Advertising spend can fluctuate on a daily basis and basic alerts set on fixed numbers are often inadequate in the real world. Therefore, we have set up Budget Tracking to have a start and end threshold in percentage terms.

The default start value is 40% and works down to 5% at the end of the period. These percentages are applied to an even daily pacing of your given time period, typically calendar month. The advantage of having a larger percentage at the start of the period will mean that you have time to adjust the campaign/s spend.

Jepto utilizes the traffic signal Statuses through the App and Budgets is no different. When you input a target for your budget, each day's upper and lower range is then calculated based upon your threshold settings. If your spend is within these bounds (indicated by the green area) then that status of your budget is On track.

Understanding Budget Statuses with Real Examples

Budget statuses become critical when your spend is outside the daily target by 200% or more. To help you better understand how these statuses work in practice, let's walk through a detailed example.

How the Three Statuses Work - $10,000 Monthly Budget Example

ON TRACK (Green):

Start of month: Within ±40% of target
End of month: Within ±5% of target
This represents healthy spending that's aligned with your budget goals

WARNING (Yellow):

Between On Track and Critical thresholds
Acts as a buffer zone to alert you before becoming critical
Triggers when spending starts drifting outside the On Track range but hasn't hit Critical yet
Gives you an early warning to make adjustments

CRITICAL (Red):

Start of month: Beyond ±80% of target (double your preference, which defaults to 40%)
End of month: Beyond ±10% of target
Indicates spending is significantly off-track and requires immediate attention

Key Points About Budget Status Ranges

The acceptable range (On Track) narrows from ±40% to ±5% over the month, providing more flexibility early in the campaign when you have time to make adjustments. The Warning zone provides an early alert before spending becomes Critical, while Critical thresholds are widest at the start (±80%) and narrow to ±10% by month end.

Practical Budget Status Examples

To put this in perspective with actual figures for a $10,000 monthly budget:

On Track Status:

Day 1 target: $333.33, Acceptable range: $200 to $467
Day 30 target: $10,000, Acceptable range: $9,500 to $10,500

Critical Status:

Day 1: Below $67 or above $600
Day 30: Below $9,000 or above $11,000

Warning Status:

Falls between the On Track and Critical ranges
Provides early intervention opportunity before spending becomes critically off-target

‍

To help visualize the total spend for the period, we calculate your Period to Date (PTD) daily average and then forecast that out. This ensures that if you are the lower or upper end of your On track range you can see how you are placed later on in the period.

To see how you can adjust the thresholds to your own custom values please see this article.

Default settings

Chart Types

When creating a budget you have the option of choosing which graph type you would like to see. Cumulative is the most common and adds all spend to date. Series however shows you the total spend for each day and fluctuations in daily spend is a lot easier to see. Regardless of the chart type you chose, the status is calculated as described above.

Cumulative

Series

Examples

Graphs within the App, Email and Slack do not show that warning band, however a status icon will accompany each budget and is updated hourly.

On Track

Warning

Critical

Getting Notified of Status Changes

Webhook Notifications

In addition to viewing budget statuses in the app, you can set up webhook notifications to be automatically informed when status changes occur. This is particularly useful for staying on top of your budget performance without having to constantly check the dashboard.

Setting Up Status Change Notifications:

When configuring your budget, you can choose to receive webhook notifications based on specific status changes:

Any Change: Get notified every time your budget status changes (between On Track, Warning, and Critical)
On Track: Be notified when your budget returns to healthy spending levels
Warning: Receive alerts when your budget enters the warning zone, giving you early notice to make adjustments
Critical: Get immediate notifications when your budget requires urgent attention

Why Use Selective Notifications:

Rather than receiving notifications for every budget update, you can choose to only be notified when statuses change to those that matter most to you. For example, you might only want to know about Warning and Critical status changes, reducing notification fatigue while ensuring you never miss important budget alerts.

To learn more about setting up webhook notifications and understanding the data payload, see our Budget Tracker Webhook Payload guide.

‍

Was this article helpful?



Nice one!

Thanks a lot for your feedback! If you’d like a member of our support team to respond to you, please send a message here



Please try again

Oops! Something went wrong while submitting the form.

