Cap-out Report

The cap-out report is available in the Analytics section of the Commerce Max platform. It informs you of how much sales is being missed due to your campaigns and line items reaching their available daily spend too early in the day.

The report provides insights on how to manage campaign budgets and identifies opportunities for increased sales through optimal budget recommendations.

On the top of the report, you can find three cards as follows:

Traffic: The total between actual recorded traffic and missed traffic. It informs you of the progression of missed traffic volume resulting from reaching the daily available spend.

Avg. Cap-out hour: The average time of day your line item spends all of its dedicated budget. It also evaluates how this duration compares to the average time lost due to the cap-out event.

Spend: Total spend including any platform fees. It displays the current and previous reporting period's actual spending and compares it to the total missed spend that the line item could have received if its daily limit was not reached early in the day.

Additionally, you can customize your report based on the following filters:

Campaign

Line Items

Campaign Status

Buy Type

Sales Channel

Retailer

Dimensions and Metrics

To facilitate the creation of custom reporting, you can select and combine multiple dimensions and metrics. This allows you to analyze the report with more precision.

You can choose from the following dimensions:

Campaign: Name of the campaign

Line Item: Name of the line item

Date: The date of the ad activity

Retailer: The retailer where the line-item was active for the report period

You can also customize based on the following metrics:

Daypart Schedule: The scheduled time of day when your ads are displayed.

Average Cap-Out Hour: The average time of day your line item spends all of its dedicated budget.

Missed traffic: The number of page loads where the advertiser did not display an impression after capping out.

Spend: Total spend including any platform fees.

Est. Missed Spend: The estimated additional budget recommended for your ads to display in optimal conditions.
Est. Missed Clicks: The estimated clicks that you could have received if their ad activity hadn't capped out.
Calculated using the number of clicks at the cap-out time against measured missed traffic.
Est. Missed Impression: The estimated impressions that advertisers could have received if their ad activity hadn't capped out.
Calculated using the number of impressions at the cap-out time against measured missed traffic.
Est. Missed Sales: The estimated additional revenue that could have been attributed to your ads if they had displayed.
Calculated using the Total Revenue against measured missed traffic.
Clicks: The number of clicks on your ad

Sales: Revenue that is attributed to your ad according to the date of sale.
Revenue is measured from your last ad view or click event.
Impressions: The number of times your ads were shown.

ROAS: Return on ad spend (ROAS) is calculated by dividing the number of attributed Sales by the total ad Spend.

Avg. CPM: The average cost-per-mille. It is calculated by dividing the total cost of impressions by the total number of impressions. (Spend/ Impressions)

Avg. CPC: The average cost-per-click. It is calculated by dividing the total click ad spend by the total number of clicks. (Spend/ Clicks)

CTR: Click-through rate is calculated by dividing the number of clicks by the number of placement impressions.

You can export the report in a CSV or Excel file format. Additionally, save and/ or create a schedule for it to export and send the report automatically by email.

Frequently asked questions

Will the new cap-out report match the same data you received from AX reports?
Yes. The new cap-out report will utilize the same data pipelines as the report used by your account strategist.
How far back can you see cap-out data?
The cap-out report has been backfilled to measure cap-out data from April 17th, 2024. Data before this date won’t be available in the report.
Are there any data discrepancies between the AX cap-out reports and the new version?
The latest version incorporates new data pipeline logic that now considers line items that have been day-parted. Therefore, you may notice a variance between the new and the current cap-out reports accessible in HUB and Insights (Gradient).
Here are some of the variances:
- Missed Traffic - There is an average difference of 7% - 12% in missed traffic data for line items with cap-out.
- Time zone - The previous cap-out report might indicate certain line items capping out on one day, whereas the new report might show the same cap-out on a different day. This discrepancy is attributed to a time zone conversion issue in the old report, leading to an average 6% difference in line items capping out between these two versions.
- All discrepancies affecting various metrics in the report will result in a 1% variance between the updated and previous versions of this report.
What is the latency of the cap-out report?
- For non-sale metrics (Example: clicks, impressions): 48hours
- For sales metrics (Example: sales, ROAS), the initial estimations (Est. Missed Sales, Est. Missed Traffic, etc.) will be visible after 48 hours, followed by an update after 4 days.
  Like the previous cap-out report, the final data reporting still requires up to 4 days. This delay is due to the characteristics of our attribution pipelines and the inclusion of late-received sales.
- Because of this 48hrs delay with the cap-out report, some days may not align with the activity report
  Example
  Today is January 11th, and you run the reports for the following periods
  - You run the Activity report for Jan 1st - Jan 10th
  - You run the cap-out report for Jan 1st - Jan 10th.
  When analyzing non-sales metrics, you may observe a variance in the figures between the activity report and the cap-out report.
  This occurs because the report was generated on January 11th, and data from January 10th and beyond is still pending. The cap-out report initially displays a reduced count of sales data, but it will align with the actual numbers once the data becomes accessible in our pipelines.
Do some of the metrics in the cap-out report align with the activity dashboards?
Yes, most metrics such as Impressions, Clicks, Avg. CPC, Spend, CTR and ROAS will align with the Activity dashboards.
Meanwhile, due to the logic we use to calculate cap-out, metrics such as Sales will not match the same attributed transactions we report in the activity dashboard.
The cap-out reports Sales are the number of attributed transactions at the time when the ad activity capped out, whereas our activity dashboard is based on the date of the sale. This causes some variances in the report aggregation logic.
Will the cap-out report be offered in the API?
Not immediately, but upon the UI report's release. The objective is to eventually make the comprehensive report accessible via the API.
Will there be a cap-out report for onsite display campaigns?
As of now, the cap-out for display campaigns is not yet planned.

With the release of the new cap-out report, will the cap-out report in HUB and/ or In Insight (Gradient) be deprecated?
- For HUB, it will not be deprecated.
- For Insights (Gradient) - Yes. The new cap-out report will replace the Gradient version as more reports from the insights tab are planned to migrate to the native RMP application.
We offer cap-out in Gradient today, but does this mean this report will be free in CMax?
Yes, the new cap-out report will be available to all advertisers and retailers.
Will retailers selling direct sold campaigns have access to this report within their supply account?
Yes, the Cap-out Report is accessible across all demand-side domains.
This encompasses the demand-side domain of the supply account and is also accessible to all demand-type accounts within the Criteo network and private market, encompassing both Brand and Seller accounts.
A Cap-out Yield (supply-side) report is not yet planned for the future.