What is a pacing strategy?
Pacing strategies set a monthly spending plan based on an advertiser's strategic needs. Fluency sets a daily target according to the plan and adjusts the target as needed. For example, if a budget is underspending, the plan adjusts to make up for the underspend so you can still reach your budget at the end of the month. You can designate a pacing strategy for each budget you've set up in Fluency.
💡 Impression share, targeting, and quality scores are a few reasons why an account's advertising spend may go off course.
Pacing strategies to choose from
Even: Roughly sets the same amount of daily spend throughout the month. This is the most commonly used pacing strategy.
Traffic Tracker: Prioritizes spending based on a rolling 28-day budget history.
Strong Start: Prioritizes spending more at the beginning of the month.
Strong Finish: Emphasizes spending more toward the end of the month.
None: Pacing is unmanaged and Fluency will not make adjustments to the budget during the month.
Weekdays: Allocates the majority of the budget to weekdays.
Weekends: Allocates the majority of the budget to weekends.
Front Loaded Business Week: Prioritizes spending at the start of the business week.
Recurring Lifetime: Duplicates Facebook Lifetime Campaigns that expired in the prior month.
Segmented (Recurring): Breaks down the full monthly budget into dedicated allocations during specific time periods.
Segmented (One-Time): Starts and stops spend based on the exact dates you specify. This strategy can span multiple months as long as no individual specified period spans multiple months.
Custom: Click and drag the graph for personalized spending. Tip: Consider using a segmented budget.
Metric Based: Paces to user engagement. This option allows you to select a metric and a goal.
Fixed Daily: Sets a fixed daily spending value.
None pacing strategy vs. Read-Only mode
Fluency does not optimize daily budgets for the None pacing strategy or for Read-Only mode. However, Read-Only takes it a step further in that Fluency prevents any budget amount updates from happening from our system, including monthly updates.
For Read-Only, Fluency does not pause campaigns at the partner if the monthly budget amount is set to $0, whereas we do for the None pacing strategy and all other budgets.
Fluency will pause campaigns if the spend is greater than the monthly budget for both None and Read-Only, so long as the Default setting to Pause Campaigns when Individual Budgets Exhaust toggle is enabled in Budget Management.
Which pacing strategy is the right one?
Most budgets use an "Even" pacing strategy, spending about the same amount every day of the month. If you have different needs, discuss with your Advertising Engineer which is the right pacing strategy.
Pacing strategies in action
In budget settings in Manage, you can view a performance graph to help you visualize the month’s spend progress. The performance graph shows current spend vs. target spend (the pacing plan). When a budget is underspending, Fluency will make every effort to adjust the target spend to reach the pacing plan.
Example: The budget above has an Even pacing strategy. Spend fell below the pacing plan around the 7th day of the month. The selected pacing strategy aims to bridge the gap and align spend with the gray plan line by the end of the month.
Performance graph key
X-axis: Days of the month
Y-axis: Spend
Plan (gray line): Planned monthly spend
Adjusted Plan (dotted red line): Projected adjustments due to underspend or overspend
Current Spend (blue bars): Actual daily spend by the campaign(s) associated with the budget
Tip: Hover your cursor over the dotted red line and a day of the month to view budget performance stats (i.e., current spend vs. target spend, pacing percentage for that day, overall pacing percentage).
Updating pacing strategies for existing budgets
You can select a budget pacing strategy (1) for a specific account, (2) at the Blueprint level, or in Bulk Manage. Here's how:
For a single account
Go to Manage in the top menu.
Click on an account in the list.
Select the Budgets tab.
Click on a budget from the list of budgets associated with the account.
On the top-right, select Budget Settings.
Scroll to find the Pacing section.
Click Show All Pacing Strategies.
Select a pacing strategy, and click OK.
Click Save.
For a Blueprint
Go to Blueprints in the top menu.
Click on a Blueprint in the list.
Expand open the Settings & Configuration section, and select the Budget Config. tab.
Expand open a budget configuration to view the Pacing Strategy section.
Select a strategy from the list—or click Show All Pacing Strategies, select a strategy in the pop-up, and click OK when finished.
Click Save Changes.
🛑 Caution:
Be aware that changing pacing strategies can impact the daily budget at the partner. This may lead to campaigns entering learning mode, resulting in potential spending disruptions for several days. For instance, a budget change exceeding 20% at Google triggers learning mode. If this adjustment occurs at the beginning of the month, Fluency will likely catch up and meet the target budget. However, if made toward the end of the month, there might not be enough time for campaigns to exit learning mode and align with the plan, potentially causing underspend. Therefore, we suggest you change pacing strategies only during the first week of the month.
Setting default pacing strategies for new budgets
When creating a new budget, the default pacing strategy is None, including budgets pulled into Fluency via reverse sync. Here's how to designate a different default pacing strategy:
Go to the Settings & Tools gear icon in the top menu.
Select Customer Info from the dropdown.
Under Budget Management, click + Add New Budget Management.
Select Default Pacing Strategy (e.g., EVEN).
Type in a different pacing strategy (see the list of strategies above).
Click Save.