What is budget pacing?

Budget pacing tells you, mid-month, whether a channel is spending faster or slower than its recent norm. It compares actual month-to-date spend against where a straight line through the channel's own last three months would put it today. A ratio of 1.0 means exactly on pace; above 1 is ahead, below is behind.

Formula

pacing ratio = spend to date ÷ (avg monthly spend × share of month elapsed)

Worked example

A channel averaged €9,000 per month over the last three months. On day 10 of a 30-day month, expected spend to date is €9,000 × 10/30 = €3,000. Actual spend so far is €3,900, so the pacing ratio is 1.3 — flagged as ahead. Left alone, the month closes near €11,700, thirty percent over the recent norm. Whether that is a problem or a deliberate ramp is your call; the flag only says it is happening.

How Saldo Metrics computes it

v_budget_pacing computes one row per channel for the current calendar month. Spend to date sums spend_base from v_ad_spend_enriched from the start of the month up to but not including today (partial days would understate the daily rate). The baseline is the channel's average full-month spend over the three prior calendar months; the expected figure multiplies that average by the share of the month elapsed, and pacing_ratio divides actual by expected. There is no budget entry anywhere — the reference is the channel's own recent history, so a channel that always overspends its plan paces "normally" here.

In the app, a ratio above 1.15 shows as ahead and below 0.85 as behind; between the two counts as on track. A channel with no spend history in the prior three months has no baseline and shows no ratio.

Why it matters

Platforms spend what delivery allows, not what your plan says, and a runaway campaign is much cheaper to catch on day 10 than in the invoice. The pacing row is the earliest structural signal that a month will land off its recent norm — before any efficiency metric can tell you whether that extra spend was worth it.

Common mistakes

• Reading pacing as performance. The ratio prices nothing — a channel can pace at 1.0 while burning money, or at 1.4 while profitably scaling into strong demand. Check MER or true ROAS before acting on a pacing flag.
• Expecting it to track your planned budget. The baseline is trailing three-month actuals. After a deliberate budget change, pacing flags the new level for up to three months until the average catches up.
• Ignoring intra-month spend patterns. The expected line is linear; a channel that always front-loads (launch bursts, sale events) shows ahead early and on-track later, every month.

Where you see this in the app

Marketing → Overview, in the budget pacing section's per-channel rows.