Use case: Campaign mistakes
Catch costly campaign changes before they go unnoticed.
A budget typed as 2,000 instead of 200. A copied campaign that kept its old countries. AdFence compares each authorized change with the account's recorded history and the expectations your team configured, and surfaces the ones worth a second look.
AdFence does not know which value was intended. It shows the recorded change against the account's history, and whether it was meant is your team's call.
Daily budget
Spring Launch, ProspectingIntended
$200
Recorded
$2,000
Entered at 17:42 by an authorized user, the team confirms, with one extra zero
- Usual daily budget, last 30 days
- $180 to $240
- Configured expectation
- Up to $400 per day
- Size of the change
- 10x the previous value
Sample. Names and figures are invented.
Changed evidence
One extra zero, caught against the account's own history.
A media buyer raises a daily budget at the end of the day and types 2,000 where 200 was meant. The change is legitimate, the person is authorized, and the account is still about to spend ten times its normal day.
Sample scenario. Names and figures are invented.
Daily budget
Spring Launch, Prospecting
- Before
- $200
- After
- $2,000
- Changed by
- maria@example.com
- Changed at
- 17:42
- Access
- Authorized user, the team confirms
Against the account
Usual daily budget, last 30 days
New$180 to $240
Configured expectation
NewUp to $400 per day
Size of the change
New10x the previous value
What happened next
Recorded spend since the change
New$260
Budget corrected
$2,000changed to $200
Set back in the platform at 18:05 by the same buyer.
Incident record
NewKept, with previous and current values
AdFence compares the change with the account's recorded history and with the expectations your team configured. It does not know why the change was made. Whether it was intended is your team's call.
The correction is made by your team in the platform. The record keeps the change, the correction, and the spend recorded between them together, so the review is about the setting rather than the person.
Impact
The mistakes authorized people make.
None of these needs an attacker. They need a duplicate button, a long day, and nobody comparing the new value with the old one.
Budgets
The number is wrong, or on the wrong campaign.
- Budget entered with an extra zero
- Budget set on the wrong campaign
- Lifetime and daily budgets confused
Targeting
The audience came from somewhere else.
- Country list carried over from a copied campaign
- Audience or placement left on the duplicate's settings
- A test campaign launched to everyone
Destinations and settings
The ad points somewhere, or behaves, in a way nobody chose.
- URL typo, or the wrong product page
- Wrong domain in a duplicated ad
- Schedule, bid, or attribution setting carried over
Tell them apart
Authorized but unintended is its own problem.
The same budget jump can mean three different things. The response is different for each, so the pages are too.
- This page
Authorized but unintended
A person with the right access makes a change nobody meant. It is caught by comparing the change with the account's history and the expectations your team configured, and corrected by the team.
- UnauthorizedA change the account's owner or team did not approve, whatever credentials made it: a compromised login, a hijacked session, or an insider acting alone. The same budget jump then reads as one warning sign among several of an account takeover.
- Customers cannot buyNothing in the campaign changed; the destination did. A sold-out variant or a broken page turns paid traffic into a leak.
Review and response
What AdFence surfaces, and what stays with your team.
Available history and configured expectations turn a change into something a person can judge quickly. The judgement, and the correction, stay human.
What AdFence surfaces
- The change, with previous and current values, who made it, and when
- How far the new value sits from the account's recorded history
- Whether it crosses an expectation your team configured
- An alert to the channels your team chose
What stays with your team
- Whether the change was intended
- Correcting it in the platform, or leaving it if it was meant
- Updating the configured expectations when the business really changed
- Any automatic response, which runs only if your team explicitly configured and pre-approved it
How AdFence behaves
- Supported checks start after connection and run every 15 minutes.
- Read-only by default. Monitoring never edits an ad account on its own.
- Coverage varies by platform, permissions, integrations, configuration, and plan.
- Automatic actions run only when they are explicitly configured and pre-approved.
- No guarantee of prevention, recovery, refund, or reinstatement.
Retain the record
Keep the change and the correction together.
AdFence records the change, the comparison that flagged it, the correction, and the spend recorded in between, so the review can be about the process rather than the person.
What the record can support
- Client reporting
- Team reviews
- Process fixes
- Onboarding
The record covers changes recorded after the account was connected. It documents what changed and when. It does not guarantee a refund of the spend in between from any platform.
Correction timeline
Sample scenario. Names and figures are invented.
- 17:42Daily budget changed$200 to $2,000
- 17:45Compared with history10x the usual range
- 17:45Alert sentSlack
- 18:05Budget corrected$2,000 to $200
- 18:05Recorded spend in between$260
Questions, answered
What teams ask before connecting.
How does AdFence know a budget was a mistake?
It does not. It knows the change sits far from the account's recorded history, or crosses an expectation your team configured, and it surfaces that for a person to check. Whether it was intended is your team's call.
Is this the same as detecting a hacked account?
No. A takeover is an unauthorized change; a mistake is an authorized one. The same budget jump can be either. The ad account security use case covers the warning signs of unauthorized access. This page covers what authorized people get wrong.
Can AdFence put the budget back on its own?
Not by default. Monitoring is read-only. Corrections are made by your team in the platform, and any automatic response runs only if it was explicitly configured and pre-approved in advance.
What history does AdFence compare against?
The account's own activity recorded after connection, plus any expectations your team configured. A brand-new connection has little history, so early comparisons lean on the configured expectations.
Does this catch a mistake before it spends anything?
Not always. Supported checks run on a cadence after connection, so some spend can occur between the change and the review. The aim is to surface the change for review well before a month-end spend report would.
Start protecting
Give the extra zero a second look.
Read-only by default. Changes outside the usual range reach your team for review, and corrections stay with your team.
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