Overview
Whether you choose to allocate funds on a daily basis or for the entire campaign, our Budget Tool allows for strategic control over your budget and ensures that your advertising efforts align with your fiscal calendar.
Navigate the Budget Tool
The Budget Tool can be found in your campaign shell on the Budget & Goal step. Your campaign budget determines the amount of spend allocated to your campaign for a customizable period of time.
Columns:
Each of your campaign's defined budgets and timeframes will live as line items in the Budget Tool. The line items are then categorized as follows:
Feature | Description |
Status Column | The Status column reflects the state of that specific budget line item:
|
Start Time Column | The Start Time column reflects the start time of the associated budget line item. 📝 Note: The displayed times in this tool will correspond to the timezone set at the time of creating the MNTN account. You can view your account's set timezone under the General tab of the My Account section. |
End Time Column | The End Time column reflects the defined end time of the associated budget line item. 📝 Note: See note on displayed timezones above. |
Type | The Type column reflects the budget type of the associated budget line item: |
Budget | The Budget column reflects the customized, defined budget spend of the associated line item. |
Spend Column | The Spend column reflects the line item's total spend when your campaign is live. |
Filters:
You can filter your budget line items by leveraging the tool's Filter feature. You can clear these appended filters at any point.
Filter Name | Functionality |
Status | Filter your campaign's budgets by:
|
Type | Filter your campaign's budgets by:
|
Set New Budgets
Depending on your team's needs and fiscal calendar, you have the option of setting monthly or flighted budgets when assigning new budgets to your campaign, even allowing you to schedule heavy-ups in advance.
Monthly Budget Type:
The monthly budget type is best utilized for an evergreen budget or a budget you know you want to spend towards this channel every month.
A monthly budget automatically resets to the specified amount on the 1st of each month and continues to do so until the defined end date. You can set a monthly budget to either have a specific end date or to run indefinitely until you manually pause or replace it.
How to
Navigate to the Budget & Goal step of your campaign shell.
Click the + New Budget button in the top-right corner of the screen.
Select the Monthly budget type.
Select your budget:
Start Time, which is the time you want your ads to begin to serve.
End Time or leave this option set to Ongoing. You can always adjust your budget's End Time once live.
⚠️ Warning: If your budget’s start or end dates fall in the middle of a month, the system will automatically prorate the budget based on the daily pacing amount. During these periods, the budget type will temporarily switch to Flighted for that month.
Enter your:
Total budget in the Budget field; OR
Daily pacing goal in the Pacing field.
📝 Note: The pacing is calculated assuming a 30-day calendar month, aiming to pace towards the total monthly budget rather than a daily amount. Pacing may vary depending on factors such as available inventory, optimization, and audience reach.
The remaining field will automatically populate.
Click Next.
A new drawer named Review Changes will appear.
Click Save.
Flighted Budget Type:
Your team may operate on a weekly fiscal calendar or have a pre-determined budget across a specific period of time. If that's the case, leverage the flighted budget type.
A flighted budget allows you to set a fixed budget for a custom-defined start and end time. Unlike the Monthly budget, the Flighted budget does not reset after the end time. Instead, pacing is directed towards the total budget for the entire flight period.
💡 Pro Tip: While you can leverage the Per-Day pacing input on both monthly and flighted budget types, we would recommend that you leverage the Flighted budget type for the most accurate calculations and pacing as possible. This is due to our Monthly budget type defaulting to a 30-day month in its calculations.
How to
Navigate to the Budget & Goal step of your campaign shell.
Click the + New Budget button in the top-right corner of the screen.
Select the Flighted budget type.
Select your budget:
Start Time, which is the time you want your ads to begin to serve
End Time
Enter your:
Total budget in the Budget field; OR
Daily pacing goal in the Pacing field.
📝 Note: When using a Flighted budget, it paces toward the entire flight rather than per day and may fluctuate based on factors such as inventory availability, optimization, and audience reach.
The remaining field will automatically populate.
Click Next.
A new drawer named Review Changes will appear.
Click Save.
📝 Note: If a new Flighted budget overlaps with an ongoing Monthly budget (i.e., one set to continue indefinitely), the Monthly budget will continue following the end of the flighted budget.
Delete Budgets
To delete a scheduled budget, select the kebob menu and click Delete.
💡 Pro Tip: While you can delete a scheduled budget, you cannot delete budget gaps, which will automatically be added as a line item with a $0 total. This is a safeguard to outline that your campaign will be paused during the outlined time frame, based on your scheduled budget start and end dates.
Boost or Replace Overlapping Budgets
When a new budget overlaps with existing scheduled or live budgets, you have two options: Boost or Replace. You will see the "Intersecting Dates" flag before applying any changes.
When using Boost or Replace, the system will create separate items to pace towards the updated budget. For monthly budgets, if you apply Boost or Replace, the system will create Flighted budgets.
📘 Example:
Original Monthly Budget: $31,000 from 5/1/24 to 5/31/24 (set as ongoing)
With Boost Applied:
Flighted Budget 5/1-5/20: $20,000
Flighted Budget 5/21-5/31: $31,000 (original $31,000 + $10,000 Boost)
Monthly Budget 6/1 and Ongoing: $31,000
Boost:
Combine the existing budget with the new budget change for the overlapping time frame, increasing spend accordingly.
💡 Pro Tip: If you have an existing live or scheduled budget and want to add incremental funds for a promotion, we recommend creating a new budget flight for the additional amount. Use the "Boost" function to combine the original scheduled budget with the new incremental budget. The system will automatically adjust your flights, and you can review these changes during the "Review Changes" step.
Replace:
Replace the existing budget with the new budget for the overlapping timeframe.
Enter a Daily Pacing Goal
If you prefer setting budgets with daily spending goals, you have the option to input a per-day pacing target. If you choose a daily spending target, enter it in the Per Day field. The UI will automatically calculate the total budget based on your daily spend and defined date range, evenly distributing it over the specified dates.
Our budgeting system will then automatically calculate a total budget for your campaign, considering the duration of the flight or using a standard 30-day month. This ensures that your daily targets are more achievable than ever before.
How to
Navigate to the Budget & Goal step of your campaign shell.
Click the blue + New Budget button in the top-right corner of the screen.
A drawer will appear asking you to define the budget type, start time, end time, and the budget or desired daily pacing.
Select either the Flighted or Monthly budget type.
Select your budget:
Start Time, which is the time you want your ads to begin to serve.
End Time if selecting a Flighted budget type or Monthly if you want this daily budget pacing to be ongoing.
Enter your desired daily pacing goal in the Pacing field.
Click Next.
A new drawer named Review Changes will appear.
Click Save.
Quick Answers
What more should I know about pacing?
What more should I know about pacing?
Daily Spend Fluctuations: While we aim to hit your daily spend target as closely as possible, it may fluctuate within 5% of your per-day pacing target. This is to optimize performance by targeting your best-performing audiences when they are most engaged with their content.
Minimum Flight Duration: We support a minimum flight duration of 3 days to ensure sufficient time for our system to ramp up and deliver effectively. Short flights with large day-to-day spend changes may result in pacing targets that exceed the 5% discrepancy range.
Budget Pacing Limitations: We do not support intra-day budget pacing or day-parting.
Overspend Protection: You will never be charged for overspending beyond your total monthly or flighted budget.
If my flight underspends, will that underspend be added into the next flight?
If my flight underspends, will that underspend be added into the next flight?
No, once a flight is complete, unspent budget will not roll over into the next flight. Our automated bidding technology is always striving to pace evenly while finding the most efficient inventory as possible, so while we don't expect your flight to underspend, please reach out to your CSM for any pacing questions.
Pro Tips
Leverage the Budget Tool to set daily spend targets or total budget targets.
Leverage the Budget Tool to set daily spend targets or total budget targets.
Use the Budget Tool to set either a daily target or a total budget depending on how your team manages your advertising budgets.
📝 Note: Fluctuations in daily spend are expected and always within a reasonable range to spend the budget against the flight dates. This is a result of our technology targeting your most engaged audiences precisely when and where they interact with their content.
Your defined budgets are applied at the campaign level.
Your defined budgets are applied at the campaign level.
Your customized budgets and timeframes are defined at the campaign level rather than the audience or ad creative level.
Utilize budget flights of 3 days minimum.
Utilize budget flights of 3 days minimum.
Our technology requires at least a 3 day flight to identify and engage the best-performing households within your audience composition. Allow for this duration to enhance the tech's ability to deliver results.
The Budget Tool does not allow for day-parting.
The Budget Tool does not allow for day-parting.
Adopting an audience-first approach, our technology identifies peak times for engagement. While the Budget Tool does not support day-parting, this restriction is intentional to maintain accurate pacing and align with the audience-centric approach.
Budget "gaps" are expected!
Budget "gaps" are expected!
Any time between defined budgets without a spend allocation appears as a $0 budget line item, serving as a safeguard during periods with no active ad serving. As such, these cannot be deleted.