All guides, by feature
Check how campaigns are pacing
Open Pacing to see each line’s spend against its budget for a month or its whole flight, with a status for each.
Before you start
- Who can do this
- Anyone at your agency, for the clients in their Client Access
- Where in Orbit
- Sidebar › Workspace › Pacing
Steps
Tick a step’s number when it’s done. We’ll remember where you were.
In the sidebar, open Pacing. It opens on This month.
Narrow it with All clients and the month picker, or press Whole flight to see each line’s full run.
Read the cards at the top: Budget, Spent so far, Pace and Today's target.
In Breakdown, choose Client, Platform or Campaign, and click a row to filter the table below.
In the Pacing tab, check each line’s and . Use All platforms, All regions or Search campaigns… to find one.
When it worked
Each line shows a status: On track, Ahead, Behind or Not spending.
If something goes wrong
Orbit showsNothing matches.
Clear your filters, and the Breakdown filter with its ×. If it’s still empty, no line has a budget for this period.
A banner says campaigns were split evenly.
Those lines have no monthly budget in their media plan, so Orbit divided the flight total. Press Edit on each and save a real budget, or plan them on the Budgets tab.
A campaign shows $0 spend.
Spend counts only from platform campaigns matched to the line. A line with no matched campaigns stays at $0.
Some columns are missing.
Press a group under Columns to show it. Dashed groups appear only for the platforms that use them, and Margin only for Owners and Admins.
How it works
Explainer: Pacing statuses: On track, Ahead, Behind, Not spending
A line is On track when its Daily pacing is within your tolerance of 100%, which is ±10% unless you change it. Above that it’s Ahead; below, Behind.
| Status | When | At ±10% |
|---|---|---|
| Not spending | No spend, after at least two full days of the window | Spend is $0 |
| Ahead (red) | Daily pacing above 100% plus the tolerance | Over 110% |
| Behind (amber) | Daily pacing below 100% minus the tolerance | Under 90% |
| On track (green) | Anything in between, both ends included | 90% to 110% |
- Change the tolerance with On track within ± 10% at the top of the page: ±5%, ±10% or ±15%. It changes only these cut-offs.
- Pace counts through yesterday, so today’s partial spend never makes a line look behind.
Explainer: How pacing is calculated
Pace compares what’s been spent with what should have been spent by now. Daily pacing is Spend CTD ÷ Target so far, both counted through yesterday.
| Column | How it’s worked out |
|---|---|
| Spend CTD | Matched spend from the start of the window through yesterday |
| Target so far | Each day’s planned amount, added up through yesterday |
| Daily pacing | Spend CTD ÷ Target so far, as a % |
| Budget left | Budget − Spend CTD |
| Days left | Days from today to the end of the window, including today |
| Adjusted daily | Budget left ÷ Days left: what to spend each remaining day to land on budget |
| Today's target | Today’s planned amount |
| Spend pacing | Spend ÷ budget |
| CPM | Spend ÷ impressions × 1,000 |
- A day’s planned amount is the month’s budget spread evenly over its days, unless you set a daily target or a day plan.
- With a daily target, pace follows the daily target, and Budget left still follows the budget.
- On Daily and Daily (campaign cap) lines, Today's target adds “put this in the platform today”.
- Platform, region and Grand total rows, the Breakdown and the cards at the top add up budget, spend and target first, then work out pace from those totals.
- Totals show pace as how far off it is, such as “-23%” or “+15%”.
Explainer: What a line needs before it shows in Pacing
A line shows when it has a budget for the period you’re viewing. Spend counts only from the platform campaigns matched to it, within its flight dates.
- It belongs to a client in your Client Access.
- In This month, its flight overlaps the month you picked, and that month has a budget: a plan or typed budget, a shape plan, or a flight total to split.
- In Whole flight, at least one of its months has a budget.
- It passes your filters: client, platform, region, search, and any Breakdown row you clicked.
- Spend counts from a campaign only when it’s on the line’s platform and matched to the line, and only on days within the flight, through yesterday.
- A platform campaign that spent this month but isn’t matched to any line shows as a row with an empty, highlighted budget box. Fill it in to start pacing it.
- A line with no matched campaigns shows $0 spend. You can’t match campaigns to an existing line in Pacing.
Explainer: Where pacing budgets come from
Each month of a line has one budget. It comes from the line’s media plan, from an amount you type, from a monthly shape plan or, if none of those exist, an even split of the flight total.
| Source | What it means |
|---|---|
| From plan | Taken from the line’s media plan. Changing it in Pacing doesn’t change the plan. |
| Set by hand | Typed in Pacing. |
| Shape plan (Shaped on Budgets) | From a monthly shape plan you saved. Used only for months with no plan or typed budget. |
| Even split | No monthly budget, so Orbit divides the flight total by days. Confirm or change it. |
- A plan or typed budget beats a shape plan, which beats an even split.
- Even split for a month = flight total × the flight’s days in that month ÷ the flight’s total days.
- When any line uses an even split, a banner says how many campaigns have no monthly budget in their media plan. Confirm or change those before trusting the numbers.
- Every change is saved as a new entry, so earlier amounts stay in Budget history. Budgets can’t be deleted; enter a new amount instead.
- In Pacing, the only way to add a line is to give a budget to a campaign that’s spending without one.