Inventory forecasting
and reservation
Workbench provides access to inventory forecasting to assist you with ad sales planning. Apple only delivers and forecasts inventory based on impressions.
Check inventory
Apple uses the historical traffic on Apple News channels to forecast inventory. When you click Check Inventory, Apple uses the various line attributes (for example, line type, creative type, and targeting) to determine forecasts.
- Available inventory represents the amount of overall inventory (in impressions) for this set of attributes.
- Total inventory indicates how much of the total supply is available to you after factoring in competing standard and takeover lines.
The following are reasons why your line may not have enough inventory.
| Reason | Description |
|---|---|
| Total Available Impressions | If Total Available Impressions is less than the Total Impression Goal. |
| Total Audience Size Is Less Than 5,000 Users | Apple privacy rules mandate that you can't target groups of users where the unique user count is less than 5000. Your count may be less than what's available, but unless the possible audience is more than 5000 users, the line will not be reserved. You should loosen your line's targeting parameters to widen the number of users who can be served your ad. |
| Failed Smooth Delivery | In some cases, the total available impressions are greater than the total impression goal, but they may not deliver evenly across the flight period. For example, you entered a 10-day campaign for 10,000 impressions. The first six days are completely sold out but all 10,000 impressions can deliver over the last four days of the flight. The system may state that there isn't enough inventory because running those 10,000 impressions over the four days has higher likelihood of under-delivery than if the 10,000 impressions were available across all 10 days of the flight. |
“We do not have enough data to provide a confident forecast” |
You’ll still see a forecast, but the data should be used for directional purposes only. This may happen for the following reasons:
|
| Competing Lines | When you click Show Competing Lines, the system will show you all the standard and takeover lines which compete with your proposed booking. Clicking any of these competing lines will open a new tab in your browser. |
Reserve inventory
Reserve Inventory should be selected if you wish for the line to run. Various inventory reservation scenarios can occur:
Inventory is available
- Line is reserved. This line will run.
- Line is not reserved. This line is part of your campaign, but won't run until you formally reserve inventory. You can do this via the Settings (gear icon) or by editing the line itself.
Inventory is not available
- Line is reserved. This line will run with the risk that it may under-deliver. This will also put any competing line at risk for under-delivery.
- Line is not reserved. This line is part of your campaign, but won’t run until you formally reserve inventory. You can do this via the Settings (gear icon) or by editing the line itself.
Note that you must click Submit for all the lines within your campaign to be eligible to run.