A campaign is an advertiser's booking - it tells Springcast which audio to play, between which dates, on which shows, and under what conditions.
What goes into a campaign
Every campaign has a small set of decisions packed into it. Don't worry - most have sensible defaults.
| Field | What it means |
|---|---|
| Name | Your internal label for the booking ("Bol.com - Mother's Day 2026"). |
| Advertiser | Who you're booking it for. Pick from your advertiser directory or add a new one inline. |
| Tag | Which "slot" this campaign competes for. Markers carrying the same tag (or a tag higher up the waterfall) become eligible. |
| Creative (asset) | The actual audio that will play. You pick an asset version from your library. |
| Shows | Which shows in your workspace the campaign can run on. |
| Window | A start and end date (12 May 2026 → 22 May 2026), or mark it Evergreen to run continuously. |
| Pricing | Fixed amount per inserted episode (e.g. €50 each), or CPM (€X per thousand impressions). Both can be set. |
| Impression target | Optional - drives the progress bar in the campaign list. |
| Budget cap | Optional - when spend hits the cap, the campaign auto-pauses (Auto-paused: budget cap). |
| Frequency cap | At most 1 play per listener per week" type rule. See Revenue for details. |
| Exclusion groups | If two campaigns share an exclusion group ID, they won't play in the same episode. Useful for keeping competing brands apart. |
| Strict tag | Off by default. Turn on if the campaign should only fire on markers exactly tagged with the campaign's tag - never via the fallback waterfall. See Tags & the waterfall for details. |
| Geo targeting | Restrict insertions to specific countries. |
| Episode overrides | Force-include or force-exclude specific episodes that wouldn't otherwise match. |
The status lifecycle
A campaign moves through these statuses:
- Draft - being set up. Not eligible to play.
- Upcoming - published with a future start date. Springcast will activate it automatically.
- Active - currently in its window (or evergreen). Eligible to play.
- Paused - manually paused, or auto-paused (see below). Not eligible to play.
- Completed - past its end date. The system flips this automatically - within five minutes of the end date passing, the campaign moves to Completed and the booked episodes are re-assembled without it.
Auto-pause reasons:
-
budget_cap- spend reached the configured cap. The exact moment is detected by the daily revenue rollup, so there can be up to a day of overshoot tolerance.
Manual pauses and auto-pauses use the same status but you can tell them apart on the campaign detail page.
Creating a campaign
- Go to Dynamic Content → Campaigns and click + New campaign.
- Pick an advertiser (or create one inline).
- Pick a tag (this decides which slots the campaign competes for).
- Pick the creative - an asset version from your library. (Don't have one? Upload it first under Assets.)
- Choose shows.
- Pick window dates or mark as Evergreen.
- Set pricing.
- Optional: frequency cap, exclusion group, geo, strict tag.
- Save. The campaign starts as Draft.
- When ready, Activate it (or Publish so it auto-activates on its start date).
Tip: Many studios duplicate an existing similar campaign rather than start from scratch. Use the ⋮ → Duplicate action on a campaign row.
Pausing, resuming, completing manually
The campaign detail page has top-right actions:
- Pause - operator decision (different from auto-pause).
- Resume - flips a paused campaign back to Active if it's still within its window.
- Activate - for Draft / Upcoming campaigns that you want to push live now.
When you pause or complete a campaign, the booked episodes get re-assembled within ~5 minutes so the campaign's audio drops out cleanly.
Booked episodes view
The campaign detail page has a Booked episodes section showing every episode the campaign currently applies to, with assembly status. If an episode shows "Pending", it means an assembly job is queued for it. If it shows nothing, the assembled audio is current.
You can also see at a glance which booked episodes have no source audio (they can't be assembled until you upload it) - those won't carry your campaign's insertion until the source is in place.
Gantt timeline view
The Campaigns page has a list/Gantt toggle in the header. The Gantt view places each campaign as a horizontal bar across its window, colour-coded by status, with a vertical "Today" marker so you can see at a glance what's running, what's coming up, and where you have inventory open. Click any bar to jump to the campaign detail. Evergreen campaigns render as full-range bars clamped to the picked window.
Common pitfalls
- "My campaign is Active but it's not playing" - first check that the show has an episode with a marker carrying the campaign's tag. A campaign without a matching marker has nothing to play in.
- "Why is the audio file longer than expected?" - that's likely DC working as intended; the inserted segments add to the original duration.
- "My short campaign keeps losing out to a long one" - check the Tag column. If the long campaign uses a higher-priority tag, it wins via the waterfall. See Tags & the waterfall.
- "My budget cap auto-paused, but spend kept overshooting" - auto-pause is detected by the nightly rollup, so up to a day of overshoot is normal. Set the cap a bit lower than your hard limit.
Related
- Tags & the waterfall - the matching rules a campaign's tag plays against.
- Easy mode - running ads without a campaign at all.
- Revenue - how spend and impressions get attributed.