Forecasts are calculated by using your account’s data from the past 7 days, combined with your account’s historical data, for an estimate of how your campaigns could perform. When you create or edit a plan, charts will be available to assist your evaluation of budget spend, key metrics, and key metric value adjustments under the “Adjust forecast” step.
Use chart forecasting
Under the “Adjust forecast” step when you create or edit a plan, you must specify a date range and select the campaign groups the plan applies to. This evaluates spend and key metric settings using chart forecasting.
In Key metrics, you can select the key metric you require, or experiment to assess the predicted performance of each one, from the following options:
- Clicks, Avg. CPC
- Conversions, Avg. CPA
- Conv. value, conv. value per spend
To better understand how pacing columns work, learn more about Forecasting the results of your plan .
Explore forecast tab
A line is displayed in the chart on this tab with “Spend” on the x-axis, and the key metric value on the y-axis. If the key metric has two components (for example, Conversions and Avg. Cost/Conversion), there’s a toggle on the right above the chart you can use to manipulate the forecast to test each one.
A gray circle on the line marks the current settings. Hover over this gray circle or at any location on the line to display a pop-up detailing the relevant settings for spend and key metrics at this point. If the Budget bid strategyslider is on, the circle position reflects the current automated settings, and these are displayed in the pop-up with “Automated” as a heading.
Click at any point on the line or adjust the amounts for spend and key metrics in “Your plan” to change the current settings. The chart forecast adjusts and the gray circle moves to the new position. The new settings for spend and key metrics are updated below the graph and in the “Your plan” panel.
Compare performance tab
Bar charts for spend and the selected key metrics are displayed on this tab. You can select a date range for Past performance using the drop-down above the graph. In each bar chart, there’s a bar for “Past performance” , “Forecast with current settings”, and “Forecast with updated settings”. Hover your input device over a bar in any chart to display a pop-up of the spend and key metrics settings for the bar. The difference between the spend or key metric value to be achieved by the current settings and the bar settings is displayed at the bottom of the pop-up.
Adjust the spend amount in the editable fields below the graph, or in “Your plan” where you can also adjust amounts for key metrics. The bar charts adjust in response.
Custom conversion rates
You can create custom conversion rates in your accounts, which can help you with performance forecasting. This feature lets you adjust your conversion rates for specific scenarios or campaigns, giving you a more accurate picture of your potential results. Learn how to Create a plan .
