What the numbers mean
Every metric in LtvAdx reports, how it is worked out, which dates it uses, how fresh it is and why two pages can show different totals.
This page is the one place that defines the numbers in LtvAdx reports. Other help pages link here instead of repeating the definitions. If a figure on screen does not match one you worked out yourself, check here first.
Dates and timing
- Days are UTC days. A day runs from 00:00 to 23:59 UTC, whatever time zone you are in. Date pickers and exports use the same days. Both ends of a range are included.
- One report covers at most 366 days. For a longer view, make several reports.
- Delivery counts refresh about every 5 minutes. Impressions, starts, quartiles, completes, clicks and ad requests reach your reports in that cycle, so today's figures are always a little behind. When there is a large backlog, they can take longer.
- Spend and revenue are added as each impression is billed. They can be ahead of the delivery counts on the same row for a few minutes.
- A day's revenue split can be adjusted once. Settlement runs once a day, early in the next UTC day, and can change the revenue share recorded for the day before. Revenue for yesterday and earlier is final after that.
- Sample data. While your account is waiting for approval, reports include sample figures so the pages are not empty. Once your account is approved, reports show real delivery only.
What is counted
| Count | What it is |
|---|---|
| Ad request | A request for an ad that names your channel. A request with no channel is not counted anywhere. Each ad break stitched on the server (SSAI) counts as one ad request. |
| Filled request | An ad request that came back with an ad. |
| Impression | The player reported that an ad began to show. Each ad request counts once, even if the player sends the signal twice. Invalid traffic is left out. |
| Start | The player reported that playback started. |
| First quartile, midpoint, third quartile | The player reported that 25%, 50% and 75% of the ad had played. |
| Complete | The player reported that the whole ad played. |
| Skip | The viewer skipped the ad. |
| Click | The viewer clicked through. |
| Viewable impression | The player reported that the ad was viewable. Only players that send this signal add to it. |
| Invalid impression | An impression LtvAdx classed as invalid traffic. It is shown on its own and never counted as delivery. See traffic quality. |
| Billed impression | An impression that was charged. Money is worked out from billed impressions, not from the impressions column. |
All of these come from signals the player sends. If a player does not send a signal, LtvAdx cannot count it. Each signal counts once per ad request.
Rates
Rates are always worked out from the summed counts for the rows you are looking at. LtvAdx never averages the rates of individual rows.
| Rate | How it is worked out |
|---|---|
| Fill rate | Filled requests ÷ ad requests. |
| VCR (video completion rate) | Completes ÷ starts. It cannot go above 100%. |
| Quartile rates (Q1, Q2, Q3) | First quartiles, midpoints or third quartiles ÷ impressions. |
| Skip rate | Skips ÷ impressions. |
| CTR (click-through rate) | Clicks ÷ impressions. |
| Mute rate and pause rate | Mutes or pauses ÷ starts. |
| Viewability | Viewable impressions ÷ impressions. It cannot go above 100%. |
| Invalid rate (IVT %) | Invalid impressions ÷ (valid impressions + invalid impressions). |
VCR is completes ÷ starts, but the quartile rates are divided by impressions. In a funnel that starts from impressions, the Complete bar can be lower than the VCR figure on the same page. That is not an error. The two use different bases. The funnels on the VCR Dashboard and on Reports both divide every stage by impressions, so they agree.
Money
All money is in USD. Each party sees only its own money. A publisher never sees what the advertiser paid, and an advertiser never sees what the publisher earned.
| Figure | How it is worked out |
|---|---|
| Spend (advertisers) | What your account was charged for billed impressions. Charging is per impression. |
| Revenue (publishers) | Your share of billed impressions, as recorded for the day. |
| eCPM | Spend or revenue ÷ billed impressions × 1,000. |
| CPCV (cost per completed view) | Spend ÷ completes. |
| Serving fees owed (publishers) | The per-impression serving fee on your direct-sold and own-DSP impressions. It comes out of your wallet or is netted from your next payout. |
| Unbilled | Impressions delivered that could not be charged because the advertiser's wallet was empty. The publisher is not paid for them. Shown in CSV files only. |
A few things follow from this:
- eCPM uses billed impressions, not the impressions column. The two can differ, so impressions × eCPM ÷ 1,000 may not equal spend or revenue exactly.
- A publisher's total eCPM leaves out direct-sold impressions. They earn no revenue through LtvAdx, so the Revenue Report's eCPM tile and table totals do not count them. The eCPM on a day or channel row still includes them. See Revenue report.
- Attribution shows no cost per conversion. Its Avg conversion value is the average value of your conversions, not a cost. See Attribution.
Audience
| Figure | How it is worked out |
|---|---|
| Unique households (reach) | The number of different households with at least one valid impression of the campaign in the dates chosen. |
| Average frequency | Impressions ÷ unique households. |
| Effective reach | The share of households that saw the campaign 3 or more times. |
Reach only counts impressions where a household was identified. If the player sends no household, or the viewer's privacy signals or opt-out mean it cannot be used, the impression is not counted in reach. This means total impressions on Reach & Frequency can be lower than on Reports. See privacy and consent.
Attention score
The attention score on the VCR Dashboard is a number from 0 to 1 built from VCR and the mute rate only. It does not use pod position or genre. It always comes out a little lower than VCR.
Why two pages can show different totals
| Difference | Cause |
|---|---|
| Impressions here, slightly different billed impressions there | Traffic classed as invalid while the ad plays is in neither. A small difference comes from traffic found to be invalid later. See Traffic quality. |
| Reports and Reach & Frequency disagree | Reach only counts identified households. |
| Fill Rate page and Revenue Report disagree | They read the same ad request counts. Check that both use the same dates, as both are UTC days. |
| A funnel Complete bar is lower than VCR | The bar is completes ÷ impressions, VCR is completes ÷ starts. |
| Today's total moved after a refresh | Delivery counts refresh about every 5 minutes. |
| A downloaded file has fewer rows than the date range suggests | A CSV downloaded from a report page stops at 10,000 rows. Use the Download Center for every row. |
Seeing a number you cannot explain? Contact support and tell us the page, the date range and the figure you expected.