Frequently Asked Questions



Q. What kind of spending do you track?
A. Delta tracks spending on broadcast, cable, radio, and addressable media.
Q. Where does the data come from?
A. Delta’s data comes directly from TV stations. Our team of analysts are notified when new ad buys are placed, and they review this spending data and upload it into our database.
Q. How often are the dashboards refreshed?
A. The dashboards are refreshed every 2 hours. After each refresh, the most current dollar totals, flight dates, GRPs etc. will populate in the dashboards.
Q. Why am I not seeing my spending? It’s been reported in the news.
A. Delta only catalogs buys that have been transmitted to the stations. Until it is officially booked at the station level, Delta will not have dollar totals.
Q. Who do I contact with questions?
A. Please direct questions to delta@adimpact.com. One of our research analysts who is familiar with the race(s) in question will be in touch shortly after an inquiry is received.


Q. How does AdMo calculate spend for each airing?
A. AdMo’s spend is calculated using data from its sister product, Pharos, which individually scrapes rates from the FCC database. AdMo then calculates the spend using a tiered algorithm that optimizes data points such as station, advertiser type, hour of day, date, etc. and applies it to individual airings.
Q. How are the gross ratings points calculated?
A. AdMo’s gross ratings points, or GRPs, are calculated using Nielsen ratings.
Q. Can I download the videos?
A. No, you cannot download videos from the interface.
Q. How do I export data?
A. Located next to the filter button in the top right corner of any screen, click the export to excel arrow to quickly access topline data or election overviews.
Q. Do you have cable?
A. We do not offer local cable. However, we do offer at least all top four affiliate broadcast stations in all 210 designated market areas.
Q. Who do I contact with questions?
A. Please direct questions to admo@adimpact.com.


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Q. Where does the data come from?
A. Pharos now includes two sources, the FCC Public File and our other proprietary software, Delta. For the rate card reports, Pharos only includes data from contracts that are uploaded into the FCC Public File and it only includes the data and information for the fields on those contracts in the Public File. For total dollar level data (by station, market, advertiser, or agency), the data comes from Delta, which is collected from the stations by our team of research analysts.
Q. How is the data captured from the contracts?
A. The data goes through a technical process. It is first scraped from the contracts, then goes through a process called Optical Character Recognition (OCR), which is the mechanical or electronic conversion of images of typed text into machine-encoded text from a scanned document. It then goes through a process of analyzing a string of symbols to match it to the rules set for a particular grammar, in this case, media buys and contracts.
Q. How accurate is the data?
A. Uploading a contract that has a lot of handwriting, is scanned off-centered, or has bold or faded font, makes it more difficult to be parsed accurately. Additionally, missing contracts or contracts with missing pages can affect the accuracy as well. By clicking on certain fields in Pharos, you can quickly pull up the actual PDF contract to verify the data within seconds.
Q. What happens with the data is parsed incorrectly?
A. The contracts with possible errors are flagged and then reviewed and fixed by a Quality Control team member manually. The timeline depends on the volume of contracts being uploaded at that time, but clients may contact us about certain errors, and we will make them higher priority for getting reviewed and fixed.
Q. Is the data in real-time?
A. It’s close to real time as possible. The FCC looks for the contracts to be uploaded within 24 hours of booking. The data appears in Pharos 24 hours after the contract is uploaded into the FCC Public File.
Q. Does Pharos include contract revisions?
A. Yes, when a revision to a buy is uploaded into the Public File, if it contains the same contract number, then Pharos flags it as a duplicate and kicks out all older contracts with same contract number and keeps the contract with the most recent contract date.
Q. Do all broadcast networks and cable systems upload contracts into the Public File?
A. Unfortunately, there are non-compliant stations that do not upload their contracts into the Public File, or do not upload within 24-48 hours. There are watchdog groups that do focus on non-compliant stations, but AdImpact is not associated with any of them.
Q. How are GRPs and CPPs available if they are not on the contracts?
A. We developed an algorithm to calculate audience by averaging Nielsen’s 15 minute audience observations for the entire daypart that the program runs within, as well as during the programs three preceding airings. In effect, this results in a four-week trailing average for the daypart. Only observations that match on the broadcast station, daypart, and day-of-week are included in the average. The lone exception to this method occurs when Nielsen viewership data is not yet available. In these situations, the audience is calculated using the audience from the most similar point-in-time from the previous year.
Q. What do I do if I find errors in the data?
A. Contact the product manager. There will be a Pharos versus FCC Public File analysis completed to investigate and resolve any errors.
Q. Is there any training materials for Pharos?
A. Pharos does not have a user guide separate from the workbook. Each dashboard includes an Information icon (see below) that explains the purpose of the dashboard and directions on how to interact with the reports. We are also happy to set up group or individual training calls where we will share our screen while we go through each report and answer any questions.
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