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Unlock better campaign performance with the Decision Power and Relevance metrics

The best way to get the most out of programmatic buying is to make sure campaigns are optimized at all stages. While forecasting can help ensure that media buyers fully allocate their budgets, new platform metrics on The Trade Desk take it a step further — positioning campaigns for success before they even start.

Two new metrics are prominently featured at the top of the platform UI. Decision Power and Relevance give traders insight into the quality of their inventory and audience targeting decisions both before their campaigns go live and during their flights. Following the initial campaign setup, these insights immediately surface in the platform.

  1. Decision Power: helps you understand if you have a buffer beyond what’s needed for pacing, so that you can apply optimizations and aim to get the most value from our platform’s AI.
  2. Relevance: shows you if your targeting is reaching high-value audiences based on a predefined seed.

Our Decision Power and Relevance metrics can provide a unique view into the health of your overall setup and can be used to fine-tune your targeting. You’ll also find a forecasted spend metric in the platform, which will help you determine if you can deliver the campaign’s budget in full with your current targeting. Let’s dive deeper into the importance of these additional metrics and how to use them.

Get to know Decision Power and Relevance

Decision Power

Relevance

Decision Power is a metric (scored from 0 to 100) that helps you evaluate your campaign’s ability to go after the most valuable impressionsRelevance is a metric (scored from 0 to 1000) that shows how well your targeting aligns with your most valuable customers — what we call the seed.
> 80 = Optimize
You’re giving yourself plenty of opportunities to reach your audience, so you can be selective in finding the best ones.		> 1x means you’re reaching relevant audiences.
For example, a score of 2x indicates you’re twice as likely to reach people who are like your seed compared to the general population.
< 80 = Expand
You have fewer opportunities to reach your audience and may benefit from looking for them in more places or considering additional relevant audiences. 		< 1x means you’re targeting an audience that does not look like your current seed.
Your audience is less relevant than the general population.
Ideal score: Aim for 80 and above, so that you give your campaign room to be more selective, and so that you have room to make more optimizations.Ideal score: Higher scores indicate greater relevance.
Lower-funnel strategies usually achieve the highest scores by targeting users who are most like previous purchasers.

Decision Power and Relevance scores give you a clear view of your campaign’s health and how to improve it. Together, the numbers tell you not just whether you have enough room to apply decisioning (Decision Power), but also how effective that decisioning will be in reaching your ideal audience (Relevance). Improving one may sometimes impact the other, so they should be balanced accordingly.

Assess your campaign’s health:

Now that you’ve got the basics down, let’s dive into four common campaign scenarios. You might use the recommendations to improve the health and effectiveness of your campaigns.

Understanding your campaign’s health through the lens of Decision Power and Relevance can give you valuable insights that help guide your optimizations. Use the scenarios as a guide to see where your campaigns fall and consider trying the recommended actions to see if they can help improve your scores. Remember, the key is to balance both metrics to give yourself more of the right opportunities and drive better results.

Check the health of your campaigns today and evaluate your scores with your team at The Trade Desk.

This information is provided solely for background and is not a representation or guarantee of any future performance.

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