Operations
Part of Media buying agencies operations: campaign governance guide
A media buying workflow from signed brief to a practical stop rule
Media buying agencies operating workflow: set the brief, approvals, campaign build, launch checks, optimisation handovers and a clear review rhythm.
A useful operating workflow for media buying agencies moves a campaign through six controlled handovers: brief, plan, approval, build, launch and review. Each handover needs an owner, an accepted input and a reason to stop. That is more dependable than relying on a weekly status call to expose problems.
What to take away
- Each of the six handovers needs an owner, an accepted input and a reason to stop.
- Agree how a conversion will be counted before planning begins to avoid later disputes.
- A second person should compare live campaign settings against the signed specification.
- Material changes return to the client lead when they alter scope, claim, audience, cost exposure or measurement.
- Do not launch while the approved brief, privacy decision, creative sign-off or measurement test is missing.
Fix the brief before planning begins
The client lead should issue one approved brief. It needs the commercial objective, audience, England or wider UK geography, available budget, campaign dates, exclusions and evidence needed for a decision. The agency planner logs questions instead of silently filling gaps. A budget may remain provisional, but its status must be visible.
Approved brief must contain
- Commercial objective
- Audience and UK geography
- Available budget and status
- Campaign dates and exclusions
- Evidence needed for a decision
- Conversion event, source, window, acceptor
Agree how a conversion will be counted at this point. Write down the event, data source, attribution window and person who can accept the result. This avoids a later argument in which two correct reports answer different questions.
Typical allowances: two working days to sign off the brief, three to five working days for the approval pack, one to three working days to build, same-day launch checks and a first review within seven days.
Turn the plan into an approval pack
The planner and buyer convert the brief into channel choices, forecast assumptions, audience rules, inventory controls and a measurement plan. The approval pack should show what the agency recommends and which inputs came from a platform or publisher. Forecasts remain forecasts.
A worked approval pack for one campaign lists three named channels, the assumed cost per accepted conversion for each, the audience rule, the flight dates, the account cap and the person who accepts the result.
Brief to approval pack
- Brief issued by client lead
- Planner and buyer build channel choices
- Forecast assumptions and audience rules
- Inventory controls and measurement plan
- Privacy owner checks pixels and identifiers
- Client approves the pack
Before approval, the privacy owner checks proposed pixels, identifiers and audience data. The Information Commissioner's Office guidance for online advertising says, for the UK, that storage and access technologies used for online advertising require consent.
It also explains that consent information must cover sharing and user control. A qualified reviewer should decide how that guidance applies to the actual deployment.
Build from a signed specification
Once the client approves the plan, the buyer creates campaigns against a build sheet. Use consistent names for accounts, campaigns, audiences, creative versions and tracking parameters. A second person compares the live settings with the signed specification. The check should cover dates, geography, budget controls, exclusions, landing pages and measurement events.
A worked build sheet for one campaign:
- Account
- client name plus country code.
- Campaign
- objective plus start month, for example March UK prospecting.
- Ad set
- audience rule, placement, geography and exclusions.
- Budget
- daily cap and total cap, held at account level.
- Creative
- version number matching the approved pack.
- Tracking
- named conversion event, source and attribution window.
- Owner
- buyer initials and the date the check passed.
Two people sign the sheet once live settings match it.
Creative approval is a separate gate. For influencer work, the reviewer opens the UK-focused ASA and CAP resource collection and applies the current disclosure rule before release.
Campaigns that commission or publish reviews and endorsements need a second check. The UK Competition and Markets Authority collection covers brands and media agencies as well as publishers. The buyer logs who checked it and when.
Launch, watch and hand over
At launch, record who authorised release and when. Check that ads render, links resolve, agreed events register and spend starts in the intended places. If a control fails, pause the affected item. Do not compensate for a broken setup by changing several unrelated settings at once.
The buyer then keeps a change log with the observation, action, owner and time. Material changes return to the client lead when they alter scope, claim, audience, cost exposure or measurement. Smaller adjustments can follow pre-agreed authority limits, such as the ones below.
Close each review with decisions, not screenshots. The handover should state what ran, what changed, what remains uncertain and who acts next.
Set the review cadence from risk and spend exposure:
- Dailynew or volatile launches, or accounts above the agreed high-spend trigger.
- Weeklysteady campaigns with an accepted conversion event and stable creative.
- Monthlymature, low-risk campaigns with a stable cap and no open checks.
A practical stop rule
Do not launch while the approved brief, privacy decision, creative sign-off or measurement test is missing. Record the exception and its owner if the client accepts a known limitation. Silence is not approval, and an empty field is not evidence that a check passed.
The figures below are illustrative examples. Agree your own limits from the signed brief and the client's risk appetite.
- Budget authoritythe buyer may move up to 10 per cent of the daily budget between approved line items. Anything above that returns to the client lead.
- Creative authoritythe buyer may swap an approved creative version inside the signed pack. New claims or audiences return to the client lead.
- Stop rule on costpause the affected item if cost per accepted conversion runs more than 25 per cent above the signed target over a full review period.
- Stop rule on pacepause and review if spend reaches 80 per cent of the campaign cap before half the flight has run.
Before you act
- Confirm the brief has an owner and approved input.
- Write down the conversion event, source, window and acceptor.
- Get the privacy owner to check pixels, identifiers and audience data.
- Have a second person verify live settings against the signed specification.
- Record who authorised release and when.
- Set the review cadence from risk and spend exposure.
Common questions
What should the approved brief contain?
Objective, audience, geography, budget status, dates, exclusions and the evidence needed. An empty field stays open until the client lead fills it.
What does the ICO guidance say about online advertising?
In the UK it requires consent for the storage and access technologies used for online advertising. The privacy owner decides how it applies to the live deployment.
What should a review handover state?
The decisions taken, the changes made, what is still uncertain and who acts next.
