Checking a campaign launch before approving spend

Before authorising campaign spend, review the configuration and assets that could run, the amount and period covered by your authority, the destination customers will reach and the action being measured. Record an approve, revise or hold decision for the version reviewed. A campaign plan does not show what is configured in the account.

Check the proposed launch against your authority

Start with the approved offer and brief. Confirm the audience, locations, dates, channels, creative, destination, media budget and person authorised to approve spend. Ask to see the relevant account settings or an export identifying the account, campaign and check time.

State what the decision permits: publication of assets, activation of the campaign, spending up to a specified amount, or a combination. Agree which later changes require another decision. Identify agency fees, production costs and platform charges separately so the spend authority has an unambiguous scope.

Follow the customer-facing path

Read the final headline, image, call to action and qualifications against the current offer. Open the destination on the devices that matter for this campaign. Check that the page states the same offer and offers a usable next step.

Have the business owner confirm material claims about price, availability, eligibility and performance. The ACCC accepts reports about possible misleading or false claims and can require businesses to back up claims they make about their products or services. A platform’s ad-policy review does not confirm the client’s underlying business facts.

Where a form or purchase step matters, check where it leads and record what was tried. A page loading successfully does not establish that an enquiry reaches the right team or that a purchase shows the advertised offer. Leave untested steps identified as open.

Verify settings and measurement

Ask to see the selected locations, audiences or keywords, exclusions, schedule, final URLs, budget type and campaign status. Check which conversion action represents the intended outcome and how it is reported. In Google Ads, review the selected conversion goals and action names directly in the account. Check the actual goal and action names rather than relying on a label such as “leads”.

Check the budget type and billing arrangement before translating a daily setting into the authority you intend to give. In Google Ads, review the spend controls and limits that apply to the account. Do not apply platform-specific budget rules to another platform or budget type.

In Google Ads, confirm the current status in the account rather than assuming a launch is live or approved. Other platforms use their own status labels and rules.

Key compliance and measurement checks

Decide and recheck

A sign-off record can identify the campaign, asset and destination versions, checked settings, authorised amount and period, approver, unresolved issues and monitoring owner. Approve the reviewed configuration, request a revision that will be rechecked, or hold while a material claim, destination, measurement action or spending limit remains uncertain.

After activation, compare early delivery with the approved configuration and review billed-cost records when available. That later review establishes what ran and was charged; it does not replace the launch decision.