# Completed LinkedIn Ads Agency Readiness Brief: fictional example

This fictional example shows the level of detail needed for a real decision. It is not a Maestro case study, benchmark or result.

## 1. Business fit

- Company and product: Northstar, an approval-workflow platform for multi-location finance teams.
- Primary market: US companies with 500–5,000 employees and distributed finance operations.
- Typical contract value: $75,000 annual contract.
- Typical sales cycle: 90–150 days.
- Monthly total-media range: $14,000 across LinkedIn and Meta, pending approval.
- Why LinkedIn may fit: the company can name the accounts, finance roles and approval problem.
- Poor-fit condition: the matched audience is unusable or the executive cannot supply defensible proof.

## 2. First campaign job

- [x] Build familiarity in named accounts.
- [x] Earn a response to a specific resource as the first measurable next step.

Test question: Can a finance-leader audience at 700 named accounts be reached with enough consistency for an executive-led approval-handoff message to earn qualified teardown requests?

The team will not treat familiarity and resource response as the same result. The first is a delivery/message question; the second adds destination and qualification.

## 3. Audience source and usability

- Priority companies: 700 named accounts in two tiers.
- Buying roles: CFO, VP Finance, Controller and Director of Finance Operations.
- Exclusions: customers, open late-stage opportunities, employees and accounts below 500 employees.
- Audience source: company list plus known contacts from Salesforce.
- Submitted count: 3,860 contacts across 700 companies.
- Matchable fields: company domain, company name, work email, first/last name, title and country.
- Usable matched-audience status: unknown. Upload and inspect before launch.
- Delivered reach baseline: none; new account.
- List owner: demand generation lead. Sales operations approves exclusions.

## 4. Buyer problem and proof

- Problem: approval requests move between email, spreadsheets and chat, so finance cannot see the owner or next action.
- Consequence: late decisions, poor cash visibility and repeated chasing.
- Executive point of view: an approval process fails when the context travels without a visible owner and decision deadline.
- Approved proof: complete product workflow, anonymized interface, implementation checklist and one approved qualitative customer quote.
- Claims not allowed: no approved time-saved, revenue, ROI or close-speed statistic.
- Source material: 35-minute founder interview, product walkthrough and sales-call question log.
- Source owner: founder.
- Approval owner: founder for point of view; product marketing for product truth; two-business-day turnaround.

## 5. Creative and offer

- Opening: “Approval processes slow down when context and ownership split apart.”
- Format: executive post for the belief; short product video for the workflow; document checklist for the response test.
- What the ads show: the real approval request, owner, evidence and decision history.
- Next step: request a free approval-workflow teardown.
- Buyer receives: a two-page annotated teardown of one current approval flow.
- Fulfillment owner: solutions consultant, with a limit of ten teardowns per week.
- Available: interview, product capture, checklist draft and page wireframe.
- Needed: approved post, edited video, finished document and fulfillment test.

## 6. Destination and response path

- [x] Landing page and form.
- Promise: submit one approval workflow and receive a two-page teardown within three business days.
- Fields: business email, company, role, number of finance locations, current workflow, main failure and permission to follow up.
- Confirmation: immediate email with submission summary and delivery date.
- CRM fields: source, campaign, asset, account tier, role, problem, request date and consent.
- Response owner: demand generation operations confirms delivery; solutions consultant produces teardown; account executive receives an alert only after fit review.
- Response time: confirmation immediately; fit review in one business day; teardown in three.
- Test evidence: complete a test submission on desktop and mobile, read back the Salesforce record, verify the email, and confirm each owner receives the correct task.

## 7. Qualification and CRM feedback

- CRM: Salesforce.
- Captured inquiry: completed teardown form with source fields.
- Booking: calendar event created after the buyer asks to discuss the teardown.
- Held meeting: meeting occurred and an outcome was recorded.
- Qualified meeting: target account, finance decision role or strong influencer, approval-handoff problem, and a relevant project in the next 12 months.
- Opportunity: sales accepts a dated commercial evaluation with amount and next step.
- Rejection reasons: outside market, student/vendor, no relevant workflow, no timing, invalid contact or duplicate.
- Sales disposition owner: assigned account executive.
- Review owner: demand generation lead.
- Review cadence: weekly delivery review; first commercial-quality review after enough responses exist to protect individual privacy and avoid reacting to one record.
- Events returned to LinkedIn: none at launch. Consider supported conversion events only after setup, permissions and test receipts are verified.

## 8. Costs and scope

- Monthly LinkedIn media: proposed $9,000.
- Meta: proposed $5,000 for separate retargeting and founder-video questions.
- Agency fee: unknown; proposal required.
- Outside production: unknown until the video and teardown design are scoped.
- Data/software: existing Salesforce and enrichment contract; any incremental cost must be listed.
- Internal contributors: founder interview/approval, product marketing review, solutions consultant fulfillment and sales disposition.
- Agency: audience design, concepts, agreed production, campaign build, landing-path build/test and reporting.
- Client: list, access, product truth, proof, approvals, fulfillment and sales follow-up.
- Shared: message, qualification, review and budget decisions.
- Out of scope until agreed: full founder ghostwriting, list sourcing, sales outreach and deep Salesforce implementation.

## 9. First review and stop rules

- Earliest review with enough evidence to decide: delivery after seven days; commercial quality only after enough responses and sales dispositions exist.
- Audience evidence: usable match, delivered reach and frequency by agreed segment.
- Creative evidence: complete-video viewing and response by message; no hook-only declaration.
- Destination evidence: load, completion, field drop-off and test delivery.
- Sales evidence: fit, held and qualified outcomes with rejection reasons.
- Keep: usable delivery plus relevant engagement or responses from priority segments.
- Repair: delivery without attention; response without fit; fit without timely follow-up.
- Stop: unusable audience, unsupported proof, repeated fulfillment failure or no path to meaningful reach inside approved economics.
- Funding owner: VP Marketing with CFO approval.

## 10. Readiness decision

**Fix first.**

The market, point of view, proof and response idea are credible. Launch is blocked by an unknown matched-audience status, unfinished assets, untested CRM delivery, unknown agency/production costs and incomplete commercial approval.

Next action: upload and inspect the audience; finish and approve the creative/resource; test the complete response path; list every cost; secure budget approval.

Next owners: demand generation lead for audience/path, founder and product marketing for claims, solutions consultant for fulfillment, agency for build, VP Marketing/CFO for commercial approval.

Evidence that closes the decision: usable audience receipt, approved assets, successful desktop/mobile test submission and CRM/email/task readback, signed scope and approved budget.