Ad launch checklist for ecommerce campaigns, from draft to first day

Before the build

• Write the goal in one line: the number the campaign should move, by how much, and over which period.
• Confirm the offer, the price and the stock level for every product the ads send people to. An ad that leads to an out-of-stock product is money spent for nothing.
• Check the margin at the sale price and the break-even ROAS for the main products in the campaign.

Before the switch

• Naming: every campaign, ad set and ad name checked against the convention, with the QA log saved.
• Tracking: a test order has gone through the full path, and the values match the order.
• Budget: the daily or lifetime figure matches the approved plan, and the caps and alerts are on.
• Audiences: exclusions are set, and the reach left after them is written in the plan.
• Creative: every ad uses an approved asset, the destination URL opens, and the UTM parameters are present.

Approval and first day

• The account manager signs the checklist. A second person checks the budget and the URLs, so nobody checks their own work alone.
• After each change, do a read-back: check the setting in the account against the approved plan, not against the request.
• On the first day, check delivery and spend pacing in the first hours, not only at the end of the day.

Record the launch

• Store the signed checklist with the date, the owner of each line and the result, next to the campaign brief, and log every change after launch with its time.