How To Calculate Impression Discrepancy

What is ad impression discrepancy?

Discrepancy means seeing different scenarios for the same action in the same place at same time. Ad impression discrepancy means, getting the different amount of impressions when the ad is tracked by multiple trackers from different servers for same ad slot in same flight date.  

Impression discrepancy can be a huge problem if you are working with an ad network and sending them large amounts of your digital inventory. impression discrepancy occurs when impressions are lost when you send an ad network impressions for them to fill with advertisements. The end result is a watered down eCPM and reduced revenue that you earn from the advertisers. The first step to resolve impression discrepancy is to learn how to calculate impression discrepancy.

Unfortunately, digital advertising technology and website code are not always universal. Advertisements need to be called on by an ad server in 200 milliseconds, which is both a blessing and a curse. the industry accepted the standard for the discrepancy is 10%.

Reasons why impression discrepancy occurs:

• Two reporting systems do not calculate impression discrepancy correctly due to different time zones in the report.
• Ad blocking software such as AdSafe eliminates certain impressions, skewing the count.
• Impression waterfall of multiple ad networks with passback tags loses impressions when ad servers fail to “talk” to each other.
• Mobile impressions generally contribute to higher impression discrepancy percentages.
• The ad network is not taking the impressions and is serving PSA’s or blanks that are not reflected in reporting.
• IP mapping is not the same in the 3rd party ad serving technology.
• Creatives that have large file sizes take too long to load and impressions are lost.
• Javascript tag but the user does not have javascript turned on in their browser.
• A cache-buster is not hardcoded in the ad tag. Cachebusters ensure that the creative is pulled from the ad server rather than the web page.

How to Calculate Impression discrepancy formula