How do I know whether a board is available for use in my campaign?

When you are selecting a board for use in your campaign, be mindful of the availability indicator shown on the board’s information panel:

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The little green dot shown next to the board’s type will be either:

• Green - highly available (heard from in the last hour)
• Amber/Yellow - moderately available (heard from in the last 6 hours)‍
• Red - not available (not heard from within the last 6 hours)

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Bear in mind that I can only see the current availability of the board. That is, I can only see whether a board has requested ads from me in the past. I cannot see their availability into the future - in other words, I don’t know the following:

• When a board that is unavailable will become available.
• When a board that is available will become unavailable.

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This is the nature of the programmatic trade - you’re buying ads in real-time, via the internet. A board that loses its internet connection or a board that is temporarily removed from trade might become unavailable at any point (and return at any point).

I cannot serve your ads to a board that isn’t requesting ads. The downside is that this can happen at any time (it rarely does), but the upside is that you’re not losing any credits on boards that aren’t doing anything for you. 

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So, what can you do?

The solution here is to not rely on any one board to carry your campaign. Be sure to set up your campaign with multiple boards in the same area so that you insulate yourself against any board becoming temporarily unavailable.

Have a read of this detailed article into the mechanics of programmatic advertising, and how this relates back to your use of the CAASie platform.