Frequently Asked Questions

1. Why are my video views higher than my impressions in Custom Reporting?

Certain publishers will implement the impression tracker at different stages of the video player, such as a video complete. This is usually because they may only charge advertisers when a user completes the video for example, even if the cost model is CPM.

Video views are mapped to the Player Start event in most ad platforms such as The Trade Desk which is a fixed VAST event. If the impression tracker is implemented after the Video Start event then impressions will be shown as higher than video views in the Bench Platform.

2. Are the pixel conversions displayed deduplicated?

The pixel-based conversions displayed in Bench are either duplicated between the ad platforms used for a campaign or deduplicated depending on the source the data is pulled from.
If the conversion data is pulled directly from the ad platforms, then conversions will be duplicated.
If the campaign is fully trafficked via an ad server such as Google Campaign Manager, the Bench Data Team is able to pull the deduplicated conversion data and assign them to the correct ad platforms.
The attribution windows for the conversion data will be replicated from the ad platform or ad server.
Work with your client to decide on the best approach depending on the campaign’s objectives.

3. Can the campaign’s audience targeting be set in the Bench Connect?

The Audience Gallery is used to plan audiences across the different platforms and channels being used for a campaign. By setting a structure for the campaign, consistent naming conventions will be used to pull & aggregate data from similar audiences across platforms. The actual targeting of audiences including site lists, data segments, geotargeting & contextual strategies will still need to be applied in the ad platforms.

4. Can I pull Reach & Frequency metrics?

Reach & Frequency metrics are not currently supported by Bench Connect and will need to be pulled from the ad platforms or an ad server.

5. How often is the data updated?

Data is automated to be pulled in to Bench Connect on a daily basis, usually before 9am Australian Eastern Standard Time. Facebook & DV360 (excl. YouTube, Audio & Gmail sources) have their data updated 4 times a day.

6. Why can’t I sync my ads to Meta?

Meta ads execution may not be available for a number of reasons. Please ensure that a valid Facebook account has been added to the advertiser, a Facebook page has been added and assigned to the campaign and the ads are approved & assigned to an allocation. If these steps have been completed and you are still unable to sync your ads because of error, please reach out to your Bench support team.

7. How does Bench handle campaigns set up in different time zones?

Bench respects the time zones that the campaigns have been set up in the DSPs & Ad Platforms. If the reporting data is set in a certain time zone such as AEST, each day of data in Bench will reflect that. Similarly if the reporting data is set in US/Eastern time, the data shown in Bench will correspond to US/Eastern time.
The time zone set at the campaign level of Bench Platform should match the time zone has been set up in the DSPs & Ad Platforms for reporting. The Bench campaign time zone dictates when the system factor is applied.

Note: If you’re running in a DSP with a timezone that is a number hours behind Sydney time, the amount spent for yesterday may not immediately match the DSP. This is because the data may have been pushed into Bench for yesterday before the day is completed in the DSP’s timezone.

We don’t recommend changing campaign time zones during the campaign to prevent data duplication issues.

8. Why do my budgets in Custom Reporting not always match the amounts in Budget Manager for each campaign?

An allocation's budget with a campaign for previous months is not altered unless the Budget Manager's reallocation tool is used. If a trader underspends or overspends in the previous month and manually adjusts the budget for the current month, the previous month's budget remains the same.

For example, the total budget for a campaign's allocation across August & September is $4,000.
$2,000 was allocated for both August & September. Only $1,900 was spent in August so $100 was manually added to the September budget by the trader to account for the underspend.

As this was a manual reallocation, the budget for August in Custom Reporting would still remain at $2,000 but the September budget would be updated to $2,100. So pulling an August-September report with the budget dimension would show the total budget as being $2,000 + $2,100 = $4,100. Whereas we know the actual budget for the campaign over these two months was only $4,000.

Alternatively, if the reallocator tool was used, the budget for August would've been reduced to $1,900 and the September budget would've been adjusted to $2,100. So the total budget for Aug-Sep in the Custom Report would be shown accurately as $4,000.

As it is difficult to establish whether traders have used the reallocation tool or not for each campaign, we advise to not use the budget dimension in Custom Reporting calculate total budgets between previous, current & future months for allocations. Instead total the spent amounts from previous months to the budgets in current & future months of an allocation.

8. Why does the 'Conversions' column in Custom Reporting have zero conversions when the PC & PV columns contain conversions?

The 'Conversions' column represents the total number of PC & PV conversions for a particular conversion point if it has been set up as a Goal within a campaign. Setting the conversion point as a goal will allow you to specify the PC & PV attribution windows for it.

If the conversion point has not been set up as a goal then windows will also have not been set, resulting in zero conversions being displayed. The raw PC & PV conversion numbers can be viewed separately.

For the majority of platforms, the PC & PV windows for each conversion point will match the universal setting within the ad platform & DSP and cannot be customised within Bench. Only Meta Ads Manager and Display & Video 360 currently support customising the attribution window per conversion point.