Digital marketing term
Ad Flight
The start–end window when ads are scheduled to run—the campaign’s calendar, not the campaign object itself. Pacing, frequency caps, and reporting periods are built on those dates.
Detailed explanation
In a media plan the flight is the run window on the insertion order or in the platform. The same creative in two separate weeks is two flights; the quiet gap is part of the plan. A launch, a holiday, and an always-on budget are not the same job.
The trap is comparing flights of different length or season as if they were twins. Two weeks in a peak holiday and two weeks in a slow month will not share CPM or ROAS. Stretching dates without adding budget also inflates frequency and fatigue.
Cut dates to the demand window and watch daily spend against the remaining days. When the flight ends, read spend, impressions, frequency, and results on that same date range. A new flight gets its own report; do not bury it in the old average.
Frequently asked questions
- Is a flight the same thing as a campaign?
- No. The campaign holds budget, targeting, and creative. The flight is the date range when that structure is on air.
- Why split budget across several flights?
- To hit distinct demand windows, pause in between, and compare periods without one diluting the other.
Related terms
Internal links for the topic cluster — read these concepts together.
- Ad SpendingThe amount actually charged for ads—not the allocated budget, but what the platform billed. Pacing, channel mix, and return are written against this number.
- Ad SpaceThe placement where an ad sits, plus the inventory that slot can sell. A fixed unit, run of site, and run of network are not the same product.
- ImpressionAn impression is a single instance of an online ad being displayed to a user.
- Display AdvertisingBanners, native units, and other visual formats on sites and apps. Unlike search text ads, they show up before someone has typed a query into the box.
- CPMCPM (Cost Per Mille) is the cost of 1,000 ad impressions; it is one of the most common media buying units.
- ROASROAS (Return on Ad Spend) is the revenue generated for every unit of advertising spend; it is used to measure profitability in performance marketing.