Forecast
What your workspace would have received if nothing had changed, drawn behind the paid clicks that did arrive — and the gap between the two, in clicks a day. A counterfactual, never a promise or a target.
Updated October 26, 2026
Forecast is a counterfactual, not a prediction: what this workspace would have received if nothing had changed, compared with the paid clicks that actually arrived. The gap between the two, in clicks a day, is the reading. It lives under the Paid clicks total on the workspace home — there is no Forecast screen — and it is included from Solo.
Where it lives
The workspace home's last section is Activity, and its second card is titled Paid clicks. The card leads with the window's total and its change against the previous period; the expected reading is the line under that total. See Workspace home for the card in its context.
The curve and the total appear first; the line under them reads Against what was expected until the reading fills in. The rail has no Forecast leaf, and nothing on the site screens carries it.
A counterfactual, not a promise
Intelligence/Ads observes clicks arriving on your site. It never sees the spend, the bids or the campaign state that produced them, so it does not say what will arrive. It says what would have kept arriving if you had left everything alone, so that your own actions can be measured against it.
Read as a prediction, the expected range is wrong the moment you change something. Read as a counterfactual, that is the point: pause a campaign and the expected range stays where the traffic was, and the gap, in clicks a day, is the size of the pause. The ad network reports what you spent; this reports what the site would have received.
The observed and the expected are always stated as a pair. The gap is a fact, never a grade: it carries a sign and a magnitude, nothing colors it, and whether it is good depends on what you were trying to do.
The origin
The expected range starts on the first day of the window you are looking at, not today. It compares the window with the 28 days before it, across the window's complete days. A window that ends today leaves today out, because a running day is a partial count.
Pick Last 30 days and the band is what day one of those thirty expected, given everything before it. See Time periods for how a window is chosen.
A window whose only day is today has no complete day to compare, and the card says so. A window of one complete day — Yesterday — reads the pair in the sentence, but no ribbon is drawn: the curve needs at least two days.
The reading
Under the total, the reading leads with the gap, in clicks a day, with its sign: −76 followed by /day. When the observed mean sits inside the interval, within range stands beside it. Below ten a day the figure keeps one decimal; above ten it is rounded.
The sentence under the figure states the pair and the days it covers: Sep 29 – Oct 4: 124 a day observed against 200 expected, if nothing had changed. Observed leads, because it is the thing that happened. The dates are the complete days both sides cover, which is why the observed figure here never matches the total above it: the total is the whole window, this is its complete days.
| Term | What it is |
|---|---|
| Observed | Paid clicks per day, averaged over the window's complete days. |
| Expected | The expected paid clicks per day, averaged over the same days. |
| The gap | Observed minus expected, signed. |
| The interval | An 80 percent interval around the expected value, averaged the same way. within range means the observed mean falls inside it. |
The figure is drawn in the same ink as every other figure on the page. No color encodes approval in either direction.
The band on the curve
When the window spans two or more days, the Paid clicks curve is drawn by day — the card's subtitle reads daily volume — and one expected day lands on one day of the curve.
On the plot, the range is one ribbon between the interval's lower and upper bounds, with the expected line through it, drawn behind the curve in the same quiet tone as the previous-period reference. Only an expectation has a band: a period that actually happened is a plain line. The chart's scale includes the band's upper bound, so an expectation that ran well above what arrived is not clipped.
The readout that follows the pointer prints the expected value with its bounds for the day under it: Expected 208 (155–254). The last day of a window that ends now is drawn faded and the readout dates it so far; it has no expected value. Nothing is drawn past today.
When there is no reading
Every silence names its reason, and two different silences never share a blank. Six reasons can stand where the figure goes, one of them in two forms:
| On the card | What it means |
|---|---|
No complete day yet | The window's only day is today, so there is nothing whole to compare. The same words appear for a custom range of more than 92 complete days, the longest the card compares. |
Not enough history yet | The workspace has not been receiving for the 28 days before the window. The same label stands when the expected range cannot be shown, with the usual range in its place. |
From Sep 8 | The same wait, with its date: the first day on which a window of this length has 28 days of history in front of it. Shown only for a window that ends today; a custom range pinned to the past never gains history in front of it, so no date is given. |
Beyond your plan's window | The 28 days before the window reach back past the earliest day your plan can query. |
Not included in your plan | Your plan's window would hold the 28 days, but the plan does not include the expected range. |
Bounded by your allowance | A month that ran past its event allowance touches the window or the 28 days before it. Free only. |
Could not be read | The expected range came back empty. A request that failed outright reads The expected range could not be read. instead. |
No complete day yet and Not enough history yet resolve by themselves, and show a still mark where the figure would stand. Each carries an info glyph; hovering or focusing the label opens the explanation in the product's own words: An expected range is compared against whole days. Today is still running, so there is nothing complete to compare it with yet., or An expected range is fitted on the 28 days before the window you are looking at. This workspace has not been receiving for that long yet, so this reading arrives on Sep 8.
The other four keep an em dash where the figure would be. Beyond your plan's window and Not included in your plan link to Plans and billing for an owner or admin; a member reads the same words with no link.
The usual range
When the expected range cannot be shown, the card can still say what the workspace usually does: the span of the paid clicks per day over the 28 days before the window, with their median. It is an 80 percent span, so it reads like the interval, but it is a summary of days that happened, not an expectation.
The figure keeps its quantity — the gap in clicks a day, now against the median — with within its usual range beside it when the observed mean falls inside the span. The sentence reads Usually 158–229 a day over the 28 days before Sep 29., and the silence label with its info glyph follows it, so the reason the expected range is missing still travels with the reading.
On the plot, the usual range is two dashed hairlines across the frame, with no fill between them: dashed marks a threshold, a band is reserved for an expectation. The readout names them on every day, Usual, per day, with the two values. An upper line the chart's scale does not reach is not drawn, and the words carry it instead.
The card draws the usual range or the expected range, never both.
Plans and windows
Your plan's window has to hold the window on screen plus the 28 days before it, and the plan has to include the expected range. Nothing is blurred on a plan that does not qualify.
| Plan | Window | Expected range |
|---|---|---|
| Free | 7 days | No. The card reads Beyond your plan's window on every window except Today, which reads No complete day yet. |
| Starter | 30 days | No. Yesterday, or a custom range from yesterday to today, reads Not included in your plan; Today reads No complete day yet, and every window that starts earlier reads Beyond your plan's window. |
| Solo | 92 days | Yes, on every preset: the window holds the 28 days in front of any window up to 64 days. |
| Growth | 365 days | Yes. |
| Agency | 730 days | Yes. |
| Enterprise | 3,650 days | Yes. |
The window is how far back you can look, not how long the data is kept: every event is kept on every plan, including the free one. See the grid and the window.
Bounded by your allowance is a Free silence: on Free, a month that crossed the event allowance has events held back, and the card does not compare across them. On a paid plan nothing is held back, so this silence does not arise.
Any member of the workspace sees the reading. Only the link from a plan silence to billing is reserved for owners and admins.
What the forecast does not do
- It does not say what next month will be. Nothing is drawn or stated past today.
- It does not grade the result. The gap carries a sign and a magnitude, nothing colors it, and there is no "underperforming". The plausible causes — a campaign paused, a network's budget exhausted, seasonality — are yours to weigh; the Campaigns screen is where to look for which campaign stopped.
- Nothing about a person. No "this visitor will return", no score on a browser or a connection. A visitor is a browser, never a person.
- No expected column in a directory. Tables show observed counts only.
- No conversion forecast. Only paid clicks have an expected range.
- No shortened comparison. When the 28 days are not available, the card says why instead of comparing against fewer; a wait carries a date or nothing, never "soon".
- No Forecast screen. It is a reading on the workspace home's Paid clicks card.
Questions
- Why does the observed figure in the sentence not match the Paid clicks total above it?
- The total is the whole window, today included. The sentence covers the window's complete days only, and the dates in front of it name them. Today is still running, so it is left out of the comparison.
- Does the reading change when I pick another period?
- Yes. The expected range starts on the first day of the window you are looking at, so the period selector also sets where the comparison begins. A longer window shows a longer divergence, and the interval widens as it goes.
- The card says Beyond your plan's window. Is my history gone?
- No. Every event is kept on every plan. The comparison needs the 28 days before the window to be inside the window your plan can query. Free queries 7 days, so on Free the reading never opens; it is included from Solo.
- Can it tell me what next month will bring?
- No. Intelligence/Ads observes clicks arriving on your site and never sees your spend, your bids or your campaign state. Nothing is drawn past today: every expected day on the card has an observed day beside it.
- What is the usual range?
- The span your paid clicks usually covered, per day, over the 28 days before the window, with their median. It stands in only when the expected range cannot be shown, and never beside one.