📋 Ads Pacing and Goals (Agency)

Dashboard link: https://app.emax-digital.com/advertising-monitor-for-agencies-ad-summary

Overview

The Ads Pacing & Goals dashboard is the agency-level cockpit for tracking advertising performance against plan across all of your client accounts in one place. For each company, marketplace, and ad type, it compares actual Ad Spend and Ad Sales to the Ad Budget and Ad Sales Goal you have entered in the Advertising Goals section, and projects where each metric will land by the end of the period if the current run rate continues.

A traffic-light system makes the dashboard scannable at a glance: a deviation of less than 5% from the goal is green (on track), between 5% and 20% is yellow (watch), and beyond 20% is red (action needed). This applies to budget pacing, revenue pacing, ACoS, ROAS, and TACoS.

It is designed for account managers and agency leads who manage multiple brands and need to spot — within seconds — which clients, marketplaces, or ad types are off-track and need intervention before the period closes.

Prerequisites

• Advertising Goals must be filled in. Pacing and "vs Goal" columns only work if Ad Budget, Ad Sales Goal, ACoS Goal, ROAS Goal, and TACoS Goal have been entered for the relevant company, marketplace, and ad type in the Advertising Goals section. Companies without goals will show blank pacing values.

• Used by agencies managing multiple client (company) accounts. The Companies filter is the primary way to scope the view.

What You Can See on This Dashboard

Section: Instructions & Pacing Logic

A short reference panel at the top of the dashboard summarising:

• Where to set advertising goals (the Advertising Goals section).

• The colour-coding logic used throughout the table (≤5% deviation = green, 5–20% = yellow, >20% = red).

• How currency conversion works — rates are sourced from the European Central Bank (ECB SDMX 2.1 web service), with a link to view the current conversion rates.

• A link to the Hub Glossary for full KPI definitions.

Section: Advertising Pacing & Goals by Marketplace

The main table of the dashboard. One row per combination of Company × Marketplace × Ad Type, showing the full set of pacing, efficiency, and trend metrics in a single horizontal scan. The Granularity filter controls whether ad types are shown in detail (Sponsored Products, Sponsored Brands, Sponsored Display, DSP, etc.) or rolled up into a summarised view.

Pacing metrics — Spend side:

• Ad Spend — total spend so far in the selected period, with a trend indicator vs. the comparison period.

• Ad Budget — the planned budget for the period (from Advertising Goals).

• Ad Spend vs Budget — Ad Spend ÷ Ad Budget. Shows how much of the budget has been consumed at this point in the period.

• Avg Spend Per Day — average daily spend so far in the period.

• Spend in Rest of Period — projected spend for the remaining days, based on the current daily run rate.

• Ad Spend Pacing EOP (End of Period) — (Ad Spend + Avg Daily Spend × Days Remaining) ÷ Ad Budget. Tells you whether the current pace will land on, under, or over budget by period-end.

• Ad Budget per Day — daily budget that the period plan implies, for reference against Avg Spend Per Day.

• Budget Score — colour-coded indicator (green / yellow / red) for spend vs. budget today.

• New Budget Score — colour-coded indicator for the projected end-of-period spend pacing.

Pacing metrics — Sales side:

• Ad Sales — ad-attributed revenue so far in the period, with trend.

• Ad Sales Goal — the planned revenue target for the period.

• Ad Sales vs Goal — Ad Sales ÷ Ad Sales Goal achieved so far.

• Avg Sales Per Day — average daily ad sales so far.

• Sales in Rest of Period — projected ad sales for the remaining days at the current run rate.

• Ad Sales Pacing EOP — (Ad Sales + Avg Daily Sales × Days Remaining) ÷ Ad Sales Goal. Projects whether you will hit the revenue target by period-end.

• Revenue Score / EOP Revenue Score — colour-coded indicators for current and projected revenue pacing.

Efficiency metrics (each colour-coded against its goal):

• ACoS (Advertising Cost of Sales) — Ad Spend ÷ Ad Sales, with trend, goal, and a Score column.

• ROAS (Return on Ad Spend) — Ad Sales ÷ Ad Spend, with trend, goal, and a Score column.

• TACoS (Total Advertising Cost of Sales) — Ad Spend ÷ total sales (Seller + Vendor combined), with trend, goal, and a Score column. Useful for brands running on both Seller Central and Vendor Central.

Visualization: A wide, colour-coded table with one row per Company × Marketplace × Ad Type combination, alternating row colours per company for readability.

Available Filters

Filter interaction notes

• Reporting Range and Period work together. Switching Reporting Range (e.g. Monthly → Quarterly) changes which values appear in the Period dropdown.

• Compare to controls every "Trend" column in the table (Ad Spend Trend, Ad Sales Trend, ACoS Trend, ROAS Trend, TACoS Trend, etc.). It does not affect pacing — pacing is always measured against the goals set in the Advertising Goals section for the selected period.

• Currency conversion uses beginning-of-year ECB exchange rates applied to all revenue and spend figures, so cross-currency comparisons are consistent across the period. Click "Show conversion rates" in the instructions panel to see the exact rates in use.

• Granularity affects only the level of ad-type roll-up shown in the table — it does not change the underlying data.

• Sponsored Products Attribution changes the SP rows of the table to reflect the selected attribution window; Sponsored Brands, Sponsored Display, and DSP figures are unaffected.

Use Cases

1 — Monday-morning pacing check across the client portfolio

You manage a portfolio of brands and want to know which clients need attention this week.

• Set Reporting Range = Monthly, Period = the current month, Granularity = Summarised.

• Scan the Budget Score and Revenue Score columns for red flags.

• For any red row, switch Granularity to Detailed to see which ad type (SP, SB, SD, DSP) is driving the deviation.

• Cross-check Ad Spend Pacing EOP vs. Ad Sales Pacing EOP — a project end-of-period spend at 110% with sales pacing at 90% is the worst combination and needs immediate intervention.

2 — Mid-month budget reforecast

It is mid-month and you need to decide whether to push more budget or pull back.

• Read Avg Spend Per Day and compare it to Ad Budget per Day for each client/marketplace.

• If Avg Spend Per Day is consistently below Ad Budget per Day and Ad Sales Pacing EOP is below 100%, you have headroom to push more spend.

• If Ad Spend Pacing EOP > 105% but Ad Sales Pacing EOP < 95%, efficiency has slipped — investigate ACoS Trend before increasing budget.

3 — Efficiency check against agreed targets

A client has agreed an ACoS target of 20% and a TACoS target of 8% for the quarter.

• Set Reporting Range = Quarterly, Period = current quarter.

• Filter Companies to that one client.

• Read the ACoS Score and TACoS Score columns — green means within 5% of the agreed goal, yellow within 20%, red beyond 20%.

• Use ACoS Trend and TACoS Trend to see whether efficiency is improving or deteriorating vs. the comparison period.

4 — Ad-type-level reallocation

You suspect one ad type is dragging down overall performance.

• Set Granularity = Detailed.

• Within a single Company × Marketplace, compare ROAS by ad type.

• Use Ad Sales vs Goal by ad type to see which formats are over- and under-pacing on their share of the revenue plan, and reallocate budget accordingly.

5 — Client review preparation

You are preparing for a monthly client business review.

• Filter Companies to the client, Reporting Range = Monthly, Period = the closed month, Compare to = Previous Year.

• Pull headline Ad Spend, Ad Sales, ACoS, ROAS, and TACoS for each marketplace with their YoY trends.

• Use the Score columns to lead the conversation on what was on plan, off plan, and why.

Limitations & Notes

• Pacing requires goals to be set. If Ad Budget, Ad Sales Goal, ACoS Goal, ROAS Goal, or TACoS Goal are missing for a company/marketplace/ad type in Advertising Goals, the corresponding pacing and score columns will be blank. There is no automatic forecast or fallback.

• End-of-period projections assume a stable run rate. Ad Spend Pacing EOP and Ad Sales Pacing EOP are linear extrapolations from the average daily figures so far. Strong seasonality (e.g. Prime Day, Black Friday) or planned mid-period budget changes will not be reflected in the projection — interpret with judgement near major events.

• Traffic-light thresholds are fixed. Green = within 5%, yellow = within 20%, red = beyond 20%. These thresholds are not user-configurable.

• Currency conversion uses beginning-of-year ECB rates. This means converted values will not match what your finance team sees if they use transaction-date rates or a different rate provider. Stick to the native marketplace currency when reconciling against client invoices.

• TACoS requires combined Seller + Vendor sales. For brands that operate on only one of Seller Central or Vendor Central, TACoS will be based on that single channel only. For hybrid brands, both data sources must be connected for TACoS to be accurate.

• Sponsored Products Attribution affects SP rows only. Switching the attribution window does not retroactively change Sponsored Brands, Sponsored Display, or DSP figures — those use their own native attribution models.

• "Compare to" does not affect pacing. Pacing always compares actuals to the goals set for the selected period. Only trend columns (Spend Trend, Sales Trend, ACoS Trend, etc.) respond to the Compare to filter.

• Agency dashboard. Designed for accounts with multiple companies. Single-brand accounts can still use it, but the Companies filter and per-company row grouping are most valuable in a multi-client setting.