If your campaign is not matching to an ad that you believe aired, we recommend these quick troubleshooting steps:
1. Confirm with the publisher the ad ran
The ad may have been cancelled or re-scheduled by the publisher. Confirm with them that the ad ran, and in which episode.
2. Is the episode transcribed?
From the show page, first confirm the episode containing the ad is transcribed, with a bold CC next to it.
If the episode is not yet transcribed and it’s been at least 24 hours since being published, please:
- confirm your campaign is for the right show (step 5 below)
- confirm the episode’s publish date falls between your campaign’s start & end date (step 6 below)
- contact support (adops@podscribe.com). Episodes should be auto-transcribed by our system, so there may be an issue with our system or the episode’s audio.
3. Is the ad labeled correctly in the transcript?
After confirming the episode has been transcribed, open the side panel of the episode with the ad. Is the ad labeled as the correct advertiser?
If the advertiser name does not appear, or appears differently than on your Campaigns page, click "View the Podcast's transcript.”
Search for the ad in the transcript. If it does not appear, proceed to step 2 to refetch the episode.
If you do see the ad in the transcript, use our transcript editor to label the ad yourself, or correct the advertiser name.
Wrong advertiser names can happen when the advertiser for a campaign is Babbel but the system incorrectly hears the ad as being for a similar sounding advertiser, like Babe Lash Cosmetics. A quick fix is to re-label the aircheck.
If the system repeatedly confuses your advertiser with another, please email support adops@podscribe.com so we can update the system.
Correcting ad labelings with our transcript editor:
1. Click the pencil icon to edit the transcript.
- Click on the name of the advertiser (in blue) to edit it. If the advertiser name is not added, move paragraphs around using enter/backspace to combine into one paragraph the ad text. The click on the speaker name (as in the screenshot) to mark the paragraph as an ad.
- Ensure that "Is ad?" is checked, then use the drop-down menu to find and select the correct advertiser. Enter the promo code if applicable, and then click “Update”.
- After correcting the ad label, wait at least 1 hour for the ad to match to the campaign. If the ad still does not match, proceed to the next step.
4. The ad is not in the transcript, but still believe it aired? Re-fetch the episode.
If you don’t see the ad in the episode’s transcript, the version Podscribe downloaded may just not have had the ad. The ad may though be found in another download of the same episode, for instance if the ad server is not inserting the ad into every download of the episode.
Have Podscribe refetch and re-analyze the episode audio with the refresh button on the episode page. After clicking, the episode will show multiple versions when you expand the Downloaded dropdown menu:
If you now see the ad in the new transcript version, wait a few hours as our system will likely auto-label and match the ad correctly to your campaign now. Our system should automatically refresh episodes like this for campaigns missing ads a few times per week on it’s own.
5. Is the campaign for the correct show?
Occasionally a campaign may point to the wrong version of a show, perhaps a duplicate with a similar name, or an outdated version of the show.
You can check what show your campaign points to by clicking the show logo on your Campaigns page, to visit the show’s page:
From the show’s page, verify the Apple podcast ID, or YouTube Channel/Playlist URL, and that the episodes you’re expecting appear on the page.
If your campaign points to the wrong show, correct this by:
1. [if the campaign was created on the dash] duplicating the incorrectly made campaign on your dash, to re-create a new campaign pointing to the correct show. Then archive the incorrect campaign after creating the new, correct campaign.
2. [if the campaign was imported from a Google Sheet], update the show’s apple ID or YouTube channel/playlist URL mapping.
6. Is the ad episode’s publish date within the campaign date range?
If the ad is labeled correctly, the campaign points to the right show, confirm that the publish date of the episode containing the ad falls within the start/end date of the campaign. This is required for our system to match the ad to a campaign.
Baked-In and Faked-In campaigns only report impressions if an ad is matched to them.
If the campaign date range needs adjusting to contain the episode’s publish date, click the Edit Campaign pencil icon to edit your campaign’s start/end dates.
If your campaign is imported from a Google Sheet, modify the start/end date on the Google Sheet, then click the Import Now button so Podscribe’s system re-syncs your Google Sheet.
7. Is the ad matching to another campaign on this show?
An ad can only match to one campaign. Check if there is another campaign for this advertiser & show with a similar date range that the ad is matched to. This could happen in the case of an accidental duplicated campaign (one campaign will appear as missing the aircheck), or there actually could be two plus campaigns on the same show during this date range. If only one ad aired then, one campaign is truly missing.
8. Does the campaign’s geo match the geo of the ad’s transcript?
If a campaign has an international geo eg Mexico, it can only match to ads downloaded in that geo, eg Mexico
Confirm the campaign’s geo matches that of the transcript of the episode. Correct the campaign’s geo if incorrect, or follow prior steps to ensure the ad is labeled in the transcript of the geo of the campaign.
9. Wait at least 24 hours?
Once the ad is properly labeled and the campaign is correct, be sure to give the system at least 24 hours. Most ads should be matched within 1 hour of being found, but on occasion it may take longer.
Here’s a quick demo video covering some of the above.
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