Budgeting & pacing
Budget pacing
Budget pacing is the discipline of comparing actual campaign spend and delivery against the plan throughout the flight, so overspend and underspend are caught while there is still time to act. Pacing percentage equals actual spend to date divided by planned spend to date.
In practice
The calculation is simple; the operational habit is what most teams lack. A campaign that finishes 15% underspent did not fail in the final week - it failed quietly, one unnoticed day at a time.
The planned-to-date figure must reflect the flighting shape. Divide the budget by days and you get a straight line that is only correct if the plan was flat.