Google Ads Pre-Launch Checklist

The Google Ads Pre-Launch Checklist is a five-section PDF for catching account, targeting, keyword, ad and tracking mistakes before a campaign spends its first rupee or dollar. Each row has a check, a pass criterion, a Must or Optional priority and a tick box, with a findings line at the end of every section for URLs, owners and next actions.

Account and governance: correct account access, an active and authorised payment profile, time zone and currency that match your reporting, one named owner for conversion tracking, someone assigned to review policy restrictions for your product and location, and a change log for launch decisions.

Campaign and targeting: an explicit goal that matches the action you want, included and excluded locations that match the service area, language settings that fit the landing page, intentional choices on search partners and display expansion, an ad schedule that matches your capacity to answer enquiries, and a bidding strategy suited to the conversion data you actually have.

Keywords and landing page: keyword intent your offer can answer, deliberate match types, seeded negative keywords, coherent ad groups, a final URL that returns 200 and works on mobile, and a page that matches the ad's offer, location and action.

Ads and assets: accurate, supportable claims reflected on the page, correct final URLs on every ad and asset, distinct responsive-ad headlines and descriptions, verified call assets for the campaign market, working sitelinks, and policy status with disapprovals resolved.

Measurement and launch: only meaningful actions set as primary for bidding, a test conversion that fires once, tag behaviour that matches your consent configuration, auto-tagging where analytics needs it, a saved reporting baseline and a launch owner who confirms the final list. A first-48-hours box covers eligibility and impressions, search terms and irrelevant clicks, mobile form checks, a real test conversion and billing or policy alerts.

Complete it with the person who owns the account and the person who owns the landing page, because the checks cross both. Record the campaign, market, owner and launch date at the top, clear every Must row, and keep the filled-in copy with your change log so the next person knows why each setting was chosen. Re-open the first-48-hours list on the day of activation instead of waiting for the first report.

Marketers launching their first search campaign, in-house teams that inherit accounts, and agencies that want a repeatable sign-off before a client's budget goes live. It is a working guide and not a substitute for Google's own policies and account-specific settings, which you should verify in Google Ads.

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