This Digital Bees LLP operating checklist helps brand teams review marketplace readiness before increasing retail-media spend. It is practical guidance, not a research study or a claim about measured client results. Adapt it to the platform, geography and commercial model. Local eligibility, product rules and fulfilment requirements need separate verification.
1. Define the decision
Choose the product, marketplace, period and commercial objective. Record who can approve a budget change. Diagnose new launches separately from mature replenishment products.
Evidence: An agreed objective, product list and review period.
Next decision: State what would justify increasing, holding or reducing spend.
2. Check sellable availability
Confirm the advertised variation can be purchased in the relevant delivery locations. Review inventory, offer eligibility, delivery promise and suppressed listings. A national stock total can hide local availability problems.
Evidence: Dated checks of representative locations and variations, plus platform stock records where available.
Next decision: Resolve availability or narrow the advertised product and location set before scaling traffic.
3. Check product information
Review titles, images, variations, size or quantity, attributes and customer questions. Verify claims against approved product information and ensure the advertisement describes the same offer as the product page.
Evidence: The current product page and a documented list of content gaps.
Next decision: Assign each correction to an owner and verify it after publication.
4. Separate traffic from conversion
Compare like-for-like periods and products. Review impressions, clicks, click-through rate, conversion and units separately. Price, placement, stock, delivery and promotions can affect comparisons. Attributed orders alone do not establish advertising incrementality.
Evidence: Platform reports with named date ranges and metric definitions.
Next decision: Determine whether the constraint is reach, traffic relevance or the purchase experience.
5. Check contribution economics
Use actual product revenue and applicable discounts, marketplace fees, fulfilment, returns and advertising costs. A universal ROAS threshold does not fit every product. If costs are missing, show the gap rather than claiming precise profitability.
Evidence: A product-level contribution calculation with assumptions identified.
Next decision: Set the spending decision against the product’s commercial objective.
6. Review AI recommendations
Check the recommendation’s source data, time period and objective. Does it account for inventory, margin and promotion changes? A confident recommendation may still use incomplete or stale inputs.
Evidence: The recommendation, its inputs and the person who reviewed it.
Next decision: Document the human decision and the reason for accepting or overriding the recommendation.
7. Close the loop
Record an action, owner, completion date and metric to review. Recheck after enough relevant data accumulates. A short-term movement is not proof of causation.
Evidence: An action log that distinguishes execution changes from changing conditions.
Next decision: Use: Product / Market / Finding / Evidence date / Action / Owner / Due date / Result / Next decision.
An illustrative decision
Suppose a product receives steady clicks but cannot be delivered to two of the locations targeted by its ads. Before increasing the budget, verify the affected offer and fulfilment coverage, correct the issue or narrow targeting, then compare like-for-like periods. This hypothetical example describes a decision process, not a client result.
Apply the checklist to your market
Connect these checks to marketplace operations, retail media and commerce intelligence. See our established service pages for UAE/GCC, the UK and the US. Digital Bees LLP is based in Mumbai, India, and serves international markets. Service coverage does not imply a foreign office or local registration.