Understanding Custom Reports in Indie Ads Manager

This article will teach you how to use the Statistics Reports sub-section under Statistics in Indie Ads Manager. This is where you can create, download, and schedule emails of custom reports.

How to Create a Custom Report

Click on Statistics near the bottom of the left navigation menu, then click on Statistics Reports. The Statistics Reports subsection will appear.
Click on New Report. The New Report page will appear.
Specify the filters you would like to use:
- Report: choose the subject of the report here, it can feature data about ad items, campaigns, zones, publishers, advertisers, geographic targets, or an overview.
- Gear icon: choose which metrics or information to include in the report. Simple check or uncheck the options to include or exclude them.
- Filters: further narrow down the included subjects of the report here. For example, if you have three publication's in your account, but you want to create a report about only one of them. To do so, choose Publishers under Report. Then click on the Publishers dropdown menu under Filters and uncheck the names of the two publishers you wish to exclude from the report. You can apply multiple filters to a single custom report.
- Dates: specify the period that will be covered in the report here. The first dropdown menu is where you enter a start date and an end date, or simply choose from the various preset periods. The second dropdown menu is where you choose how the information will be broken down - as a summary, daily, monthly, yearly, or based on a specific day of the week. The clock icon is where you choose the time zone that will be used as the basis for the report.
After you've selected your filters, click Generate Report. Your custom report will load shortly at the bottom of the page. If you are not satisfied with the generated report, simple make your changes then click Generate Report again.
Once you are happy with the generated report, you have three more options you can take:
- Save the report
- Download the report
- Tell Indie Ads Manager to regularly generate and email the report

How to Save a Report

Click Save this report to save the set of filters you chose for future use. You will be prompted to name the custom report. You can save multiple custom reports. To load a saved report, simply click Load Settings...

How to Download a Report

Click Download as a CSV to download the generated report as a CSV file.

How to Generate and Email Reports

Indie Ads Manager can automatically generate and email custom reports on a regular basis. To enable this feature, you must first save the report that you want to send by email. Once you have saved the report (or loaded a previously saved report), click Schedule this report to show the scheduling window.

Give the report a name. It can be different from the name you used to save the report.
Choose how often Indie Ads Manager will email the report.
Choose when Indie Ads Manager will start sending the report.
Enter the email addresses of the people who will receive the report. Click + Add another recipient to add more email addresses. The recipients don't need to have Indie Ads Manager accounts.
Choose what link the recipient will receive. The first option is a link to a page where they can view and download a CSV copy of the report. The second option is a link to a page where the recipient can only download a CSV copy of the report, not view.

What Can you Include in a Custom Report?

The rows in a custom report are arranged chronologically by default. You can rearrange the order of the rows by clicking on the name of a column. For example, clicking on Eligible will sort the rows by descending order of eligible impressions. Clicking on Eligible again will sort the rows in ascending order of their eligible impressions.

The following is a full list of possible details you can include in a custom report:

Date: this is a mandatory column. It's the default way by which the report is organized, and easily lets you pinpoint trends if there are any.
Parent: this is a mandatory column. This contains the subject of the report. For example, if you chose ad items to be the subject of your report, each row in the Parent column will list a specific ad item, and the rest of the details in that row will pertain to that ad item.
Total Impr. (Total Impressions): indicates how many times Indie Ads Manager delivered an ad to the requesting site or app within the chosen period. Depending on your setup, this metric may not be accurate.
Eligible (Eligible Impressions): this indicates how many times a given ad was successfully rendered on the publisher's page or app within the chosen period. This is more meaningful than the total impression count, since it assures that the ad was rendered. However, this metric can only be measured on standard zones that use either synchronous (regular) or asynchronous JavaScript zone tags.
Viewable (Viewable Impressions): counted when at least 50% of the ad has been in the visible part of the page or app for at least one second. In other words, this metric tracks if the viewer has actually seen a good portion of the ad. This means that all Viewable Impressions are also Eligible Impressions, but the opposite is not necessarily true.

Viewable impressions are more meaningful compared to both eligible impressions and total impressions when ad advertiser is considering the effectiveness of a partnership with your publication, or the ability of an ad to keep audiences engaged. However, as with eligible impressions, this metric can only be measured on synchronous or asynchronous JavaScript zone tags.
Viewable CTR (Viewable Click-Through Rate): the percentage of people who clicked on the ad among the number of viewable impressions within the chosen period.
Clicks: indicates how many times the ad was clicked within the chosen period.
Conv. (Conversion): refers to a viewer action directly resulting from clicking an ad. In other words, this is the ultimate goal of your ad. Example of a conversion include a customer clicking your ad and then making a purchase from your store, signing up for your newsletter, or downloading your application on the page to which they were taken. Naturally, not all ads have an applicable conversion goal.
CTR (Click-Through Rate): the percentage of people who clicked on the ad among the number of impressions within the chosen period.
CVR (Conversion Rate): the percentage of people who clicked on the ad and took your desired action (as discussed in conversion) among the number of impressions within the chosen period.
eCPM (Effective Cost per Mille): how much a publisher earned from an ad impression within the chosen period. Its formula is (ad revenue/total impressions) x 1,000. It's best to think of eCPM as the average of multiple CPMs. This is especially important in programmatic setups because different advertisers (the bidders) will have different CPMs.
eCPC (Effective Cost per Click): how much the publisher earned from clicks within the chosen period. Its formula is ad revenue/clicks. It's best to think of eCPC as the average of multiple CPCs. This is especially important in programmatic setup because different advertisers (the bidders) will have different CPCs.
eCPA (Effective Cost per Action): how much the publisher earned from conversions within the chosen period. It's formula is ad revenue/conversions. It's best to think of eCPA as the average of multiple CPAs. This is especially important in programmatic setups because different advertisers (the bidders) will have different CPAs.
Publisher ID: the unique ID of the publisher that owns the zone where the ad was served. You can view your publisher ID by going to Publishers > Your Publication then looking at the value of publisherID in your browser's address bar.
Click-Through Details: an additional table that shows information about the viewers that clicked on your ads. This table is actually accessible via the publishers and advertisers subsections, and not through Statistics Reports, but it may be relevant to your analysis.