What it does
When you’re comparing 2 or more domains in Publisher Advertisers or Display Publishers, you can turn on a gap filter to instantly see who’s active on your competitors but not on you (or vice versa), without exporting to Excel and cross-checking manually.
Turning the filter on removes every row except the ones where the entity (advertiser or publisher, depending on the report) has zero activity on the domain(s) you’ve chosen as your “perspective,” and non-zero activity on at least one of the other domains being compared.
| Report | What a “gap” row means |
|---|---|
| Publisher Advertisers | An advertiser is spending on a competing publisher, but not on the publisher(s) you selected. |
| Display Publishers | A publisher is carrying a competing advertiser’s ads, but not the advertiser(s) you selected. |
Where to find it
| Report | Navigation path |
|---|---|
| Publisher Advertisers | Publisher Analysis → Advertisers |
| Display Publishers | Advertiser Activity → Display → Publishers |
The gap filter only appears once you’re in compare mode, i.e. you have 2+ domains loaded side by side. It is not shown in a single-domain view.
How to use it
1. Load 2 or more domains into compare mode
Add a second (or third+) domain using the existing “+ Compare” control at the top of the report. The gap controls will appear in the toolbar row directly above the table, right-aligned, as soon as 2+ domains are loaded.
2. Turn on the toggle
Click the pill-shaped toggle on the left of the gap controls. It’s off by default every time you enter compare mode.
Reading left to right, the controls are:
- Toggle (on/off switch)
- “Show gaps for” (static label)
- Perspective selector (dropdown, see below)
3. Choose your “perspective” domain(s)
The perspective selector decides whose gaps you’re looking for, i.e., which domain(s) you’re checking against the others.
- Exactly 2 domains loaded: the selector is single-select. Click a domain in the dropdown and it selects immediately and closes, no checkboxes.
- 3+ domains loaded: the selector becomes multi-select with checkboxes. You can select one or more domains as your perspective. At least one domain must always stay unselected (there must always be at least one other domain to compare against), the last remaining non-perspective domain can’t be deselected.
By default, the perspective selector is set to the first (leftmost) domain you loaded.
💡 Tip - use it as a portfolio filter: the multi-select isn’t just for picking one domain out of several, it lets you group multiple properties into a single perspective. Select all the domains as your perspective, and the filter treats them as one combined entity: a row only counts as a “gap” if it has zero activity across all of them, but non-zero activity on at least one of the others being compared.
Example: Condé Nast owns both wired.com and newyorker.com. In Publisher Advertisers, load both alongside a competing publisher, then select wired.com and newyorker.com together as your perspective. The result: only advertisers with zero spend on both wired.com and newyorker.com, but who are spending on the competitor, i.e. advertisers Condé Nast’s portfolio is missing out on entirely.
4. Evaluate the results
Once the toggle is on, the table hard-filters, non-matching rows are removed entirely (not dimmed). A callout appears between the toolbar and the table stating the total number of gap rows found (this count reflects the full filtered dataset, not just what’s on the current page).
Note: the callout counts “secondary” domains, not perspective domains. You can have 3 domains loaded but pick only 1 as your perspective, that still leaves 2 secondary domains to compare against, so the callout reflects “vs. 2 competitors,” not “vs. 1.”
Working with other controls while the filter is on
The gap filter plays nicely with everything else in the report, it stays on and re-applies automatically when you change most other things:
| You change… | What happens |
|---|---|
| Search or Industry filter | Both conditions apply together, a row must match your search/industry filter and be a gap. |
| Timeframe or Country | Table re-fetches gap rows for the new period/geo. |
| Metric tab (Visits / Spend / Impressions) | The gap check re-runs against whichever metric you’re now viewing, see below |
| Perspective selector | Table re-fetches with the new perspective domain(s). |
Which metric counts
The gap filter always checks the metric you currently have selected in the report’s metric tabs, Visits, Spend, or Impressions. Switch tabs while the filter is on, and it recalculates gaps for the new metric (a domain that’s a “gap” on Visits may not be one on Spend).
A very small amount of activity (a share of under 0.1%) is treated the same as “present”, so a domain barely registering isn’t counted as a gap.
Exporting to Excel
Excel export respects whatever’s on screen:
- Toggle ON → the exported file contains only the filtered gap rows.
- Toggle OFF → the exported file contains the full, unfiltered compare-mode dataset.
The filter works similarly on the Display Publishers report:
FAQ
Q: Why did my gap filter turn off by itself?
A: Most likely you changed one of the domains in your compare set, or dropped back to a single domain, both reset the toggle to off automatically.
Q: I have 3 domains loaded. Can I check gaps for 2 of them at once against the third?
A: Yes, with 3+ domains, select more than one domain in the perspective dropdown. The remaining domain(s) become your “secondary” comparison set. This works the same way whether the 2 domains are two of your own properties (a “portfolio” view) or two competitors you’re grouping together, the filter just checks for zero activity across all selected perspective domains combined.
Q: If I select multiple domains as perspective, does it check “zero on any one of them” or “zero on all of them combined”?
A: All of them combined. A row is only a gap if it has zero activity on every domain you’ve selected as perspective. If it has activity on even one of your selected domains, it’s not a gap and won’t show up.
Q: Does the gap count in the callout reflect just what’s on my current page?
A: No, it’s the total across the entire filtered result set, and pagination applies on top of that filtered set (page 2 shows the next 100 gap rows, not unfiltered data).
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