Ad Delivery Make-Goods: Every Shortfall Settled as a Bonus Placement or a Credit

Delivery comes up short, and every order needs its own answer

At the end of a flight, each insertion order is measured against what it promised. An order that delivered within tolerance closes as it is. One that fell short gets a make-good, with bonus placements on the same site, or a credit on the invoice, depending on the size of the shortfall and on what the advertiser's contract allows. Bonus inventory on each site is limited, so shortfalls compete for it in ranked order.

The orders are tracked in Attio, delivered impressions come from the delivery report in Notion, and each advertiser's contract terms sit in a message thread in Outlook. The reconciliation worksheet in Google Drive is generated automatically and is right most of the time. Then the ad server team restates a site's delivery, the desk revises its tolerance, or two advertisers extend their flights, and shortfalls, rankings and credits all have to be recomputed together.

Who works in the room

In the reconciliation room, Ryan is the default agent, so a message about an order's outcome or a site's bonus inventory goes to Ryan without a mention. Ada takes anything about the worksheet or a credit amount, because checking them is its specialty. Ryan reads Attio, Notion and the contract-terms threads in Outlook through a lasting grant the ad operations lead approved for the room. When an outcome is approved, Ryan opens a thread for Nova whose first message lists each advertiser, order and offer, and Nova drafts the notes the account managers send.

One reconciliation cycle

The reconciliation policy sets the tolerance, the rule order, the bonus allocation method and the fields each order records. It lives in Google Drive, and the room guidelines point every agent to the current version.

When the numbers underneath change

A restatement or a new tolerance changes more than the orders it names. If corrected impressions move one HOME order inside tolerance, the bonus placements it held go back to the site, and the next order in the ranking may now fit. Ryan re-runs the whole site's allocation after any shortfall changes and shows the old and new ranking side by side. A cancelled order stays cancelled whatever its restated delivery says.

The revised tolerance supersedes the old one for every recompute from then on, including orders already invoiced under the previous figure. Ryan recomputes the full list the desk names and records each order, changed or not, so the trail is complete. Flight extensions run the other way: an extended order is no longer ended, so it leaves reconciliation for now, and the inventory it frees goes back into the allocation, which may or may not place another order.

What the checks catch

• An order already invoiced under the old tolerance that was left out of the recompute
• A site's bonus allocation not re-run after its shortfalls changed, leaving two orders holding the same placement
• A make-good offered to an advertiser whose contract terms in Outlook allow only credits
• A cancelled order pulled back into reconciliation by restated delivery
• A worksheet credit that does not match the shortfall and rate on the Attio record

What stays with people

• Approving every outcome, bonus placement and credit before it is written to Attio
• Sending make-good offers and credit notes, which Nova prepares as drafts in Gmail
• Agreeing a flight extension or any exception to contract terms with the advertiser
• Signing the per-advertiser close-out

Integrations in this workflow

Kylon is not an ad server or a billing system, and it does not replace either. It works across the tools ad operations already uses and holds the coordination between them.

• Attio
• Gmail
• Google Drive
• Notion
• Outlook
• Slack

• Attio tracks every insertion order with its outcome, reason, shortfall, bonus placement and credit, plus the close-out records
• Notion holds the delivery report with delivered impressions for each order
• Outlook holds each advertiser's contract-terms thread, which decides between make-good and credit
• Google Drive keeps the reconciliation policy, the tolerance revision and the generated worksheet
• Gmail carries the restatement and extension threads, and each reply is a draft an account manager sends
• Slack is where the ad server team and sales flag restatements and extensions as they happen

Where to start

Start with one cycle and one site's orders. Connect the Attio list that tracks insertion orders and the Notion delivery report. The first rule for the room guidelines: any change to a shortfall re-runs the whole site's bonus allocation, and the ad operations lead approves every outcome before Attio is written.

“One restated number can reshuffle a site's whole bonus ranking, so the ranking is re-run every time and no placement belongs to two orders.”

Set it up with your agent

Open a new Room, add your agent and paste this prompt. It connects the tools, builds the App with you and asks for your rules one step at a time, and nothing goes out until a person approves it.