Report of the Month: Unfilled Inventory

What is the report template?

One of the main areas of interest for the majority of our customers and our industry, in general, is understanding where they are losing revenue because they are not filling all possible ad opportunities. Utilising our Unfilled inventory metric, which we define as a rendered ad slot where there has been an error and no impression event, we wanted to create a report that would highlight the performance of this metric within a customer’s environment. For the definitions of any metrics and/or dimensions used throughout this post please reference our Glossary here.

Why is it helpful?

As the OTT landscape becomes more complex there is a strong need for an easy way to monitor Unfilled inventory, then Troubleshoot to solve any issues and therefore increase revenue continues. In this report, we are able to give an overview of where the inventory is going unfilled, and also which errors are causing the unfilled inventory so you can then take action.

Within this report, you can observe changes in Domain, Device, Video, and if you’re a Freewheel customer you can see a breakdown by Site, Series, and Placement. This is a great report to quickly identify clustering of Unfilled Inventory, where it’s occurring, and what exactly is causing the problem.

Report Breakdown:

We provide two versions of this report, one for our GAM customers and one for our Freewheel customers as we know the importance of being able to track ad server-specific dimensions. Each section below will highlight what is available within each version of the report.

Overview

This section of the report (is the same across both versions) allows users to see at a top-level how their overall inventory is performing by looking at 3 main KPIs.

Ad Slots (The count of all Ad Slots),
Gross Impressions (The count of all Impression events),
Unfilled Inventory (The count of Rendered Ad Slots that only have Error Events and no Impression Events)
Ad Slots, Gross Impressions, and Unfilled Inventory are represented as key values and then also visually represented in a bar graph for trend analysis.

What’s Not Filling? (GAM Report Version)

Unfilled Inventory by Domain – This visual breakdown of the Unfilled inventory performance by Domain over time is useful for trend analysis and spotting any dramatic changes in performance
Unfilled Inventory Domain Performance (Top 10) – The multi-column breakdown gives you an overview of Total Ad Slots, Unfilled Inventory, and Unfilled Inventory Rate for your top 10 Domains. This is great when looking at the Unfilled Inventory performance vs. Total Ad Slots, helping you quickly identify which Domains are not filling.

Unfilled Inventory by Device Type – This visual breakdown of the Unfilled inventory performance by Device Type over time is useful for trend analysis and spotting any dramatic changes in performance
Unfilled Inventory Device Performance – The multi-column breakdown gives you an overview of Total Ad Slots, Unfilled Inventory, and Unfilled Inventory Rate for your different Device Types. This is great when looking at the Unfilled Inventory performance vs. Total Ad Slots, helping you quickly identify which Device Types are not filling.

Unfilled Inventory GAM Ad Unit Performance (Top 10) – The multi-column breakdown gives you an overview of Total Ad Slots, Unfilled Inventory, and Unfilled Inventory Rate for your top 10 GAM Ad Units and can be used to quickly spot which Ad Unit is seeing the highest amount of Unfilled Inventory.

Unfilled Inventory Video Performance (Top 10) – The multi-column breakdown gives you an overview of Total Ad Slots, Unfilled Inventory, and Unfilled Inventory Rate for your top 10 performing videos (in the time period selected). This widget is key when trying to identify if there is a type of content that is not filling.
Unfilled Inventory by Code – A visual breakdown of Unfilled Inventory by specific Error Codes over time is useful for trend analysis and spot if there are any major spikes in specific Errors.
Unfilled Inventory by Zone – This multi-column Breakdown gives you an overview of which Video Ad Zone is seeing the highest amount of Unfilled Inventory. Broken out by the Request, Response, and the Playback Zones you can see more information on Video Ad Zones here.

What’s Not Filling? (Freewheel Report Version)

Unfilled Inventory by Site ID – This visual breakdown of the Unfilled inventory performance by Site over time is great for trend analysis and spotting any dramatic changes in performance
Unfilled Inventory Site Performance (Top 10) – The multi-column breakdown gives you an overview of Rendered Ad Slots, Unfilled Inventory, and Unfilled Inventory Rate for your top 10 Sites. This is useful when looking at the Unfilled Inventory performance vs. Rendered Ad Slots, helping you quickly identify which Sites are not filling

Unfilled Inventory by Site section ID – This visual breakdown of the Unfilled inventory performance by Site Section over time is great for trend analysis and spotting any dramatic changes in performance

Unfilled Inventory Site Section Performance (Top 10) – The multi-column breakdown gives you an overview of Rendered Ad Slots, Unfilled Inventory, and Unfilled Inventory Rate for your top 10 Site sections.

Unfilled Inventory Ad Unit Performance (Top 10) – The multi-column breakdown gives you an overview of Rendered Ad Slots, Unfilled Inventory, and Unfilled Inventory Rate for your top 10 Ad Units. This should help users identify Ad Units with a high amount of Unfilled Inventory very quickly.

Unfilled Inventory Series Performance (Top 10) – The multi-column breakdown gives you an overview of Rendered Ad Slots, Unfilled Inventory, and Unfilled Inventory Rate for your top 10 Series. This will help pinpoint clustering in Inventory not filling on specific Series.
Unfilled by Placement ID X Error Code – This table gives an overview of Rendered Ad Slots, Unfilled Inventory, and Unfilled Inventory Rate for each Placement ID and Error Code. The table should help users identify which Placement ID is seeing the most Unfilled Inventory but also pinpoint which Error Code could be causing the clustering.
Unfilled Inventory by Code – This visual breakdown of Unfilled Inventory by specific Error Codes over time is useful for trend analysis and spot if there are any major spikes in specific Errors.
Unfilled Inventory by Zone – This multi-column Breakdown gives you an overview of which Video Ad Zone is seeing the highest amount of Unfilled Inventory. Broken out by the Request, Response, and the Playback Zones you can see more information on Video Ad Zones here.

How can I find and use the report?

You can add these templates to your reports by clicking through to our Report library. Or by going to ‘Create new report’ and selecting it from the list of available report templates. Please contact your CSM if you have any questions.