How to Compare Creator CPI and Meta Ad Spend in Airbridge Actuals
Compare manually uploaded creator fees with automatically imported Meta spend without double-counting boosted posts.
Creator fees and Meta ad spend arrive in Airbridge through different routes. Creator fees that you pay directly can be uploaded as cost data. Meta ad spend comes from the Meta cost integration. To compare their cost per install (CPI) in Actuals, start by deciding which costs and installs belong in each row.
Decide what each cost row represents
Separate the fee you pay a creator to make content from the amount you pay Meta to distribute it. Keep the fees and media spend in separate rows if you want to understand how each activity performed. If you also report a blended number, add the two cost components once and divide by deduplicated installs over the same scope.
| Spend type | What to record | What to compare it with |
|---|---|---|
| Direct creator fee | Amount allocated to the agreed reporting period, using a consistent allocation policy | Installs attributed to the creator campaign and the same reporting scope |
| Meta media spend | Ad cost imported via the Meta cost integration | Installs for the corresponding Meta campaign and reporting scope |
For a creator fee that covers several weeks, document how you allocate it. Do not put the entire fee into each week. For a boosted creator post, avoid adding the same Meta invoice to the manual cost file if Meta already supplies that spend.
Reconcile the numbers in Actuals
- Follow the current Cost Data Upload guide for the CSV template and its required fields. Separately, check that the dimensions you want to compare, such as campaign and channel, use the same labels across the cost file and the relevant attribution rows.
- Complete Meta channel integration, then enable the separate Meta cost integration. Use the same reporting dates and time zone for both sources. Convert uploaded fees into the app’s reporting currency before uploading; CSV cost is not automatically converted. Meta cost is imported every four hours for the current day through six days prior. Check the latest Meta import before investigating an intraday mismatch.
- Open Actuals and start at channel and campaign level. Both sources use Cost (Channel). Use separate channel and campaign rows to distinguish them and pair each row with the appropriate install metric. Matching uploaded and integrated costs are added together, so check for overlapping costs before totaling them. Only split further if both sources have comparable values at that level.
- Reconcile cost and install totals against the underlying reports. A missing cost row is a data issue to investigate, not evidence of zero spend. A row with zero installs has no calculable CPI.
For example, a $600 creator fee with 120 attributed installs gives a $5 CPI. A Meta campaign with $900 in media spend and 300 attributed installs gives a $3 CPI. These are illustrative figures. If both refer to the same boosted creative, use the appropriate deduplicated install total before presenting a combined result.
