Overview
You can create Manually-created Budget Alerts with your own thresholds, and create multiple Alerts for different selections of accounts. Essentially, you set Spend and/or Pacing thresholds for all of your accounts in one Alert.
Each Alert has a severity, Critical or Important, which you choose when you create it and can change later. It decides which category the Alert appears in on the Alerts page and who is notified.
The Manually-created Budget Alert types are:
Period Spend
This uses the 'period' defined by the budget, i.e., monthly, weekly, or custom.
Today's Spend
This resets every day. It compares today's spend with the ideal daily spend calculated for each budget.
Pacing
This measures pacing for the 'period' defined by the budget.
You can apply an Alert to a static list of Ad Accounts, or you can include Ad Accounts dynamically. For example:
Period Budget Spend Alert when spend is greater than 90% for all Ad Accounts tagged with 'Sunita'
When you select accounts dynamically, the Budgets included update according to the criteria. For example, if the criteria is 'All Budgets tagged Sunita', any new Budgets that match are included, and any that have the 'Sunita' tag removed are removed.
Alert outputs
Alert outputs appear on the Alerts page <insert Link>. You are notified about them by severity, by email or to a messaging platform such as Slack or Teams.
Some examples of Manually-created Budget Alerts
Manually-created Budget Alert 1: a static list of Budgets
Spend Alert when spend is greater than 90% for all Budgets selected
Pacing Alert when pacing is greater than 120% for all Budgets selected
Manually-created Budget Alert 2: a dynamic list of Budgets, where the Budget name equals 'Brand'
Spend Alert when spend is greater than 95% for all included Budgets
Pacing Alert when pacing is greater than 120% for all included Budgets
Manually-created Budget Alert 3: a dynamic list of Budgets, where the Tag is Important
Spend Alert when spend is greater than 95% for all included Budgets
Spend Alert when spend is greater than 90% for all included Budgets
Pacing Alert when pacing is less than 80% for all included Budgets
How to create a Manually-created Budget Alert
You can start in either of two ways:
Select Create an Alert on the Alerts page <insert Link>
Select Create an Alert in Settings > Alerts & Optimizations <insert Link>
Creating an Alert takes three steps. First, choose the type of Alert under Budget Alerts: Today's Spend, Period Spend, or Pacing.
[IMAGE: Select an alert type]
Step 1: Setup
Name the Alert, then set its parameters. They depend on the type:
Type | Alerts you when | You set |
Today's Spend | Today's spend crosses a threshold | Greater or less than a percentage of today's ideal daily spend, plus an optional time cutoff in each account's time zone |
Period Spend | Spend in the budget period reaches a threshold | Greater or less than a percentage or amount of the budget, how often to test (every day or one time), and when to stop testing |
Pacing | Pacing crosses a threshold | Greater or less than a percentage of expected spend (100% is on track), how often to test, and a window to start and stop testing, in % of the period or days |
Step 2: Choose budgets to include
Choose which budgets the Alert watches:
Dynamic: match budgets by rule, such as a tag. Any future budget that matches is included automatically.
Static: pick specific budgets by hand. New budgets are not added unless you come back and add them.
[IMAGE: the Budgets step with Dynamic selected]
Step 3: Set a severity
Choose a severity for the Alert: Critical (something is broken or spend is at risk) or Important (needs attention soon, but nothing is broken outright). The severity decides which category the Alert appears in on the Alerts page, and who is notified. Select See Notification settings <insert Link> to see who gets notified, then select Save alert.
[IMAGE: the Notifications step with a severity chosen]