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.
On every refresh Level re-pulls the most recent ~45 days of data — that's the window that catches late corrections the platforms make after the original pull (late-attribution conversions, spend restatements).
See Plans & limits for what else changes per plan.
First time: initial load and backfill
When you create a new ad account, Level immediately starts pulling history so it has data right away:
- Initial load — the most recent 60 days are pulled in one shot. Usually finishes in a couple of minutes. (For Meta creative data, the initial load covers the last 30 days.)
- Backfill — once the initial load finishes, Level continues pulling 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.
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 — older months simply appear later.
Two pipelines: Data sync and Creatives
Each ad account card shows up to two sync pipelines:
- Data sync — campaign performance. Powers most report types.
- Creatives — per-ad and per-video data that powers the Videos and Creatives report types. Available on Business and above; below that the pipeline shows Business feature / Upgrade required.
Both pipelines follow the same cadence and status model.
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 no sync has run yet. Click Start sync to schedule one. |
| Initial load scheduled | The first sync is queued and about to run. |
| Initial load in progress | The first sync is fetching the most recent 60 days 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.