Alerts

The platform watches every running campaign and active publisher for the changes that cost money before anyone notices: traffic that suddenly stops or explodes, a campaign that stops converting at its usual rate, a publisher whose traffic turns dirty, and offer URLs that stop working. Each one is compared with its own history, so a small campaign isn't judged like a big one and a quiet night isn't a "drop". New alerts arrive on the bell and by email; this page lists them with the numbers behind them.

What you can do here

• Traffic drops and spikes — Clicks in the last 6 complete hours against the same hours on each of the previous 7 days, for every campaign and every publisher. The usual level is the median of those 7 days, so one odd day doesn't move it.
• Conversion-rate drops — A campaign's conversions per click over the last 24 hours against its previous week. The clicks are taken a little earlier — by the campaign's usual delay between click and conversion — so slow offers aren't judged before their conversions could arrive.
• Fraud spikes — When the share of a publisher's clicks flagged by a fraud rule or blocked by targeting jumps above the threshold (30%) and to at least twice their own usual share.
• Offer links — Once you switch automatic checks on (they're off by default), every running campaign's offer URL is opened regularly and a link that fails twice in a row is reported down. See the Offer links tab.
• Broken postbacks — Campaigns whose conversions stopped entirely, from Postback Health, are summarised at the top of the Active tab.
• Snooze and mute — Snooze stops notifications about an alert for 24 hours; mute stops them for good. Either way the alert stays tracked on this page.
• History — Alerts closed in the last 7 days, with when they closed. Every opening and closing is also in the audit log.

Fields and settings

How to use it

1. Open an alert's title to go to the campaign or publisher.
2. For a traffic drop: check the publisher's link is still live on their traffic source, and that the campaign isn't capped, paused or blocking the traffic (Click Intelligence shows why clicks were rejected).
3. For a traffic spike or fraud spike: look at the publisher's flagged clicks in Fraud Control and Click Intelligence before approving their conversions.
4. For a conversion-rate drop: ask the advertiser whether the landing page, checkout or goal changed, and check Conversion Review for conversions being held.
5. Snooze while you investigate; the alert closes by itself once the numbers are back.

Limitations

• Depends on: On PostgreSQL these checks need the hourly stats rollup; without it they pause (offer link checks still run).
• Depends on: Entities with too little traffic aren't judged: fewer than 100 usual clicks in the window for a drop (or 100 current clicks for a spike), fewer than 4 of the last 7 days with traffic, or under 20 conversions in the previous week for conversion rate.
• Supported: An alert closes only when the numbers are well back (half way to normal), so a value hovering at the threshold doesn't open and close repeatedly.
• Restricted: Needs the Campaigns (Offer management) permission. Publisher alerts are notified to members with the Publishers permission.

Common mistakes

• Treating every spike as fraud — A new placement or a promotion also spikes traffic. Check the fraud share and the flagged clicks first — a clean spike is good news.
• Muting instead of snoozing — A muted alert never notifies again, even when it reopens next month. Snooze while you investigate.

Troubleshooting

• An obvious drop wasn't alerted — Check the Rules tab: the drop must be larger than the threshold (70% by default) and the campaign must usually bring at least the minimum clicks in 6 hours. Also check Settings → Notifications: if the switch is off the alert is listed here but nobody is notified.
• “Not notified (alerts of this kind are off)” — The alert opened while its switch was off under Settings → Notifications. Turn it on and the alert is sent on the next check if it's still open.

Related

• Offer link checks
• Alert rules
• Postback Health
• Conversion review
• Fraud control
• Alerts and monitoring