. On a line item, you can run a forecast to see the effect before applying the changes. For example, see if more inventory will be available if you target a different set of ad units, or if you choose a different date range. Then apply the changes to your line item. Here are some other tips for resolving underdelivery.

• If the forecast actually predicts that the line item will deliver, the forecast is likely the more reliable measure. If these discrepancies occur often, please report the issue to your Ad Manager support representative.

  If the line item is forecasted to almost have enough to deliver but just falls short, it's more likely to not be flagged (that is, to return a false negative) than to be flagged for underdelivery.

How often are underdelivery warnings updated?

Underdelivery warnings are updated once a day.

Need more help with line item delivery?

Help me troubleshoot delivery