---
title: "Go-live checklist"
description: "Pre-launch verification pass — statuses, linking, targeting sanity, capping, preview, a real test page and analytics visibility before you send production traffic."
type: "tutorial"
audience: [network-manager, publisher, advertiser]
keywords: [go live, launch, checklist, verification, active, linking, targeting, capping, preview, test page, analytics]
ui_path: "Account → Advertisers / Publishers / Analytics"
---

Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://epom.com/ad-server/docs/llms.txt. Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. Append .md to any documentation page URL to get its markdown version.

# Go-live checklist

Run this pass before pointing production traffic at a new setup. Each step verifies one
common way launches silently fail. The whole list takes about ten minutes and saves the
classic first-day incident: "everything is configured and nothing serves".

## Who this is for

Anyone flipping a new campaign or placement live — network managers for the full list,
advertisers for the demand half and publishers for the supply half. Each step says who runs it.

> **If you are a publisher: what you do.** Steps 1 (your site, zone and placement are on), 4 (your
> pre-targeting), 8 and 9 (preview and a test page with the real tag) and 10 (the report). Also
> confirm how the tag handles consent on your pages and that your `ads.txt` carries your network's
> lines — see [Privacy signals and ads.txt](https://epom.com/ad-server/docs/guides/inventory/privacy-and-ads-txt.md). The
> steps marked **(network manager)** are your network's; when one of them fails, send your network
> manager the placement's name and the page URL.

## Prerequisites

- A configured chain: advertiser → campaign → banner and site → zone → placement, linked
  (see the [network quick start](https://epom.com/ad-server/docs/start/quick-start-network.md) if not).
- Access to a test page (any HTML file you can open in a browser).

## Steps

1. **Statuses — the whole chain is Active** (everyone, on their own side). Serving requires *every* level to be active:
   advertiser, campaign, banner, site, zone, placement. Walk both trees and check the
   status indicators; a single paused ancestor silently stops everything below it. Watch
   for "hide inactive" filters in the tree rail — an entity you cannot see may still be the
   inactive culprit.
2. **Approval states** (network manager with the Pending tabs; they are not on the stock role, so
   otherwise your network administrator). On networks that review content, check **Pending
   banners** and **Pending sites**. A pending site still serves, and so does a creative under
   the soft review mode; under the strict mode a creative stays switched off until approved, and
   a **Rejected** creative is switched off. Make sure nothing is deactivated or rejected.
3. **Linking — verify from both ends** (network manager). Open the banner's **Matched placements** card and
   the placement's **Matched banners** card. Both must list the counterpart. The **Linked
   placements** card showing a row is necessary but not sufficient — *matched* means the
   pair is actually servable (size, type and rules all agree). The pill in the banner's and the
   placement's header should read **Serving · N**; **Not serving** means nothing is wired to
   the other side yet. The Matched cards are not on any stock role; without them, rely on the
   serving pill and step 7.
   ![Matched placements card](https://epom.com/docs-images/ad-server/go-live-checklist/matched-inventory.webp)
4. **Targeting sanity** (everyone, on their own levels). For every level that has targeting rules: confirm they describe
   real traffic. Empty targeting serves to everyone — that is the safe default. Classic
   self-inflicted blocks: a country list that omits your test location, device targeting
   that excludes your test browser, time-of-day windows read in a different time zone than you assume (**Time Range**
   reads UTC unless **Client local time** is set). Remember targeting stacks across levels — a
   campaign rule AND a banner rule must both match, and the site, zone and placement
   pre-targeting must match too.
5. **Capping and limits won't strangle the launch** (network manager, and the advertiser where
   the cards are shown). Check Frequency capping and Limits at
   campaign (and, where you hold them, placement) level: a leftover test value like "1 impression per user per
   month" produces exactly one ad and then silence, and a filled **total** limit has already
   switched the entity off — it stays off after you raise the cap, until you switch it back on.
6. **Pricing is set** (network manager, and the advertiser on the campaign). A campaign with the wrong pricing type or a zero rate may serve but
   produce useless analytics and billing. Confirm the Pricing card matches the insertion
   order.
7. **Run diagnostics** (advertiser or network manager) on the campaign (the **Actions** menu on the campaign edit page). It
   checks the campaign end to end and lists blocking issues — no banners, no linked inventory,
   limits — in one modal. Fix anything it reports.
8. **Preview the placement** (publisher or network manager). Use the placement's **Preview** action (site, mobile site,
   non-standard, video and email placements have one): the standalone preview page renders the
   ad in an ad container, with controls to vary the invocation code type, IP, channel and
   custom parameters, and **Apply** to refetch. The right creative must render. The page needs
   an invocation code type your role may preview — without one it shows *Not Supported* and no
   Request controls.
   ![Preview page](https://epom.com/docs-images/ad-server/go-live-checklist/preview-page.webp)
9. **Test page with the production tag** (publisher or network manager). Paste the ad tag from **Ad tags & API** into a
   plain HTML file and open it in a normal browser (not only the preview). This catches
   protocol and domain issues the in-app preview can mask — e.g. an HTTP tag on an HTTPS
   page.
10. **Analytics visibility** (everyone). Generate a few impressions and a click on the test page, wait
    until the hour they fell in has ended (reports load by the hour), then run a report with **Date range** *Today*, **Group by** *Placement*, and
    **Run report**. Non-zero impressions and
    the click landing in the report is your end-to-end confirmation. Also confirm passback
    behavior: request the page from a context your targeting excludes and check the slot
    falls back gracefully (passback code or clean collapse).

### Before a whole network's first launch

The list above checks one campaign or placement. A new network also needs, once:

- **Your own ad-serving domain**, if you want one — see
  [Use my own domain (CNAME)](https://epom.com/ad-server/docs/guides/admin/networks-and-domains.md#use-my-own-domain-cname-for-ad-tags-the-control-panel-or-files).
- **ads.txt** lines on your publishers' sites — see
  [Privacy, consent and ads.txt](https://epom.com/ad-server/docs/guides/inventory/privacy-and-ads-txt.md).
- **The consent policy** for visitors in the EEA — see [GDPR and TCF consent](https://epom.com/ad-server/docs/guides/admin/gdpr-tcf-consent.md).

## Options and fields

This is a verification pass — the fields involved are documented on their own pages:

| Check | Where the settings live |
|---|---|
| Statuses | Status toggle on every entity's Basic info card |
| Linking | Banner → Linked placements / Matched placements; Placement → Linked banners / Matched banners |
| Targeting | Targeting card on advertiser, campaign, banner; Pre-targeting on site, zone, placement |
| Capping / limits | Frequency capping and Limits cards on advertiser, campaign and banner; on a site or placement they need a permission your network administrator grants |
| Tags | Placement → Ad tags & API |

## Corner cases and gotchas

> **Corner case:** "linked" is not "matched". A banner can be linked to a placement
> while the Matched cards stay empty — size changed after linking, a category rule
> now excludes the pair, or the placement type stopped accepting the banner type. Always
> verify with the Matched cards (step 3), not the link list.

> **Corner case:** geo lookups on test traffic. From office VPNs, localhost or datacenter
> IPs the visitor country can resolve to nothing or somewhere unexpected — and any
> country-targeted ad quietly skips. Test geo targeting with the preview page's IP
> override, not by trusting your own connection.

> **Corner case:** changes take a few minutes to reach the ad servers, and reports load by the
> hour — an event appears shortly after its hour ends. Re-test after a few minutes, not after every
> save, and check the report after the next full hour.

> **Corner case:** the first impression you "lose" may be capping working. If you set a
> frequency cap and reload the test page repeatedly, the ad correctly disappears for your
> browser after the cap is hit. Use a private window or a different browser before
> declaring the setup broken — and remember cookie-based caps don't persist in private
> windows themselves.

## Per-role notes

- **Network manager:** the whole list. Ask your network administrator for any card you cannot see.
- **Advertiser (stock role):** statuses, targeting, pricing and flight dates, diagnostics and the
  report. Linking (step 3) and limits beyond the flight dates come from your network manager.
- **Publisher (stock role):** see the box at the top. Pricing, limits, linking and the Matched
  cards fall to your network manager; pre-targeting is yours.
- **Can View share or demo account:** every check reads fine, but fixes need **Can edit**; on a
  demo, run step 10 against a chain you built yourself.

## Related

- [Network quick start](https://epom.com/ad-server/docs/start/quick-start-network.md)
- [Privacy signals and ads.txt](https://epom.com/ad-server/docs/guides/inventory/privacy-and-ads-txt.md)
- [Serving state explained](https://epom.com/ad-server/docs/concepts/serving-state.md)
- [My ad is not serving](https://epom.com/ad-server/docs/troubleshooting/ad-not-serving.md)
- [Tags and preview troubleshooting](https://epom.com/ad-server/docs/troubleshooting/tags-and-preview.md)
- [Statuses and indicators](https://epom.com/ad-server/docs/reference/statuses-and-indicators.md)