Accounts that have been running for a while fill up. Campaigns from last season, ads nobody switched off, creatives that were tested once, pools that no ad uses any more, ad zones on pages that were redesigned away. None of it does any harm on its own, but it makes every list longer and every search slower, and it hides what is actually running. The new Cleanup page in the GoAdserver panel finds all of it in one place, with the date each item last served, so you can decide what to keep.
October 2026
Everything that stopped serving, in one list
Cleanup sits in the account menu of every advertiser and publisher. Advertisers see their campaigns, ads, creatives, creative pools and URL pools. Publishers see their ad zones and websites. Each kind has its own tab with the number of idle items next to it.
You choose how long counts as idle: 30 days, 90 days, 180 days or a year. There is also a Never served view for items that never showed a single impression or got a single click. The list starts with those, then the longest idle.
Every row tells you:
- Last served: the last day the item showed an impression or got a click. Link zones such as direct links count their clicks.
- Idle: how many days ago that was.
- Lifetime totals: impressions, clicks and spend (earnings for publishers) over the item's whole life, not just a recent period.
- In use: how many live ads or pool items still use it, or for a website, how many ad zones sit on it.
- Suggestion: what we would do with it.
Suggestions, not surprises
Cleanup never changes anything by itself. It suggests one of three steps and you decide:
- Pause: the item is still switched on but has not served. Pausing is the safe first step, and you can switch it back on at any time.
- Archive: the item is already off, or cannot be switched off, and nothing depends on it.
- Review: the item is idle, but something still uses it, such as a creative that a live ad still shows, a pool an ad still uses, or a website that still has ad zones. Hover the label to see what.
Tick the rows you want and click Pause or Archive. Rows marked Review are skipped unless you choose to archive them together with what uses them; the dialog then lists exactly what goes with them first.
If you trust the suggestions, Clean up suggested applies them all at once for the side and idle period you picked. You first see how many items of each kind will be paused, archived or left alone. Anything a page refuses on its own, for example an ad zone with a running deal, stays as it is and is counted in the message at the end.
Undo, and nothing lost
Archived items disappear from your lists but are not destroyed. Every pause and archive made on the Cleanup page is kept in its History for 90 days, and one click on Undo puts a whole run back as it was: paused items switched on again, archived ones restored. A single item can also be restored from its own page.
When you are sure, Purge archived removes archived items from the deleted views for good. Your past statistics are not touched by any of this: archived and purged items still count in your reports.
Export it, or ask for it
Want to go through the list with your team first? Export (Excel) gives a workbook with one sheet per kind, and CSV gives the same data in one file.
The same list is in the REST API, under /api/v1/cleanup/advertiser and /api/v1/cleanup/publisher, so a script or an AI agent working with an API key can find idle items too. Where the panel's AI assistant is switched on, it can answer questions like "which of my creatives are dead?" from the same data. It only suggests; changes still need your click.
On team accounts, the owner decides who may use the page: viewing the list and making changes are separate rights, so a colleague can review and export the list without being able to change anything.
Who it is for
Cleanup works the same on every GoAdserver platform, whether it runs as an ad network or as an ad manager on its own sites. Advertisers use it before a new round of creatives, to clear out what they no longer test. Publishers use it after a site redesign, to find the ad zones that no longer receive traffic. The step-by-step guide is in the documentation: Cleaning up unused items.
About GoAdserver
GoAdserver is a hosted, white-label ad serving platform for ad networks, ad managers, offer networks, publishers, advertisers and affiliates. We run the servers, scaling and updates; you run your business on your own brand and domains. Want to see how it would fit your setup? Talk with our team.