Case: A kill-switch runbook that capped a bad day's loss at $340

Case: A kill-switch runbook that capped a bad day's loss at $340

A team once let a broken offer run overnight and lost $2,100. They wrote a pause runbook with hard thresholds so nobody debates 'is it bad enough yet'.

Run this whenever spend crosses $50 with zero conversions, or CR drops 50% vs 7-day baseline.

Stage 1 — Confirm (Owner: on-call buyer)
☐ Check postback isn't just delayed (wait 15 min)
☐ Verify offer status in network dashboard

Stage 2 — Act (Owner: on-call buyer)
☐ Pause campaign if offer is down
☐ Screenshot spend + stats

Stage 3 — Escalate (Owner: on-call buyer)
☐ Message account manager with offer ID
☐ Log incident in #incidents with timestamp

Trigger: threshold breach alert.
Done-when: campaign paused and logged within 20 min.

Result: worst incident since went from $2,100 to $340. Three saves in the first month.

Save this. Run it every time.