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Unity Ads User Acquisition

Manage Creative Testing campaigns

Manage live Creative Testing campaigns in the User Acquisition dashboard.
Read time 3 minutesLast updated 4 days ago
This page describes what to consider while running an active campaign and troubleshoots some potential issues that might arise while testing. For specific steps on how to run a Creative Testing campaign, refer to the Start a Creative Testing campaign documentation. For information on testing parameters and recommended best practices for Creative Testing campaigns, refer to the Configure Creative Testing campaigns documentation.

Prerequisites

  • Active campaign: To use these management practices, you will need to have a live Creative Testing campaign.

Campaign management

While you are actively running a Creative Testing campaign, the following information will help you with potential questions that arise during a live Creative Testing campaign.

Auto-start your campaign

You can enable your campaign to go live automatically with Auto-start when the moderation team has approved all the campaign's creatives. To enable Auto-start for your campaign, you need to meet the following requirements:
  • Assign at least two creative packs to your campaign.
  • Remove any rejected creatives from your campaign. Auto-start will disable automatically if your creatives are rejected.
  • Complete the Creative Testing campaign setup. Refer to Configure required Creative Testing campaign details for more information.
You can view the status of your campaign on the Campaigns page of the Unity Ads User Acquisition dashboard. If you've met the requirements and enabled Auto-start for your campaign, it will show the Scheduled status until all creatives have been approved. When all creatives are approved, it will go Live automatically. Performing some actions will disable Auto-start for your campaign automatically. If you do any of the following after enabling Auto-start, your campaign will go back to the Paused status:
  • Assign additional creatives to the campaign.
  • Remove any creatives from the campaign.
  • Remove all targeted countries and bids.
  • Remove the Click URL attribution link associated with the campaign without assigning a new link.
If Auto-start cancels for any of these reasons, you can re-enable it from the Campaigns page. Refer to Go live automatically with Auto-start for instructions on how to enable the feature.

Pause or stop campaigns

You can pause or stop a Creative Testing campaign at any time in the campaign cycle. The recommended best practice is to stop the campaign when you generate enough data to accurately interpret the creative testing results. To determine when you have enough data to pause the campaign, do one of the following:
  • Use a sample size calculator to evaluate the amount of data you have.
  • Run your test campaign until you deliver at least 20 thousand impressions for each creative pack in the campaign.
To pause or stop your Creative Testing campaign at any time, do the following:
  1. Go to the Campaigns section of the Unity Ads User Acquisition dashboard and select the checkbox next to your active Creative Testing campaign.
  2. Select Pause campaign.
Campaigns will show the Paused status until you delete or restart them.

Multiple test campaigns

There's no limit to the number of Creative Testing campaigns you can run at the same time. However, running multiple test campaigns concurrently means they compete with each other for impressions. This competition can reduce the impression volume each campaign receives and increase the time needed to reach a sufficient sample size. The recommended best practice is to limit the number of test campaigns running simultaneously to help each campaign reach enough impressions more quickly. For more information on how to estimate the number of impressions needed for your test, refer to the Calculate sample size section of this documentation.

Uneven distribution

If your Creative Testing campaign shows a noticeable imbalance in impression delivery across creative packs, an Uneven distribution warning will appear in the Creative packs section of the campaign details. This warning typically occurs when there are meaningful differences between creative packs, such as different moderated age ratings or different start dates. Hover over the yellow warning icon next to a creative pack to view a tooltip with details about the issue. The tooltip also provides guidance on how to resolve it, such as adjusting the campaign timeframe or removing the affected creative pack.

Change or add creative packs

The recommended best practice is to avoid adding or changing creative packs in an active Creative Testing campaign. Because you use impression counts to compare pack performance, introducing a new pack after the campaign has started can make results difficult to interpret. Existing packs already have accumulated impressions, while the new pack starts with none. If you add or change a creative pack during an active test, update the campaign's start date so all packs are measured from the same point in time:
  1. In the Scheduling section of the campaign details, select the edit icon next to Start Date to open the date field.
  2. Enter the date that you added or changed a creative pack in the Creative Testing campaign. You can also select the calendar icon to choose the date from a date selector.
  3. Select Save to save your details and close the date field.
Updating the start date resets the data shown in the Creatives overview table and in any Reporting dashboard reports.
Warning
If you add new creative packs to a live Creative Testing campaign without updating the Start Date, comparing pack performance is difficult because the packs didn't start serving impressions at the same time.