Slide 1 of 4
Approval is priced, not warned
Approving generation opens Review and approve generation: a server estimate of this exact job, which you accept or do not.
Running a campaign with drafted content
DoLesson 5 of 12Choose what gets generated
What generation costs, and the approval that prices it
Size the credit and review cost of a campaign before launching it, and read the approval dialog that prices the work you are about to commit to.
22 minIntermediate
Part 1 of 4
What the approval dialog actually shows
Approving a campaign’s generation opens a dialog headed Review and approve generation, and it is a price rather than a warning. It lists what is Included in this approval, counts the Account plans to generate, gives you a Total, and shows your Available credits against it. Work that has already been approved is excluded and labelled as Already approved, so re-approving a campaign you have added to never re-bills the part that already ran.
This matters because the older flow showed a fixed sentence and no numbers, which taught everybody to click through it. A dialog carrying the server’s own estimate of this exact job is a different object: approving it is an explicit acceptance of that amount, and it is the last point at which the amount is free to change.
If the estimate exceeds what you hold, the dialog says More credits are required rather than failing halfway through. An administrator with billing rights is offered the path to buy them; everybody else is told to ask an administrator to add credits. Either way nothing generates, and the configuration is untouched.
Part 2 of 4
The arithmetic to do first
The dialog will tell you the number. Do the arithmetic anyway, because a number you predicted and a number you were handed are read completely differently — the first one you can tell is wrong.
Three counts, and the last of them is the one teams forget. It is a parallel cost driven by audience size alone, whatever you asked to be written, and it is why the dialog gives it a line of its own.
Then hold the asset total against review capacity, because that is the constraint that bites first in most teams. Credits are recoverable; you can top them up. A hundred unreviewed personalized pages sitting in the assets tab is a different kind of problem, and the only fix for it is somebody’s attention.
- Audience count × per-account assets = the scaling portion
- Plus campaign-level assets and ad variations as flat counts
- Plus account plans for audience accounts that lack a current one
Part 3 of 4
Save Draft is a different operation, not a way out of the dialog
On the Review step, Save Draft and Approve are two separate controls rather than one button with a confirmation step. That distinction is deliberate and it is worth holding onto: a draft creates no work and costs nothing, while approval commits the credits the dialog names. Collapsing them is exactly what made the older flow ambiguous about which one had just happened.
So when the total is larger than you expected, the answer is to close the dialog and save the draft. Go back, narrow the audience or move an asset from per-account to campaign-level, and approve later against a number you are comfortable with. The configuration survives and nothing has been spent.
Part 4 of 4
The worked numbers
For the configuration above: 44 assets, of which 40 are per-account briefs. Of the 60 audience accounts, suppose 25 have no current account plan. The dialog will count those 25 plan generations on their own line, even though only 40 accounts get briefs. So the job is 44 assets plus 25 account plans, and the plan portion would have been identical if you had ordered a single campaign-level page, because it scales with the audience rather than with your asset choices.
That is the calculation to have on a sticky note when the dialog opens. If the Total matches what you worked out, approve. If you had costed 44 items and forgotten the plans, this is the moment you catch it — close the dialog, save the draft, trim the thin third of the audience you were never going to brief anyway, and come back with both numbers smaller.
Do this in the product
Size it before you approve
- Note the audience count from the Audience step.
- Multiply it by the number of per-account assets selected on the Content step.
- Add campaign-level assets and the ad variation count as flat numbers.
- Estimate how many accounts in the audience will also need an account plan generated.
- Open the approval dialog and check your figure against Included in this approval, Account plans to generate and the Total.
- If the Total is uncomfortable, close it, use Save Draft, and change the configuration rather than approving.
Key questions
You should be able to answer each of these from memory before opening it. Recalling the answer is what makes it stick; recognizing it when you read it does not.
What does the approval dialog count separately from the assets you selected?
Account plans to generate. Audience accounts without a current account plan have one generated, so that part of the cost scales with audience size regardless of how few assets you chose.
The Total is higher than you expected. What is the move?
Close the dialog and use Save Draft on the Review step. A draft keeps the whole configuration, creates no work and costs nothing, so you can narrow the audience or switch an asset to campaign-level and approve later.
What happens when the estimate exceeds your available credits?
The dialog says more credits are required and generates nothing. A billing administrator is offered the path to buy them; anyone else is told to ask an administrator to add them.
Which constraint usually bites before credits do?
Review capacity. Credits can be topped up; a hundred unreviewed personalized assets can only be fixed by someone reading them.
What to take away
- The approval dialog prices this exact job from the server. Approving accepts that amount.
- Do the arithmetic first, so the dialog confirms a number you predicted rather than announcing one you did not.
- Account plans are a second cost, driven by audience size rather than by what you asked to be written.
- Save Draft and Approve are different operations. A draft costs nothing; approval commits credits.
Teach this lesson
The argument in 4 slides, for presenting it to your team
Slide 2 of 4
Account plans are their own line
The dialog counts Account plans to generate separately. That cost scales with the audience, not with the assets you chose.
Slide 3 of 4
Draft and approve are different buttons
- Save Draft — keeps the configuration, creates no work, costs nothing
- Approve — commits the credits the dialog just named
- They are two operations, not one button with a confirmation
Slide 4 of 4
Do the arithmetic first anyway
The dialog tells you the number. Working it out beforehand is how you notice when the number is wrong for you.
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