Operational playbook · Ads & growth

Set four approval gates before an agent manages ads

An agent may read reports, suggest creative iterations, and apply rules, but ad accounts carry budget, brand, and platform risk. Minimum governance needs gates for data, recommendations, execution, and review.

Editorial synthesisReviewed 2026-08-01Verify before action
DECISION BRIEF

Three points to take away

  1. 01

    Grant only the minimum permission required.

  2. 02

    Show budget and affected scope before execution.

  3. 03

    Keep human veto and emergency stop controls.

01

The four gates

The data gate checks source and freshness, the recommendation gate checks rationale, the execution gate approves spend and targets, and the review gate compares results and errors. Failure at one gate must stop progression.

02

Least privilege

Authorize reading, drafting, budget changes, publishing, and deletion separately, with scope, expiry, and a named revoker for every token.

VERIFY BEFORE ACTION

Verification checklist before action

  • Verify that audit logs reconstruct every recommendation, approval, execution, and rollback.

  • Run a bounded trial with non-sensitive samples and retain successes, failures, and human corrections.

  • Before wider use, name an owner, data boundary, stop condition, and review date.

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