Data sync
How fresh the numbers in Level are, what happens during the initial load and backfill, and what each sync status means.
Every ad account in Level pulls campaign performance from the platform automatically. This page covers the timing — how fresh is the data? — and what each sync status means.
How often Level pulls
Refresh cadence depends on the organization owner's plan:
| Plan | Refresh cadence |
|---|---|
| Free | Once a day |
| Pro / Business / Enterprise | Once an hour |
Daily syncs run at a fixed hour that is specific to each ad account, so refreshes are spread across the day rather than all landing at once. On paid plans, ad accounts refresh hourly with staggered slots within the hour.
Hourly refreshes re-pull the last few days — the ones that still move within an hour. Once a day Level re-pulls the most recent ~45 days, the window that catches late corrections the platforms make after the original pull (late-attribution conversions, spend restatements). On the Free plan's daily refresh, every refresh covers the full 45 days.
See Plans & limits for what else changes per plan.
First time: initial load and backfill
A new ad account starts syncing the moment it is added — there is no button to press:
- Initial load — the current month (at least the last 7 days), the period reports open on by default. Usually finishes in a couple of minutes.
- Regular refreshes begin as soon as the initial load lands, so this month stays current from then on.
- Backfill — in the background, Level pulls history in monthly chunks going back as far as the platform exposes, up to 3 years. Older months light up in reports as each chunk lands.
- Creatives — on Business and above, ads and videos start loading right after the initial load and walk their own history alongside.
Total backfill time depends on the volume of data and how fast the platform's API is responding. Plan on 30–90 minutes for a typical single ad account.
You can use reports as soon as the initial load finishes. While history is still loading, a report says so and names the date from which its numbers are complete.
Campaign data and creatives: one sync
An ad account has one sync. It always brings in campaign performance, which powers most report types; on Business and above it also brings in per-ad and per-video data for the Videos and Creatives report types.
The ad account card shows one status for the sync, with a line under it for the creatives — for example Creatives: loading history · 9 / 36 months. Start, Stop, Retry and Reload history act on both. Below Business the line reads Creatives · Business plan. Upgrading to Business starts loading creatives on every ad account that is syncing.
Sync status
The status on each ad account card tells you exactly where that ad account is:
| Status | What it means |
|---|---|
| Not started | The ad account exists but its sync has not started. Normally the sync starts by itself when the ad account is added; click Start sync if it stays here. |
| Initial load scheduled | The first sync is queued and about to run. |
| Initial load in progress | The first sync is fetching the current month right now. |
| Initial load failed | The first sync hit an error after a few retries. Click Retry. Common cause: the connected account's token went stale — reconnect it first. |
| Loading history… | The historical backfill is in progress, with live progress ("{done}/{total} months loaded"). Older months appear as chunks finish. |
| History load paused | A backfill chunk hit an error and the backfill is on hold until the issue clears. Recent data keeps refreshing. |
| Syncing… | A regular refresh is in progress. Usually finishes in a couple of minutes. |
| Synced {time} ago | Healthy and up to date. The detail line shows when the next refresh is scheduled ("Next sync {time}"). |
| Last sync failed | The most recent refresh failed. Level keeps retrying on its schedule; earlier data is untouched — only the latest run didn't land. |
| Stopped | You (or a teammate with control access) stopped this ad account's sync. Click Start sync to resume. Existing data is unchanged. |
| Sync paused | Paused by your subscription plan — the organization owner's account is over its plan limits (or the plan expired). Syncing resumes automatically once the account fits its plan again. See Plans & limits. |
| Reconnect required | The connected account behind this ad account lost authorization. Reconnect it on the Connected Accounts page. |
Live updates
The ad accounts page shows status and progress changes as they happen — no need to reload. If you close the laptop or lose the network for a while, reload the page to reconnect.
When something fails
Level retries failed runs automatically. After a few attempts the run is marked failed, but Level keeps the regular schedule going — so even if one run fails, the next one usually succeeds and the ad account returns to Synced without you doing anything.
If an ad account is stuck on Last sync failed, Initial load failed, or History load paused for more than a couple of hours:
- Check the connected account on the Connected Accounts page. If the token expired, reconnect.
- If the connection is fine, click Retry on the ad account.
- If retries don't clear it, contact support.
Latency: data in Level vs the platform
A few things contribute to the gap between something happening in your ad account and showing up in Level:
- Platform-side reporting lag — the platforms (Google Ads, Meta) take minutes to hours to expose new events in their own reporting.
- Refresh cadence — hourly on paid plans, daily on Free. If a refresh just missed the platform's update, you wait for the next one.
- Late-attribution updates — when a platform retroactively updates conversion counts, Level picks them up on the next refresh that re-pulls that day's window.
Net effect: on paid plans most numbers show up in Level within roughly an hour of the platform exposing them; on Free, within a day.
What's fixed
A few things aren't configurable in the app:
- Refresh cadence — set by your plan (daily on Free, hourly on paid). It can't be tuned beyond that.
- Backfill horizon — 3 years (or whatever the platform exposes, whichever comes first).
- Re-pull window — the most recent ~45 days are re-pulled on every refresh.
If your case needs different timing, contact support.