Enabled pacing strategies can achieve budget goals, but sometimes underspend still occurs. Underspend mitigation allows Fluency to monitor for and correct budget underspend as needed. Activate Underspend mitigation during campaign creation and adjust as needed. If you're unsure about using this feature to manage underspend, check with your Advertising Engineer.
Note: Underspend mitigation is not available for Meta (Facebook) campaign budgets.
How underspend mitigation works
Available strategies
Underspend mitigation uses five key strategies:
1. Bid adjustment
1. Bid adjustment
Bids automatically increase by a specified percentage. Note: This works only for manual CPC, not smart bidding.
2. Remove blocked keywords
2. Remove blocked keywords
Negative keywords that block other keywords are removed.
3. Broad match keywords
3. Broad match keywords
Top 100 phrase and exact match keywords are transformed into broad match.
4. Relax ad schedules
4. Relax ad schedules
Add additional hours to the existing schedule when underspend occurs. Note: If your ad schedule strategy is set to 24/7 in Blueprints, this strategy will not apply.
Go to Settings & Tools > Customer Info > Budget Management.
Click + Add New Budget Management.
Select Add Schedule Additional Late Hours on Underspend or Add Schedule Additional Early Hours on Underspend.
This will add an additional field (or fields) that you can use to add hours to your ad schedule in the morning or evening.
5. Increase geo radius
5. Increase geo radius
The targeted geographical area expands by a specified number of miles. Make sure clients approve this change.
Strategy activation
Starting on the fifteenth day of a month, enabled underspend mitigation options kick in when a budget is pacing below 96%. One activated strategy is applied each day to improve spending. You can activate all or as many of the available strategies as you'd like. If the first strategy doesn't improve pacing, the system moves to the next one on the following day.
The strategies continue until the end of the month and through the first seven days of the next month. This seven-day period gives you time to adjust your budget settings to avoid needing underspend mitigation in subsequent months. Afterward, one strategy per day turns off if the campaign is spending well. The strategies turn off in reverse order (5. Increase geo radius, 4. Relax ad schedule, 3. Broad match keywords, 2. Remove blocking keywords, and then 1. Bid adjustment). Strategies stay off if spending is above 99.5% and underspend mitigation wasn't activated in the last 10 days.
📌 Remember
Underspend mitigation activates:
On the 15th day of the month
If a budget is pacing below 96%
Configuring underspend mitigation
Go Manage in the top menu.
Choose an account in the list.
Select the Budget 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 Underspend Mitigation section.
Activate your desired strategies by toggling on or inputting a number in the field.
Click Save to save the budget's updated settings.
Note: Active underspend mitigation tactics are highlighted in yellow in the budget table in Manage. You'll also see a red flag icon in the budget column when underspend mitigation is active.
Eligibility checklist
Not all accounts are eligible for underspend mitigation. An account is eligible if:
The account is not in read-only mode.
The account is not on hold.
Budgets have not been exhausted.
The account has an account budget greater than $0.
The budget configuration has at least one underspending budget.
The budget wasn't created in the last 15 days.
An underspend protection type has been selected for the budget.