Discrepancy Investigation Guide

Ensure both the ad server and the publisher are reporting in the same time zone. XR’s default is (UTC-05:00) Eastern Time (US & Canada), but it can be set to any global time zone when the campaign is created. 

Verify how impressions are being counted (e.g., Impression event vs. Start event, Impression vs. Viewable Impression). 

Total Served Ads vs. Impression 

On the XR campaign dashboard and in the report tool, clients and publishers can toggle between Total Served Ads and Impressions. Total Served Ads represents all ads served regardless of begin to render or initiation status. For more details on our methodology, you can review our Description of Methodology and/or the IAB’s Video Impression guidelines.     

Check for potential delivery issues caused by using the wrong tag type or a tag unsuitable for the inventory. 

DSPs / aggregators running on publishers with precise specs should make sure the tag type contains that publisher name (e.g. VAST_Disney vs. VAST_ESPN) 

Tip: VAST Super tags include the most common media formats. 

If there are new partners in the ecosystem, additional tag formats could be needed. Please contact connectivity.na@extremereach.com for new tag or partner requests.  

Check for any reports on ad blocking or viewability issues. XR uses Open Measurement, which depends on publisher implementation of the Open Measurement SDK. 

Review how the ad tags are implemented on the publisher’s site. Misplaced or improperly configured tags can cause data to be incorrectly tracked or missed. 

Publisher’s are responsible for proper implementation of the XR tags or 1x1 pixels in their ad server.  

Note: the impression pixel must be implemented on the Impression event.   

If no impression pixel is implemented, no other events will be recorded.   

If the impression pixel is in the wrong position, it will cause a discrepancy. This can sometimes be determined by comparing another event’s counts to the impression event counts. 

Ensure click tracking is properly redirecting functioning correctly.  

Note: only one click is counted as valid per impression.  If multiple clicks are counted by a publisher in a viewing session, this could cause a discrepancy.  

Confirm that cache-busting measures are in place on both sides to prevent undercounting. 

Make sure you’re comparing reports with the same date range, time zone, filters, and segmentation (e.g., geo-targeting, device type). 

Request a 1st party report from the publisher and confirm their counting methodology, including any filtering or validation they may be doing. 

Look at historical data to see if the discrepancy is a recent issue or a long-standing trend. This can help identify if there was a recent change (e.g., platform update, implementation change) that might have caused the discrepancy. 

If XR’s 3P numbers do not align with another 3rd or 4th party measuring system, review campaign set up and then check the tags in a validator to confirm all pixels are firing.  

Some things to consider are:  

Do XR’s 3p numbers align with 1p numbers? If 1p/3p reporting aligns then the issue is likely with the additional 3p pixel tracker 

Check to make sure that the publisher / device / platform accepts tags that contain multiple 3rd and 4th party trackers 

General Invalid Traffic (GIVT) is removed from XR Net traffic, which may cause delivery to appear lower than publisher delivery. 

Note: Publishers and clients have access to XR Gross (Net + GIVT Traffic) reporting from the report tool or on the campaign dashboard 

Conversely, a publisher could be filtering data, which may cause XR delivery to be higher than publisher delivery 

There is a standard 2-3 day delay in receiving Google ADH data. Ensure proper linking with XR in Google ADH. 

See our Integrations page and documentation to confirm 

Note: ADH Privacy Checks - Rows that aren’t aggregated enough to protect end-user privacy (must contain data on 50 or more users), or don’t meet Ads Data Hub’s other privacy checks, will be dropped from reporting by Google. This applies to filtered row summaries within the query and API results. 

Often placements with low volume or highly targeted are affected 

To check Google ADH traffic on your media plan, include the metric “Source” 

Confirm your conversion tracker is present / implemented on the page  

Open the HTML for the conversion page. (Right Click on browser and select “Inspect”) 

Between the body tags (<body></body>) of the page, paste XR’s conversion tracking tag (from <script type=”text/javascript>…</noscript>) 

Save the changes to your webpage. 

The browser will then choose which section of the code to use based on how the page/ad is rendered. 

Run tags in VAST validator in incognito browser (Chrome, Firefox no longer stores 3rd party cookies when in incognito mode.) 

Wait a few minutes for this to register in raw logs 

Visit page(s) where customer implemented our conversion tracker(s) 

Pull report to see if conversion has registered 

Repeat this process with clicking through to test if view conversions register (NOTES: go slow; cannot generate conversions prior to launch date) 

Inspect Elements on customer’s website page 

Visit specific URL that customer is implementing conversion tag on 

Right click → Inspect 

View the network traffic for the exact conversion tag that was generated