Onboarding a New Teammate to Your Ad Accounts: A Checklist

Sections8

Editorial team Spend Ledger

Decide what the person needs to do

Write down the work the teammate will handle before sending an invitation. A clear description helps distinguish access needed for campaign setup, creative review, reporting, billing administration, or other responsibilities.
Choose a role that matches those duties. Roles can carry different permissions, so selecting one based on the actual work helps avoid granting control the person does not need.
Separate decision-making duties from execution duties. Someone who prepares campaigns may not need authority to approve budgets, manage payments, or change business settings.
Ask which tasks require access to advertising data. Some work can be completed with shared instructions or approved reports, which may reduce the need to enter an account directly.
Identify responsibilities that are temporary or limited to a project. A defined purpose makes it easier to remove access when the work ends or changes.
Check that the proposed role fits platform policy and your organization’s responsibilities. Access should support legitimate work, not serve as a workaround for restrictions or account requirements.

Invite through the business container

Send the invitation through the platform’s official business-level access system. A central business container helps keep people, assets, and permissions organized under the appropriate organization.
Use the teammate’s own work identity for the invitation. Individual access supports clear accountability and avoids relying on shared credentials.
Confirm the identity details through your normal internal process before inviting. A mistaken address or identity can expose business information to someone who was not meant to receive it.
Ask the teammate to accept the invitation through the platform’s official interface. Keeping the acceptance process within the platform helps preserve its access records and security checks.
Do not send a password or ask the teammate to use someone else’s login. Shared credentials make it harder to attribute changes and can weaken account security.
Explain who in your organization is responsible for approving and managing access. A known internal contact gives the teammate a clear route for questions about permissions or account ownership.

Secure the teammate’s login

Require two-step login protection on the teammate’s platform account. An additional verification step can help protect access if a password is exposed.
Ask the teammate to secure the recovery methods associated with the account. Recovery details matter because they can affect who is able to regain access.
Remind the teammate to use a strong, unique password. Reusing a password across services can increase the consequences of a separate security incident.
Tell the teammate to keep verification codes private. A code intended to confirm a login should not be forwarded to colleagues or entered at someone else’s request.
Agree on a safe way to report suspicious login prompts or unexpected access changes. Early internal reporting gives the organization a chance to review the situation through official security channels.
Do not ask anyone to disable security checks for convenience. Security requirements should remain in place even when a teammate needs to complete routine work quickly.

Grant access only to the accounts required

Assign access to the specific advertising accounts needed for the teammate’s duties. Per-account access limits unnecessary exposure across the business’s wider account structure.
Leave unrelated accounts and business assets unassigned. A person’s access to one work area does not automatically justify access to every connected asset.
Choose the least permissive available role that still allows the assigned work. Narrow permissions can reduce the chance of accidental changes to budgets, billing, or account settings.
Keep payment and billing permissions separate from campaign work where possible. The people who manage advertising activity may not need authority over financial settings.
Review any access that comes bundled with a broader business role. Business-level permissions can reach beyond an individual account, so check what they allow before assigning them.
Use the platform’s official process if a permission is unavailable or unclear. Do not work around a restriction by borrowing access, creating another route, or concealing who controls an account.

Share account conventions and working boundaries

Provide the team’s naming conventions for campaigns, ad sets, ads, and saved materials. Consistent names make account activity easier to understand, compare, and review.
Explain what information each part of a name is meant to communicate. A convention is useful only when teammates can apply it consistently without guessing.
Describe how drafts, active campaigns, paused work, and completed work should be distinguished. Shared status conventions reduce confusion when several people work in the same account.
Clarify which changes the teammate may make independently. Explicit boundaries help prevent routine execution from becoming an unintended change in strategy or spending.
Explain the internal approval route for budgets, audiences, creative, and launch decisions. A defined route makes responsibility clearer when work requires review before publication.
State how the teammate should handle unclear account history or unfamiliar settings. Asking for review is safer than changing a configuration whose purpose is not understood.
Share the organization’s policy for handling account data and exported reports. Clear handling expectations help keep business information within approved work channels.

Set reporting and communication routines

Explain which results the teammate should report and how they should be described. Shared definitions help colleagues interpret performance without confusing platform measures with business outcomes.
Set a consistent reporting routine that fits the team’s work. Regular communication can make changes, questions, and emerging issues visible to the people responsible for decisions.
Ask the teammate to record material account changes with their business reason. A concise change record helps reviewers understand what happened and why.
Clarify how to flag unusual delivery, rejected content, billing notices, or access warnings. Prompt escalation helps the responsible person assess the issue through the appropriate platform process.
Separate observations from recommendations in reports. Readers can then distinguish what the account shows from what the teammate thinks the team should do next.
Agree where working notes and reporting records should be kept. A shared, approved location makes information easier to find when another teammate needs to review the account.
Tell the teammate not to promise a particular result in reporting. Advertising performance can vary, so reports should describe evidence and uncertainty rather than guarantee an outcome.

Record the access and set a review date

Record the teammate’s identity, assigned role, account access, and business purpose. An access record gives the organization a practical reference for checking who can do what.
Note who approved the access and where the approval is recorded. A traceable decision helps clarify responsibility if the assignment later needs to be reviewed.
Record any permissions related to billing, business settings, or other sensitive areas separately. Distinguishing these permissions makes broader authority easier to notice and reassess.
Set a review date when access is granted. A planned review helps prevent temporary or project-specific access from remaining active without consideration.
Add the teammate’s expected work changes to the review notes. Knowing whether duties are ongoing, changing, or ending helps reviewers make a deliberate decision.
Keep the record in an approved internal location rather than in personal notes. A maintained record is more useful when access administrators or managers need to consult it.
Update the record whenever permissions change. Accurate records prevent the organization from relying on an outdated view of account access.

Review, adjust, and close access responsibly

Revisit permissions on the review date and whenever the teammate’s duties change. Access should reflect current responsibilities rather than the role the person held at the start.
Remove permissions that are no longer needed through the platform’s official controls. Prompt removal reduces lingering access without changing account ownership or avoiding platform requirements.
Confirm that active work has a responsible owner before access is removed. A handoff can preserve continuity while keeping permissions limited to the people doing the work.
Review access when a project ends or a teammate leaves the organization. Changes in working relationships are a reason to check both account permissions and business-level roles.
Ask the teammate to report access problems rather than seek an informal workaround. The organization can then use official support or appeal channels when the platform’s process requires them.
Use the platform’s official appeal or support route if access is restricted or a decision appears mistaken. Explain the situation accurately and address the underlying issue instead of creating replacement access to bypass the restriction.
Recheck the access record after any adjustment. A final comparison between the platform’s permissions and the internal record helps keep both aligned.
Treat the account as a work asset governed by platform rules and organizational controls. Responsible onboarding depends on clear authority, limited permissions, reliable records, and a willingness to correct problems through proper channels.