The Ad Services Dashboard gives you a real-time and historical overview of your ad performance. In this article you’ll learn how to get a detailed, entity-specific view of how your ads are being served and engaged with.
To access the Ad Services Dashboard:
- Click Ad Services in the left menu panel.
- Click Dashboard.
1.0 | Dashboard tabs
The dashboard is divided into tabs that correspond to the type of ad placement you want to analyse:
- Outstream: statistics for outstream ad units (in-article placements). Includes fill rate, click-through rate, in-view rate, and placement rate.
- Instream: statistics for instream ad units (pre-, mid-, and post-roll placements). Includes fill rate and click-through rate.
- Ad schedules: statistics for ad schedules applied to video players. Includes fill rate and click-through rate.
Each tab displays the same dashboard layout, but the available metrics and the type of entities you can filter on differ per tab.
2.0 | Date range selector
The date range selector is located in the top-right corner of the dashboard. Use it to define the period for which you want to view statistics.
You can choose from the following presets or enter a custom date range:
- Today / Yesterday
- Last 24 hours / Last 48 hours / Last 72 hours
- Last 7 days / Last 30 days / Last 6 months
- Week to date / Last week
- Month to date / Last month
- Quarter to date / Last quarter
- Year to date / Last year
When you select a date range, the dashboard automatically calculates a comparison period of equal length immediately preceding your selection. Period-over-period changes are shown as percentage indicators on each metric tile.
3.0 | Ad unit selector
When viewing a tab without a specific ad unit or ad schedule selected, the dashboard shows aggregate statistics for all ad units or ad schedules in your account.
Use the entity selector dropdown at the top of the page to filter the dashboard to a specific ad unit (on the Outstream or Instream tab) or a specific ad schedule (on the Ad schedules tab). Once an entity is selected, the dashboard updates to show statistics exclusively for that entity, and a Line items breakdown becomes available in the sidebar.
4.0 | KPI metric tiles
The dashboard displays a row of KPI tiles at the top of the statistics view. Each tile shows:
- The metric value for the selected date range.
- A percentage change compared to the previous period (with an up or down trend indicator).
- A sparkline chart showing how the metric evolved over the selected period.
The available metric tiles depend on the active tab:
4.1 | Fill rate
Percentage of the inventory that led to an impression.
Fill rate shows how effectively your ad inventory is being monetised. A low fill rate may indicate that your ad tags are not returning enough demand or that your targeting criteria are too restrictive.
Available on: Outstream, Instream, Ad schedules
4.2 | Click-through rate (CTR)
Percentage of the impressions that were clicked.
CTR measures viewer engagement with your ads. It is calculated as the number of clicks divided by the number of impressions.
Available on: Outstream, Instream, Ad schedules
4.3 | In-view rate
Percentage of the inventory where the player was in view.
In-view rate measures how often the ad player was actually visible in the user’s viewport at the time an ad opportunity occurred. This metric is particularly relevant for outstream placements, where viewability directly affects the likelihood of an impression.
Available on: Outstream only
4.4 | Placement rate
Percentage of successful player placements.
Placement rate reflects how reliably the outstream player could be injected into the page at the configured selector position. A low placement rate suggests that your placement selector may not be finding the target element consistently.
Available on: Outstream only
5.0 | Statistics graph
The main graph displays the trend for Inventory and Impressions over the selected date range. Use it to spot anomalies, traffic spikes, or underperformance at a glance.
- The X-axis represents time.
- The Y-axis represents the count of inventory or impressions.
- Both the current period and the comparison period are shown when comparison data is available.
5.1 | Impressions
Number of times the player started an ad.
An impression is counted each time an ad begins playing. Impressions is the denominator for click-through rate and completion rate calculations.
Available on: Outstream, Instream, Ad schedules
5.2 | Inventory
Number of times the player had an opportunity to serve an ad.
Inventory counts each opportunity the player had to show an ad, regardless of whether an ad was actually served. This is the denominator for fill rate and in-view rate calculations.
On the Ad schedules tab, inventory is incremented by the maximum possible number of ads in a break each time an ad break is reached, rather than counting a single opportunity per break.
Available on: Outstream, Instream, Ad schedules
5.3 | Granularity
The graph automatically selects an appropriate time granularity based on the selected date range. You can override this using the granularity control in the graph menu (the hamburger icon in the top-right corner of the graph tile). Available options are:
- Automatic (default)
- Hours
- Days
6.0 | Completion rate chart
Besides the main graph, a separate tile displays the Completion rate metric alongside a quartile dropoff chart.
The completion rate is the percentage of impressions where the ad played through to the end. It is calculated as:
Completion rate = (number of ads completed) / (number of impressions) × 100
The dropoff chart shows the percentage of viewers that were still watching at each quartile milestone:
| Quartile | Description |
|---|---|
| 0% | Impression started |
| 25% | First quartile reached |
| 50% | Midpoint reached |
| 75% | Third quartile reached |
| 100% | Ad played to completion |
Completion rate data is only available from 7 March 2023 onwards. If your selected date range includes dates before this, the chart will indicate that the data is incomplete for that portion of the period.
7.0 | Entity trends
When no specific entity is selected, the dashboard shows an Entity trends panel that highlights your best and worst performing ad units or ad schedules for the selected date range.
Each entry in the list shows:
- The entity name or code.
- The total impressions for the period.
- The percentage change in impressions compared to the previous period.
Click on any entity in the list to navigate directly to the entity-specific dashboard view.
8.0 | Line items
When a specific ad unit is selected on the Outstream or Instream tab, the dashboard sidebar shows a Line items breakdown. This lists the individual line items associated with the selected ad unit and shows per-line-item statistics for the selected date range, including:
- Impressions
- Inventory
- Fill rate
- Click-through rate
- Completion rate
Each line item entry can be expanded to reveal a more detailed metric breakdown.
