May 14, 2025
The most Exhaustive QA checklist you'll ever need
Jeet Singh
The $15,000 Mistake That Changed Everything
A few months ago, a trader using one of our reporting agents reached out in panic. He had just lost $15,000 — not to a bad bid strategy or pacing settings, but to a single, silent error:
A line item launched without a geo setting
It was a Friday evening. The high-stakes budget campaign had gone live over the weekend and had a complex setup: multiple regions, creatives, and audience segments. By Monday, the budget was gone—spent on irrelevant geos. There was no way to claw it back. There was no one to blame but the messy, manual system he was forced to work with.
If you’ve managed programmatic campaigns, you know how this happens. The platforms are dense, the stakes are high, and the deadlines are tight. Even seasoned buyers miss things despite triple-checks and peer reviews.
Campaign setup shouldn’t feel like launching a rocket.
Why Manual QA Is Broken
Manual QA is one of the most draining, error-prone, and morale-killing parts of programmatic advertising.
Even the best campaign managers get burned by unchecked geo settings, misaligned creatives, wrong budget caps, and missing brand safety filters. Not because they’re careless. But they’re working with tools not designed for precision, speed or have user empathy.
Every error means lost media dollars, weekend fire drills, and time taken away from what drives performance: strategy, optimization, and collaboration.
Introducing the AtomicAds QA Checklist
To fix this, we started with a straightforward question:
Can we create a single checklist that covers every high-risk setting and edge case, across platforms — and make it open, evolving, and community-built?
We did.
Our QA Checklist is the most comprehensive compilation of campaign QA steps available — built in collaboration with media traders, QA leads, and feedback from industry leading organisations like:
We studied setup parameters across DV360, The Trade Desk and many more advertising platforms. We mapped common mistakes, documented hidden settings, and collected real-world feedback from people who live inside DSPs daily.
The result? A living document that includes:
Naming conventions & taxonomy
Geo & device targeting
Frequency caps
Brand safety controls
Platform-specific quirks
…and over 40 more checks.
We’re still adding. Anyone can contribute—spot something missing, suggest it, and we’ll review and update it for the community.
Automate QA in Seconds (Not Hours)
Most traders spend hours per campaign just on QA. It’s a slog. Our research found:
~7% of total impressions are wasted due to setup issues
Data quality often suffers
Campaign ROI takes a hit
So we built AtomicAds QA Agent, a tool that codifies your QA standards and automates campaign checks in seconds. No more late-night stress, no more launch-day anxiety.
Teams using it have reported:
20% productivity gains
0% wasted impressions
Smoother, more confident launches
What the Experts Are Saying
Helene Parker – Helene Parker Consulting LLC
“This is the most incredible checklist. If you don’t have one — or your QA is missing key elements — start here.”
Kayla Spaina – Managing Director, Humanity
“The QA tool is a lifesaver. I wish I had it back when I was a trader. It catches issues
before its too late, I wished i had it when i was trader ( with a grin on her face”)
Try the Checklist Now
A community-built resource with 40+ campaign checks. Use it. Improve it. Share it.
Automate Your QA with AtomicAds
Catch issues in seconds. Save hours. Scale confidently.
Join the Community
Our Experts are always there to anwer your questions about programmatic.
Help shape the future of campaign QA by sharing stories, contributing to the checklist, and collaborating with others in the trading community.
At AtomicAds, we’re on a mission to improve media productivity by making digital media buying radically more efficient. QA is just the start.