View top inventory insights with traffic explorer

Traffic explorer lets you examine the data you specify in a consolidated view. It gives instant insight about first-party data from your inventory. You can also compare sections of your inventory for improved campaign insight.

The high-level scorecards break down top geography, line item, ad units and more, by exploring certain targeting scenarios to filter inventory segments.

With traffic explorer, you can:

• Use a given set of targeting dimensionsto build more detailed inventory insight (device, geography, platform, browser, ad unit, line item, key-value, and more listed below)
• View scorecardsfor an overview of audience segment reach, including ad opportunities and unique identifiers
• View explorer cardsto see multiple insight cards, showing unique identifier forecasts and various breakdowns across dimensions

Access and configure traffic explorer

1. Sign in to Google Ad Manager.
2. Click Inventory, then  Traffic explorer.
3. Choose your dates.
4. Click Edit targetingto specify the targeting criteria for the inventory data you'd like to explore. You can also apply a targeting preset .
5. Click Done.

Compare inventory

To optionally compare the currently selected inventory with another one, you can click Add comparison targetingand specify the targeting criteria you'd like to compare.

Filter data

To optionally only see data for particular CPM amounts, advertisers, and/or line item types, you can click Add filterand set up filters for one or all of the filters available.

Choose which metrics you'd like to view

In the "Metrics" section of traffic explorer, you can select either "Unique identifiers" or "Ad opportunities". The scorecards update based on your selection.

• Unique identifiersare the number of identifiers exposed to your ad requests over a given duration. You can use this to estimate how many people were shown your ad.

  Note: Unique identifiers aren't the same as unique users. If your ad is shown twice on a single device, it only counts as one unique identifier. This could apply even if multiple people use the device.

  A single person may count as multiple identifiers if they use multiple devices, have certain browser settings, or both.

• Ad opportunitiesare the number of times it was possible to have delivered an impression.

Populate an audience segment

You can optionally select an audience segment where you want to add user identifiers, or create a new audience segment.

Note that currently only a subset of targeting dimensions are available for populating an audience segment . Also, to populate audience segments, you first need to remove any filters you may have added.

Learn how to access traffic explorer from a line item

View scorecards

View more details about your inventory using these scorecards.

	Traffic forecast Gives historical traffic along with future impression opportunities for a selected inventory, and sell-through rates. Click View in traffic forecast for more tools to analyze past and future impressions .
	Top geography The top regions where users in this audience segment are located when visiting your site. Click into a country's bar to see more granular data at the state or region level.
	Top devices Devices where the most ad opportunities or unique identifiers were served
	Top browsers The top browsers that users in this selected inventory are visiting your site from
	Top platforms Platforms with the most ad opportunities or unique identifiers served
	Top ad units Your ad units with the most ad opportunities or unique identifiers served
	Top line items Your line items with the most ad opportunities or unique identifiers served
	Top video content Your top video content with the most unique identifiers or ad opportunities served. Note that the data shown here represents an estimate based on traffic sampled over the last 30 days, so the figures might not be exact.
	Top content bundles Your video content bundles with the most unique identifiers or ad opportunities served. Note that the data shown here represents an estimate based on traffic sampled over the last 30 days, so the figures might not be exact.
	Top key values Shows the top targeting values of a selected key

Use cases for traffic explorer

Respond to RFPs or interests from buyers

To provide data to buyers that shows the value of running a campaign based on their particular needs, you can filter down to the inventory of interest in traffic explorer.

Understand your audience when using key-values

Publishers using key-values to leverage audience data can use traffic explorer to understand the nature of your audience by filtering down to the key-value that represents your audience.

Research and develop first-party data

Traffic explorer could show you, for example, users on your sports inventory visiting from Canada tend to also be in your Movie Fan and Non-Fiction Enthusiast audience segments. Running ads on your sports inventory may actually be a good place to reach these users.

Build audience segments

Use traffic explorer as inspiration to build a new audience segment if visitors to a specific segment of your inventory exhibit some behavior of interest.

Troubleshooting

When there is an unexpected change in inventory, traffic explorer can be used to quickly analyze the situation.

Share data summary with executives

Traffic explorer's visual representation makes it easy to share snapshots of trends and performance with others in your business who may not be in the tool on a day-to-day basis.