Stop Reshoots: Ad Deliverables Checklist for Marketers (Google counts)
An effective ad deliverables checklist contains four categories: creative assets, technical masters, tracking and measurement, and approvals, each with a named owner and a single go/no-go quality assurance gate before spend begins. The checklist also covers platform-specific asset counts and Federal Trade Commission disclosure requirements for sponsored content. The immediate action is straightforward: assign an owner to each category and schedule one QA review that has to pass before any ad goes live.
TL;DR:
- Deliverables must include precise counts of creative assets, such as headlines, images, and video cuts, tailored to each platform’s specifications to prevent launch delays.
- Assign clear ownership for each asset category and conduct a single go/no-go QA review with documented evidence before campaign spend begins.
- Incorporate platform-specific aspect ratios and export formats into the shoot plan, ensuring all masters and variants are prepared during production to avoid reshoots.
- Include compliance assets like disclosures with explicit placement, wording, and timestamps as part of the deliverables to meet FTC regulations.
- Perform thorough pre-launch testing of ads, landing pages, and tracking pixels, with evidence for all sign-offs, to prevent costly post-launch fixes.
Table of Contents
- Master checklist: deliverables by category
- Platform-ready specs and counts you need before you shoot
- Production specs for masters and platform-ready exports
- Assigning owners and running the launch approval gate
- Deliverableizing compliance: disclosure assets aren’t optional
- Pre-launch QA: the steps that catch problems before spend
- Post-launch reporting, archiving, and optimization handoff
- Why we build the deliverable list before we shoot
- How Kinter Media delivers ad-ready assets for your next campaign
- Where these specs and guidelines come from
- Sources
- FAQ
Master checklist: deliverables by category
A campaign checklist works best when it is organized into distinct phases that map to who actually does the work: strategy, creative, tracking, landing pages, compliance, and reporting. This structure mirrors how ads prep guides recommend breaking launch readiness into strategy, tracking and measurement, audience, creative and assets, landing pages, platform setup, compliance, and postlaunch monitoring. Copy this structure into your project management tool and assign a name and due date to each line.
Creative deliverables per channel:
- Primary and alternate headlines, written in the character counts each platform requires.
- Body copy variations for at least two audience segments or funnel stages.
- Calls to action matched to the platform’s native button options.
- Thumbnail images selected or cropped to avoid mid-motion frames.
- Static image sets in the aspect ratios each placement calls for.
- Video cuts in multiple lengths (a full spot, a six-second bumper, a vertical cutdown).
Technical deliverables:
- Layered source files (Photoshop, After Effects, or Premiere projects) archived for future edits.
- Export masters with documented codec, resolution, and frame rate settings.
- Textless versions of every video, held for localization or re-versioning.
- Logo files in transparent PNG and vector formats.
- Closed caption files matched to each video’s final timing.
Measurement deliverables:
- A UTM naming taxonomy shared across every team touching the campaign.
- Conversion actions configured and tested in the ad platform before launch.
- Tracking pixels placed and verified on every landing page and confirmation page.
- Analytics dashboard access granted to media buyers and analytics staff.
Landing page deliverables:
- Mobile screenshots confirming the page renders correctly on common device sizes.
- Confirmation that on-page offers match what the ad promises, word for word.
- A tracking audit confirming pixels fire on page load and on conversion.
Documentation deliverables:
A signed creative brief keeps everyone working from the same assumptions about audience, message, and offer. A video production brief template is a useful starting point for production teams that need to lock creative direction before a shoot, since revisiting a brief mid-project is often what causes reshoots. Round up rights and license files for any music, stock footage, or licensed imagery, and keep a running asset inventory that tracks which files are final, which are pending revision, and who approved each round.
Platform-ready specs and counts you need before you shoot
Guessing at asset counts is one of the most common reasons a campaign launches late. Google’s responsive display ads, for example, have exact requirements: 1 to 5 headlines at 30 characters each, one long headline up to 90 characters, 1 to 5 descriptions up to 90 characters, and a business name capped at 25 characters. Google also recommends supplying multiple images in both 1.91:1 and 1:1 ratios, along with a logo, and lists video as an optional but recommended asset, with a preference for spots around 30 seconds.
Statistic callout: Google’s own guidance notes advertisers can supply up to 15 images per responsive display ad, and asset diversity directly affects the ad strength label the platform assigns. Feeding the system more unique headlines, descriptions, and images improves how often it finds a strong-performing combination.
Other platforms carry their own rules worth building into your prep checklist:
- Meta and Instagram favor vertical and square placements, recommend keeping video under 15 seconds for feed placements, and enforce strict text-overlay limits on some ad types.
- TikTok is vertical-first by default; treat music clearance as its own deliverable line, since unlicensed tracks can get a spot rejected or muted after launch.
- LinkedIn single-image and carousel units use different crop ratios than feed placements on consumer platforms, so a single square export rarely covers both.
- Programmatic display buys often need the widest spread of banner sizes, since inventory varies by publisher and device.
The practical fix is to plan for multiple ratios and platform-specific thumbnails at the production stage, not after the media team asks for them. A platform length guide can help creative and media teams agree on cut lengths before the shoot, rather than trimming a finished master under deadline pressure.
Production specs for masters and platform-ready exports
Every video campaign needs two distinct sets of files: a master and a set of platform-ready exports. The master is the highest-quality version, often a color-graded ProRes HQ file with full audio stems kept separate for future remixing. Platform-ready exports are the compressed MP4 or WEBM files sized to each destination’s specs, derived from that master rather than re-edited from scratch.
Aspect ratios to plan for at the shoot, not the edit:
- 16:9 for broadcast, YouTube, and connected TV placements.
- 9:16 for TikTok, Reels, and Stories.
- 4:5 for Meta feed placements.
- 1:1 for LinkedIn and many programmatic display units.
Shooting with extra headroom and side framing protects the safe-action area needed to reframe a 16:9 master into 9:16 or 4:5 without reshooting. A detailed breakdown of this approach is in our guide on capturing multiple aspect ratios in one session.
Caption and subtitle deliverables belong on the checklist as their own line, not as an afterthought. Deliver both an SRT or VTT file and, where the platform requires it, burned-in captions, along with a clean transcript for accessibility and future repurposing. Filename conventions matter more than they sound: a manifest that lists project code, aspect ratio, duration, and version number (for example, “brand_campaign_16x9_30s_v3.mp4”) saves the media team from opening files to identify them.
Pro Tip: Ask your production partner for the edit decision list and the textless master alongside your final cuts. Both make future localization or re-versioning dramatically faster, since a new voiceover or subtitle track can be dropped in without re-editing the visual timeline.
A full breakdown of these formats and export settings is in our video deliverable formats guide, and teams delivering to broadcast partners should also check our broadcast delivery runbook for network-specific master requirements.
Assigning owners and running the launch approval gate
Every deliverable needs a name attached to it, not a department. Assign a creative lead for visuals and copy, a production lead for technical masters, a media buyer for platform setup, an analytics engineer for tracking, a legal or compliance reviewer for disclosure and rights, and a client approver who signs off on the final package.
- Separate creative approval (does this look and read right) from technical approval (do the links, pixels, and tracking work).
- Require evidence for every sign-off: a screenshot of the rendered ad, a log showing the test pixel fired correctly, or a signed approval email or ticket.
- Route any disagreement between creative and legal to a single decision maker before it reaches the media buyer.
- Treat a broken tracking pixel, a missing disclosure, or a landing page mismatch as an absolute launch blocker, regardless of how close the deadline is.
Campaign launch templates built for this exact purpose typically use status fields like “Not started,” “In progress,” “Complete,” and “Blocked,” and they require sign-off from creative, media, analytics, and legal before a campaign can move to live, as outlined in operational checklist templates. Building that same discipline into your own process, even in a simple spreadsheet, catches the small errors that cause the most expensive post-launch fixes.
Deliverableizing compliance: disclosure assets aren’t optional
Any paid or materially connected endorsement needs a disclosure, and that disclosure is a deliverable with the same acceptance criteria as a headline or a video cut. The FTC’s disclosure guidance explains that a material connection exists whenever there is a business or personal relationship, payment, or free product behind the endorsement, and that disclosures need to sit with the endorsement message itself rather than buried in a bio or an about page.
Build these into your asset list from the start:
- A disclosure copy file with platform-appropriate wording such as “Ad” or “Sponsored.”
- A sample frame showing the superimposed disclosure text as it will appear in the finished video.
- Description copy that repeats the disclosure in writing, not just verbally.
- Timestamps marking where the disclosure appears in any video or audio asset.
- A repeated-disclosure plan for livestreams, since a single mention at the start is not enough for content viewers can join midway through.
Disclosures should be clear and conspicuous, meaning easy to notice and understand, and platform disclosure tools do not replace the need for disclosure within the content itself. Federal Trade Commission
Practical acceptance criteria should check that the disclosure is visible without needing to expand a caption, that wording matches across languages when a campaign runs multi-market, and that placement sits close enough to the endorsement that a viewer cannot miss it. Our video brand guidelines playbook covers how to fold these mandatories into a reusable creative template.
Pre-launch QA: the steps that catch problems before spend
A short, ordered QA pass before launch catches the errors that otherwise surface after money has already gone out the door.
- Preview every ad variant exactly as it will render on each placement, not just in the ad platform’s editor view.
- Load the landing page on both mobile and desktop to confirm content and offer match the ad.
- Click through every CTA and confirm redirect behavior lands where intended, including any UTM parameters.
- Fire test conversion events and server-side events, then confirm they land correctly in your analytics platform.
- Confirm UTMs appear correctly in reporting dashboards before the first dollar spends.
Pro Tip: Save a screenshot or log for each of these checks and attach them to the approval ticket. That evidence is what prevents a “the pixel isn’t firing” conversation three days into a live campaign.
Once live, assign someone to check creative rendering and tracking data during the first 72 hours, since that window is when platform delivery issues, broken links, or unexpected audience overlap tend to show up first. A content marketing checklist for scheduling and caption timing is a useful companion resource for teams running social alongside paid.
Post-launch reporting, archiving, and optimization handoff
Closing out a campaign properly means handing off more than a spend report. A post-launch package should include creative-level click-through and conversion rates, notes on audience response, and spend pacing artifacts that explain what happened and when.
- Archive final masters, caption files, edit decision lists, and rights paperwork together so the next team doesn’t have to hunt for them.
- Keep textless versions and layered files on hand for quick re-versioning in a future campaign.
- Deliver annotated creative pulls that flag which variants outperformed, along with a short list of prioritized next tests for creative and targeting.
Why we build the deliverable list before we shoot
We plan every shoot to output multiple aspect ratios and platform-ready variants in one session, so a client never pays for a reshoot because a vertical cut wasn’t planned for. Early alignment between production and media teams, before a single frame rolls, is what keeps file types and specs from getting missed. A discovery call is where we scope that list against your actual media plan.
— Kinter
How Kinter Media delivers ad-ready assets for your next campaign
Marketing teams juggling a launch date rarely have time to chase down a missing caption file or reshoot a vertical cutdown. Kinter Media handles full-service production, from corporate video production to social media video production, and delivers platform-ready masters, caption files, and a manifest package built around your deliverables checklist.
- We produce multi-ratio video variants in a single shoot to avoid reshoots and missed platform specs.
- We provide post-production support on every project.
- We supply a deliverable checklist and post-launch reporting support as part of the production engagement.
Every project is quoted individually based on scope, so the most useful next step is a conversation about what your campaign actually needs. Book a discovery call and we will help scope the deliverables list before your next shoot.
Where these specs and guidelines come from
This checklist draws on Google’s responsive display ad specs, the FTC’s disclosure guidance for endorsements, and production templates from the Kinter Media blog covering formats, aspect ratios, and delivery workflows.
Sources
- Responsive display ads specs and format requirements - Google Ads Help
- Disclosures 101 for Social Media Influencers | Federal Trade Commission
- How to Prepare an Ads Prep Checklist: The Complete In-Depth Guide - DigiMavel
FAQ
What are the typical deliverables for an ad campaign?
Typical deliverables fall into four groups: creative assets like headlines, images, and video cuts; technical masters and platform-ready exports; measurement items like UTMs, pixels, and conversion events; and sign-off documentation from creative, technical, and legal reviewers. A responsive display ad, for example, needs specific counts of headlines, descriptions, and images before it can even launch.
What is a list of deliverables in advertising?
A deliverables list is the complete set of assets, files, and approvals a campaign needs before it can go live, organized by category and assigned to an owner. It typically covers creative copy and visuals, video and image exports in platform-specific formats, tracking setup, and compliance items like disclosure copy.
How do you prepare deliverables for a launch?
Start by breaking the campaign into phases (creative, technical, measurement, compliance) and assigning an owner to each item, following the structure recommended in ads prep checklists. Run a single go/no-go QA gate before spend, requiring evidence like screenshots or pixel test logs for each sign-off.
What are examples of deliverables in social media marketing?
Common social deliverables include platform-sized images and video cuts, caption copy with disclosure language when the post is sponsored, a UTM-tagged link, and a posting schedule. Disclosure text and its placement in the finished post count as deliverables under FTC guidance, not as optional extras.
How many video cuts should a campaign deliver?
The right number depends on how many placements the campaign runs, but most video campaigns need at minimum a full-length master, a shorter cutdown, and a vertical version for social placements. Planning these ratios during the shoot, rather than the edit, avoids the need for a reshoot later.