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MMEdia Overspend on daily budget WHILE campaign was paused (15)

10-25-2014 07:31 AM #1 fightingfffreedom (Member)
MMEdia Overspend on daily budget WHILE campaign was paused

Hi guys,
I used MMEdia and had a daily budget of 12 which I switched to 8 then 10. I went out to dinner, came back and the campaign had spent 14 dollars. No biggie (even though it was set up right and that was verified by their team), I paused the campaign, went to bed and woke up to 23 spend (which even if it wasn't paused would have exceeded the daily budget for 2 days).

I have since terminated the campaign (their version of delete) and am monitoring it to see if it receives anymore clicks.

Is this normal for most traffic sources? Have you ever heard of this with this traffic source? What should I do?

I am very confused as I thought this was a legit traffic source and not a shady one.

10-25-2014 07:50 AM #2 zeno (Administrator)

They have a lot of traffic. And yep they are one of the better mobile sources out there - I have only heard positive things about their traffic.

What geo was it and what were you bidding?

If you were in a geo with a lot of traffic and your bid was quite high then it's normal for overspend. Count yourself lucky - in some situations you can bid enough to spend $100 a minute and their system may take several minutes to adjust to budget changes.

10-25-2014 07:52 AM #3 fightingfffreedom (Member)

Quote Originally Posted by zeno View Post
They have a lot of traffic. And yep they are one of the better mobile sources out there - I have only heard positive things about their traffic.

What geo was it and what were you bidding?

If you were in a geo with a lot of traffic and your bid was quite high then it's normal for overspend. Count yourself lucky - in some situations you can bid enough to spend $100 a minute and their system may take several minutes to adjust to budget changes.
Mexico & CPC. Not sure how that is possible to over spend a hardcoded daily budget.

Also I paused it at 9 pm est. How is it is possible I am still getting clicks at 3 am. Thats a 6 hour difference between the pause and the effect (and it could have continued getting clicks i just terminated the campaign).

10-25-2014 08:06 AM #4 zeno (Administrator)

How is a daily budget 'hardcoded'?

There isn't a person watching it who pulls the plug on the internet the moment they see it hit $9.99.

It's all based on software systems, algorithms and complex/large scale buying processes - that may very well be dealing with $100-1,000+ spend per second.

That being the case, an overspend on a $10 campaign is obviously a bit of a let down but their system may struggle with very, very low budgets.

There could also have been an error in the pause notice going through in the control panel e.g. API didn't respond? In these cases it can pay to re-activate then pause again.

If it happens multiple times I'd complain to their support.

10-25-2014 08:10 AM #5 fightingfffreedom (Member)

Quote Originally Posted by zeno View Post
How is a daily budget 'hardcoded'?

There isn't a person watching it who pulls the plug on the internet the moment they see it hit $9.99.

It's all based on software systems, algorithms and complex/large scale buying processes - that may very well be dealing with $100-1,000+ spend per second.

That being the case, an overspend on a $10 campaign is obviously a bit of a let down but their system may struggle with very, very low budgets.

There could also have been an error in the pause notice going through in the control panel e.g. API didn't respond? In these cases it can pay to re-activate then pause again.

If it happens multiple times I'd complain to their support.
I mean there is a field that says daily budget. Fine it is "soft-coded" fact of the matter daily budgets exist for a reason no? What is the point of having a field that says only spend x amount if it is not obeyed.

That makes no sense what you are saying dude. If a field says spend x amount per day at MOST and it spend X * 3 that really defeats the purpose of the field (regardless of how much processing it does. A daily budget is a static figure it has NOTHING to do with algos from what i understand. It is a "soft-coded" ceiling.) This is not a bid we are talking about where it has to run an algo this is a hard stop. Like an interation in perl while going through an array. It has a fixed stop point. Nothing variable there.

It is reference experience and that is what i am buying right now. Just never had this issue with google or fb (though I know mobile is different).

Sure maybe the api didn't respond. I mean that can be a rationalization for anything though. Maybe the api didn't respond when I put 10 on the budget and thought it was 100.

I contacted their support regardless.

Btw thanks for the help

10-25-2014 10:50 AM #6 zeno (Administrator)

I think the issue arises as their system has to put your campaign into a bidding queue and checks regularly to see if spend is approaching cap and pulls/throttles if it is.

Different systems will have different pacing algorithms. It's not as simple as a simple loop script - we really don't know exactly how the system is set up for each traffic source but remember they are probably connecting 1000s of advertisers together over millions of banners, bids, targeting segments and plugging this into dozens of exchanges, publishers and advertising networks...

Even Facebook can go over budget sometimes.

Of course some times there may be faults as well (like spending for 3 hours after pausing).

Anyway, to give an analogy, one system might be like placing grains of rice on a balance until you hit 1000 g. Each grain is added individually and the weight checked ensuring you don't go over budget.

Other systems may be less complex or have much more traffic so such granular processing has too much technical overhead. In this case it's a "pour and tell me when to stop" situation where it's easy to go overboard due to the time it takes to react to the scales reaching 1000 g. This is why they suggest minimum budgets. If you are pouring rice, setting a budget of 10 g may be hard to safely fall within cf. 100 g.

10-25-2014 10:53 AM #7 fightingfffreedom (Member)

Quote Originally Posted by zeno View Post
I think the issue arises as their system has to put your campaign into a bidding queue and checks regularly to see if spend is approaching cap and pulls/throttles if it is.

Different systems will have different pacing algorithms. It's not as simple as a simple loop script - we really don't know exactly how the system is set up for each traffic source but remember they are probably connecting 1000s of advertisers together over millions of banners, bids, targeting segments and plugging this into dozens of exchanges, publishers and advertising networks...

Even Facebook can go over budget sometimes.

Of course some times there may be faults as well (like spending for 3 hours after pausing).

Anyway, to give an analogy, one system might be like placing grains of rice on a balance until you hit 1000 g. Each grain is added individually and the weight checked ensuring you don't go over budget.

Other systems may be less complex or have much more traffic so such granular processing has too much technical overhead. In this case it's a "pour and tell me when to stop" situation where it's easy to go overboard due to the time it takes to react to the scales reaching 1000 g. This is why they suggest minimum budgets. If you are pouring rice, setting a budget of 10 g may be hard to safely fall within cf. 100 g.
Great points. It was just a shock to me because I know over bidding was common but i thought I had taken steps to avoid it.

Thanks again for the help you are always super helpful. What i need to understand is do you ever sleep?? lol thx again

10-25-2014 11:07 PM #8 zeno (Administrator)

Funny thing there is... not so much lately. Trying to average <5 hours a day but harder than I thought, especially after sport :P

10-25-2014 11:15 PM #9 cmdeal (Veteran Member)

I know it may seem like a grave injustice, but a $10 overspend on a campaign really is probably not something to get that worked up about.

10-25-2014 11:40 PM #10 emcrow (AMC Alumnus)

While I agree that a $10 overspend isn't the end of the world, I guess what is concerning here is the scale of the overspend in comparison to the overall budget.

In your experiences with larger campaigns, does the relative scale of the overspend decrease? E.g, I'd be fine with a $10 overspend if the budget was $1000 but I wouldn't be so keen if the overspend was $1000.

Thanks.

10-25-2014 11:49 PM #11 fightingfffreedom (Member)

Quote Originally Posted by cmdeal View Post
I know it may seem like a grave injustice, but a $10 overspend on a campaign really is probably not something to get that worked up about.
Just worried that if i had a bigger budget there would be a huger overspend. Not to mention the campaign is deleted (hours and hours and hours ago, and is still getting clicks, though I am not being charged).

Most worriesome is a paused campaign still getting clicks that get charged.

Its not the money, homie, its the principle and the what if (what if it a bigger budget, what if I hadn;t check the campign, etc, etc).

I could honestly give 2 fucks less about the entire 23 dollars. I am from nyc and a kettle 1 on the rock is 15 lmao.

Thx for the advice though.

10-26-2014 12:23 AM #12 zeno (Administrator)

The overspend after deletion is indeed worrisome but I reckon it will be because your ads have gone through an IO somewhere with some minimum, so even after pulling the plug they had to expire naturally and MM was obliged to pay for that delivery.

It could have happened for any number of reasons, we can only really speculate.

10-26-2014 05:48 AM #13 deondup (Member)

$10/day is not a budget. Its why most networks have a min budget as its not possible to control delivery when the budget is that low.

From a testing perspective, you really won't gain anything from spending $10/day. My recommendation on MM is to have at least a $50/day budget. If you are tight on cash, start by switching off wifi - it will throttle the delivery quite a bit.

Overspending is something you get everywhere. Some networks won't charge you for it but most will.

There's quite a big delay in changes taking effect - sometimes as much as 3 to 4 hours. Its a HUGE network with a gazillion impressions. If you pause or stop a campaign it will keep going...usually for another hour from my experience.

10-26-2014 12:55 PM #14 fightingfffreedom (Member)

Thanks. This was really helpful and explained a lot.

10-26-2014 02:42 PM #15 Mr Green (Administrator)

Quote Originally Posted by deondup View Post
$10/day is not a budget. Its why most networks have a min budget as its not possible to control delivery when the budget is that low.

From a testing perspective, you really won't gain anything from spending $10/day. My recommendation on MM is to have at least a $50/day budget. If you are tight on cash, start by switching off wifi - it will throttle the delivery quite a bit.

Overspending is something you get everywhere. Some networks won't charge you for it but most will.

There's quite a big delay in changes taking effect - sometimes as much as 3 to 4 hours. Its a HUGE network with a gazillion impressions. If you pause or stop a campaign it will keep going...usually for another hour from my experience.
Just to add to this,

There is a delay from when ads are served compared to when they are clicked. Imagine someone is browsing a website where your ad is served. You then pause your campaign while your ad is still being shown. The ad network won't automatically pull your ad from being shown at the point, and there is still a possibility it will be clicked.

Networks are also weary of people gaming the system. MySpace ad network got PILLAGED by people messing with the delay between ads being served and clicked.

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