Data sync
How fresh the numbers in Level are, what happens during the initial backfill, and what each placement status means.
Every placement in Level pulls campaign performance from the platform automatically and refreshes throughout the day. This page covers the timing — how fresh is the data? — and what each placement status means.
How often Level pulls
Each placement refreshes once an hour. Placements have staggered slots within the hour, so they don't all hit the platform at the same second. On every refresh Level re-pulls the most recent 45 days of data — that's the window that catches late-attribution conversions that arrive after the original pull.
First time: initial load and backfill
When you create a new placement, Level immediately starts pulling history so the placement has data right away:
- Initial load — the most recent 60 days are pulled in one shot. Usually finishes in a couple of minutes.
- Backfill — once the initial load finishes, Level continues pulling history in 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.
Placement status
The pill on each placement card tells you exactly where that placement is:
| Status | What it means |
|---|---|
| Not started | The placement exists but no sync has run yet. Click Start to schedule one. |
| Initial load scheduled | The first sync is queued and about to run. |
| Initial load running | First sync is fetching history right now. |
| Initial load failed | First sync hit an error after a few retries. Click Retry to try again. Common cause: the connected account's token went stale — try reconnecting it. |
| Active | Healthy and up to date. Next refresh is scheduled at the placement's hourly slot. |
| Running | An hourly refresh is in progress. Usually finishes in a couple of minutes. |
| Failing | The most recent refresh failed. Level keeps retrying on its schedule. The placement still has earlier data — it's just the latest hour that didn't land. |
| Backfill running | Historical backfill is in progress. Older months appear as chunks finish. |
| Backfill failing | A backfill chunk hit an error. Backfill stalls until the issue clears. |
| Stopped | You (or an admin) paused this placement's sync. Click Start to resume. Existing data is unchanged. |
Live updates
The placements page shows status 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 hourly schedule going — so even if one hour fails, the next one usually succeeds and the placement returns to Active without you doing anything.
If a placement is stuck on Failing, Initial load failed, or Backfill failing 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 placement.
- If retries don't clear it, contact your administrator.
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.
- Hourly refresh — your placement runs at most once an hour. If the hourly run just missed the platform's update, you wait up to an hour.
- Late-attribution updates — when a platform retroactively updates conversion counts, Level picks them up on the next hourly refresh that re-pulls that day's window.
Net effect: most numbers show up in Level within roughly an hour of the platform exposing them.
What's fixed by the platform
A few things aren't configurable in the app:
- Refresh frequency — once an hour.
- Backfill horizon — 3 years (or whatever the platform exposes, whichever comes first).
- Re-fetch window — the most recent 45 days are re-pulled on every refresh.
If your case needs different timing — intra-hour reporting, for example — talk to your administrator.