On-Going Monitoring

The problem with post-launch changes

Pre-flight QA validates the creative at launch. But third-party display and video creatives can be updated mid-campaign without notice. Common changes include creatives swapped to a non-approved version, new variations added to rotation, tracking pixels added or removed, HTTPS issues introduced, verification tags changed from monitoring to blocking, and video duration or audio volume changed.

Discovery typically happens at end-of-campaign reconciliation. By then the damage is done: make-goods, billing disputes, compliance violations.

When monitoring is critical

Some campaigns require stricter oversight. Sensitive inventory such as children's content under COPPA, or medical and health pages, demands that you know exactly what is serving at all times. Sensitive ad categories like political, pharmaceutical, and alcohol carry regulatory requirements where a creative swap could put the publisher in violation.

In both cases, a creative that was approved at launch and later swapped to something different is not just an operational problem. It is a compliance risk.

How campaign monitoring works

• Enable monitoring on any campaign with a toggle, set an end date, assign an owner
• Advalidation re-scans creatives daily against the same ad spec used for pre-launch QA
• Each scan compares against a baseline: the last manual scan before monitoring was activated
• Detected changes include spec violations where a passing check now fails, new third-party connections not in the baseline, and new creative variations in rotation
• Works for both display and video/VAST creatives

How you get notified

• In-app: red badge on the campaign and creative, with an expandable notification explaining what changed
• Email: daily digest of all issues across monitored campaigns, sent at your preferred time of day
• Notifications persist until the issue is resolved or approved

Approving changes

Not every change is a problem. When a new creative variation passes review, click OK to acknowledge it. Advalidation remembers the approval and stops alerting for that specific change. The approved scan becomes the new baseline for future comparisons.

Why no one else does this

Pre-flight QA tools stop at launch. Ad verification vendors like IAS and DoubleVerify focus on brand safety and fraud, not creative spec compliance. Advalidation is the only platform that keeps your ad spec enforcement active through the entire campaign lifecycle. Instead of discovering at end-of-campaign that a creative was swapped or a blocking tag was turned on, you find out the next morning.

For the specific case of verification tags changing modes mid-campaign, see Ad Verification Tags.

Start monitoring your campaigns

Stop discovering mid-campaign changes at reconciliation. Get in touch to see how campaign monitoring works with your ad operations workflow.