Availability data is only useful if you can trust it, so here's exactly how it works, including its limits.
How availability data flows
Availability reaches the platform three different ways, and knowing which tier a media owner sits in tells you how current the number is:
Live API: Availability is queried directly from the media owner in real time. Outfront, Clear Channel, Lamar, and Global UK work this way today, with more integrations in progress.
Managed on-platform: Roughly two dozen media owners actively maintain their own availability in AdQuick, which can be queried much like an API feed.
Assumed availability: Mostly digital networks with broad, always-on inventory, where a spot can be assumed available and confirmed at booking.
Every booking is reconfirmed with the owner before contract regardless of tier.
The honest operating model
Treat platform availability as a high-quality planning signal and vendor confirmation as the source of truth; that confirmation is built into the booking flow, so stale data can cost you a revision cycle but not a bad contract. Nothing gets contracted against phantom inventory.
How far ahead does inventory book?
Standard static: Three to four weeks ahead is the usual guidance, and four is the safer number. That window covers printing, shipping, and creative approvals.
Airport and transit: Add another week or two. These placements usually involve a municipal partner, so creative needs approval from the city, port authority, or transit agency in addition to the media owner.
Premium and iconic units: Months ahead. Times Square boards, San Francisco's 101 corridor, and similar landmark inventory can be committed so far out that they may never surface as available; they can still be requested by RFP, with their own booking rules.
Digital: Much shorter horizons; rotation-based supply means openings exist closer to launch.
Planning around timing risk
Three practical moves: place holds on must-have units as soon as they're identified (see the holds article), build plans with named alternates for scarce units, and for date-critical campaigns, get vendor confirmation on the anchors early even if the rest of the plan is unsettled.
When you find a discrepancy
If a unit shows available but comes back booked (or vice versa), flag it; discrepancies feed the data-quality loop with that owner, and your AdQuick team will source the closest alternative in the same pass.