Troubleshooting, QA, and Best Practices
Domain 7: Troubleshooting, QA, and Best Practices
This domain tests a disciplined QA sequence for launches and in-flight issues: creative, deal, audience, bid, budget, pacing, and measurement. Expect scenario questions on underspend, overspend, and zero delivery.
Core rules and concepts
- QA before launch: creative specs and approval, landing page, pixel firing, deal ID and flight, audience size, bid and budget, frequency cap, and conversion tracking.
- For zero delivery, check in order: Ad Group active, campaign dates, creative approved, deal eligible, audience non-empty, bid above floor, budget remaining.
- For underspend, inspect bid competitiveness, audience scale, deal access, frequency caps, and dayparting before raising budget.
- Document changes with timestamps so reporting shifts can be explained; avoid changing multiple variables at once.
Worked example
An Ad Group has impressions but no clicks. Creative is approved, audience is large, and the deal is active. The landing page fails mobile rendering and the click URL has a redirect loop. Reasoning: delivery is fine; the failure is post-impression, so fix creative/landing page and tracking rather than bids.
Traps that cost marks
- Raising budget first when the real issue is a rejected creative.
- Ignoring deal flight dates or floor prices.
- Changing bid, audience, and creative simultaneously, making the cause unclear.
- Assuming zero conversions means zero delivery; check pixel and attribution window too.