Digital Campaign Execution Checklist

Document primary and secondary audiences with first-party CRM segments, lookalikes, and contextual targets. Note any COPPA, HIPAA, or regulated-category restrictions before handing to the media team.

Pharma, alcohol, gambling, financial services, and cannabis carry platform-specific restrictions and pre-approval steps (FDA fair balance, FINRA/SEC pre-clearance, age-gating). Choosing a category here triggers the appropriate legal review track downstream.

Lay out flight start, flight end, optimization checkpoints, and reporting milestones. Reserve buffer days for tag QA and platform approvals — Meta and TikTok review can hold creative for 24-48 hours.

Concepts must ladder back to the single-minded proposition and KPI named in planning. CD walk-through before any client share — internal sell first, external sell second.

One row per placement: Meta 1:1 and 9:16, TikTok 9:16, YouTube 16:9 pre-roll plus 6s bumper, programmatic display 300x250 / 728x90 / 160x600 / 970x250, CTV :15 and :30. Note copy length, file size, and aspect-ratio limits per platform.

Verify sync, master, and performance rights match the channels and term of the buy. Editorial-only stock cannot run in paid placements. Influencer or talent contracts must cover whitelisting and dark-post usage if the media plan includes them.

Substantiation memo for any product claim, FTC #ad disclosure on influencer assets, trademark clearance on taglines. Regulated categories route through the additional review track flagged in planning.

UTM parameters match the trafficking sheet, consent banner gates GDPR/CCPA pixels, and the page passes Lighthouse on mobile. Confirm form fields align to the CDP / CRM segment they feed.

Pharma routes through Medical, Legal, Regulatory (MLR) with fair balance and ISI in spec. Financial services routes through compliance for FINRA/SEC pre-clearance. Document approval IDs in the campaign brief.

Alcohol requires 73.8% LDA targeting on Meta and equivalent on other platforms. Gambling and cannabis vary state-by-state. COPPA-applicable creative cannot collect any PII without verifiable parental consent.

Mirror the flighting calendar into Campaign Manager 360 and the buying DSP (DV360, The Trade Desk). Naming convention follows the agency taxonomy so reporting joins cleanly downstream.

Set brand-safety, viewability, and IVT thresholds per the client's verification standards. Attach the inclusion and exclusion lists supplied by the client; never run open exchange without filters.

Fire test events through the Meta Pixel, GA4, and CAPI. Verify deduplication keys match between client-side and server-side. Confirm consent-mode signals gate the EU traffic correctly.

Block launch until every priority pixel and conversion event passes. Document each fix in the trafficking sheet — bad tag setup at launch is the single biggest source of unreliable post-buy reporting.

Stagger launches across Meta, TikTok, Google, DV360, and the CTV partner so any pacing or creative-rejection issue surfaces before the full budget is exposed. Confirm spend pacing in the first six hours.

Trader checks pacing against flight target each morning. Flag any line item delivering under 80% or over 120% of plan; investigate creative-disapproval, audience-size, or bid-floor issues.

Shift budget to top-performing audiences and creatives by CPA / ROAS. Pause sub-scale ad sets. Document all changes in the optimization log so the post-buy narrative reconstructs cleanly.

Tighten exclusion lists, blocklist offending domains and apps, and request make-good from the SSP or publisher. Notify the client lead within 24 hours per the verification SLA.

By week three CTR typically degrades 20-30% on social. Rotate in the second creative wave, hold the top performer as control, and document the test design before the swap.

Match platform-reported spend to invoices and the signed media auth. Flag overdelivery, underdelivery, or make-good owed before billing closes the cycle.

Structure: KPI vs. benchmark, channel breakdown, creative learnings, audience learnings, brand-safety summary, recommendations. Avoid raw screenshots — synthesize the story.