An ad incident log template for tracking and account problems

The fields

• Incident ID, and the date and time it was first seen, in the client's time zone.
• Seen by, and the account, store or tag affected.
• What happened: one or two sentences with facts only.
• Impact: spend, orders or results affected, and how that was measured, or 'not measured'.
• First action, and the time it was taken.
• Cause: what we know, and what we only suspect, marked as such.
• Fix applied, with the approval reference and the read-back result.
• Client told: when, by whom and in which channel.
• Prevention: the one check that would have caught it earlier.

Rules

• Start the log when the problem is first seen, not after the fix.
• Keep the timeline in order, and mark every guess as a guess.