Your first 90 days as a paid media coordinator

Key takeaways

Your first 30 days are for learning, not changing. Ask for read-only access first and read the change history before you touch anything.
Learn the business before the platforms: what a good customer is worth, what counts as a conversion, and who approves spend.
A simple weekly routine beats heroic one-off audits. Budget pacing, search terms, conversion tracking and notes, every week.
Report up with three things: what happened, why, and what you will do next. Never send a dashboard without a sentence on top.

You started a paid media job and you were handed logins to five ad accounts, a reporting template you don’t understand, and a client call on Thursday. Everyone else seems to know what “tCPA,” “PMax” and “Advantage+” mean in context. You are afraid of pausing the wrong thing.

That feeling is normal. Most of the damage new coordinators do comes from moving too fast, not from knowing too little. This article gives you a 90-day plan: what to learn first, how to audit accounts without breaking anything, a weekly routine you can actually keep, how to report to your manager or client, and the free training worth your time.

Days 1 to 30: learn the business, change nothing

Your job in the first month is to understand why each account exists. The platforms will still be there in week five.

Ask for the right access level

In Google Ads, ask for Read-only access to accounts you are only learning. Google’s help page says read-only users can view campaigns, planning tools and billing and run reports, but can’t edit campaigns. Standard access adds editing campaigns. Admin adds managing users, product links and payment profile details. You almost never need Admin as a coordinator, and having it means a misclick can remove a user or unlink Google Analytics.

Apply the same idea on Meta, LinkedIn and Microsoft Advertising: ask for the lowest level that lets you see performance, and ask for editing rights once you have a reason to edit.

Questions to ask in your first two weeks

Write the answers in one shared document per account. You will use it for months.

What does the business sell, and what is a good customer worth? Ask for a rough number, even if it is a range.
Which conversion actually matters: a sale, a booked call, a qualified lead? Which ones in the account are just signals?
What is the monthly budget in CAD, who approved it, and is it a hard cap or a target?
Who can approve changes, and how fast? Is there anything I must never change without asking?
Which markets do we serve? Which provinces, and do we run French campaigns or Quebec-specific creative?
What happened in the last six months: big tests, tracking changes, budget cuts, bad months?
Which report does the client or boss actually read, and what number do they look at first?
Where do leads go after the form, and can I see what happened to them?

Read the change history before anything else

In Google Ads, go to Campaigns, then Change history. It shows changes across the account for up to two years, and you can filter by campaign, change type, user and tool. Read the last 90 days. You will learn who works on the account, how often things change, and whether automated tools are making edits. If a result moved suddenly, look for a change just before it.

How to audit an account without breaking it

A first audit is an observation exercise. You write down what you see and what you would change. You don’t change it yet.

The read-only audit checklist

Conversion tracking. List every conversion action, whether it is primary or secondary, and when it last recorded a conversion. A primary conversion that hasn’t fired in weeks is one of the most serious problems you can find.
Budgets and pacing. Compare month-to-date spend with the monthly budget. Note campaigns limited by budget.
Bid strategies. Write down each campaign’s strategy and target. Note anything marked as learning or limited.
Locations and languages. Check that location targeting matches the provinces the business serves. Check the language settings on French campaigns.
Search terms. Skim the last 30 days for obviously irrelevant searches. Our article on negative keyword lists every Canadian account should start with shows what to look for.
Ads and landing pages. Click through to each main landing page. Check that the offer, prices and language match the ad.
Disapprovals and policy. Note any ads or assets that are disapproved or limited.
Users and links. List who has access and which products are linked, so you know who to ask about what.

Turn findings into proposals, not edits

For each finding, write one line: what you saw, why it matters, what you propose, and the risk. Rank them by money at stake. Then review the list with your manager. This protects you, teaches you how your team thinks, and builds trust faster than a surprise fix.

If you do make a change by mistake

Tell your manager straight away. Then check change history. Google says most change types made in the last 30 days can be undone from there, which reverts the item to its previous state. Some can’t, for example when a related item was removed since. Undo quickly, note what happened, and move on. Hiding a mistake is the real career risk.

Days 31 to 60: build a weekly routine

Once you know the accounts, set a routine. Block the time in your calendar so it survives busy weeks. Here is an example for one to five small accounts. Adjust the timing to your workload.

When	Task	What you are looking for
Monday	Budget pacing and spend check	Accounts ahead of or behind budget, campaigns that stopped spending
Monday	Conversion check	Conversion actions that dropped to zero or spiked suddenly
Tuesday	Search terms review	Irrelevant queries to propose as negatives, new themes worth a keyword
Wednesday	Ads, policy and landing pages	Disapprovals, broken pages, expired offers or dates
Thursday	Lead quality check	What happened to last week’s leads in the CRM or inbox
Friday	Notes and report draft	What changed this week, why, and what is next

Keep a change log for every account: date, what you changed, why, and what you expect to happen. When results move two weeks later, you will know why. Platform change history tells you what changed. Only your log tells you why.

Learn automation by watching it

Performance Max, Advantage+ campaigns and Smart Bidding make many decisions you can’t see directly. Don’t fight that in your first months. Learn what each campaign is optimizing toward, how long it takes to settle after a change, and which levers you control: conversion goals, budgets, targets, creative and exclusions. Our Canadian Google Ads playbook and our article on broad match and Smart Bidding are good next reads.

Days 61 to 90: report up and take ownership

A reporting format that works

Managers and clients are busy. Put the answer first. A weekly update can be five lines:

Headline: one sentence on how the week went against the goal.
Numbers: spend, the one conversion that matters, and cost per result, compared with last week and the target.
Why: the most likely reason for any big change. Say “I’m not sure yet” if you aren’t.
Next: what you will do this week, or what you are asking approval for.
Risks: anything that could hurt next week, like a budget running out early or a tracking issue.

Here is an illustrative example with made-up numbers: “Leads were on target this week. We spent $1,850 CAD for 31 leads at $60 each, against a $65 target. Cost per lead rose 8% from last week, mainly because the Ottawa campaign spent more on broader searches. I’d like to add 12 negative keywords on Tuesday. Risk: the monthly budget will run out around the 27th at this pace.”

Expect the numbers to disagree

Google Ads, Meta, GA4 and the CRM will report different conversion counts. That is normal and usually comes from attribution and timing, not errors. Before you report, agree with your manager which source is the official number for each account, and state it in the report.

Take ownership of one thing

By day 90, ask to own something small end to end: one account’s weekly report, the search terms review across all clients, or a test plan. Owning one thing well shows more than helping on everything.

Common mistakes new coordinators make

Accepting every recommendation. Platform recommendations can raise budgets or broaden targeting. Check each one against the account’s goal and ask before applying.
Changing several things at once. If you change bids, ads and targeting the same day, you can’t tell what worked.
Judging automation too early. Reading results two days after a bid strategy change usually tells you nothing.
Reporting clicks and impressions as wins. Your boss cares about leads, sales and cost. Lead with those.
Treating French as a translation job. Quebec audiences search differently. Review French search terms and landing pages separately, and flag anything that looks like it was machine-translated.
Staying quiet when confused. A short question today is cheaper than a wasted week of spend.

Free training and certifications worth doing

Certifications won’t make you good at the job, but they give you shared vocabulary and look good on a resume. Do them alongside real work, not instead of it.

Google Skillshop. Google describes its Skillshop training as free. Google Ads certifications include Search, Display, Video, Measurement and AI-powered Shopping ads. Each certification lasts one year. You need 80% to pass, you get 75 minutes, and you can retry a day later. Start with Search and Measurement.
Meta Blueprint. Blueprint offers online courses and certifications at three levels: Digital Marketing Associate, Media Planning Professional and Media Buying Professional. The exams are proctored online and the price is shown at checkout, so take the courses first and ask your employer to cover an exam.
Microsoft Advertising Learning Lab. Learning Lab offers Search Advertising, Display & Video and Retail certifications, plus learning paths. Passing all three earns Certified Expert status, and each pass gives you a Credly badge. Microsoft suggests registering with a personal email so your certificates stay accessible.

Tip: register for all of these with a personal email address. The certifications belong to you, not your employer.

Your 90-day checklist

Get read-only access to every account and set up one notes document per account.
Ask the eight questions above and write down the answers.
Read 90 days of change history for each account.
Complete a read-only audit and review your proposals with your manager.
Book your weekly routine into your calendar and start a change log.
Agree which data source is the official number for each account.
Send a five-line weekly update for at least one account.
Finish Google Ads Search and Measurement on Skillshop.
Ask to own one task end to end by day 90.

Start today with step one. Send the access request and open the change history before your next meeting.

Sources: About access levels in your Google Ads account, Google Ads Help · About change history, Google Ads Help · Review your account history, Google Ads Help · About Google Ads certifications, Google Ads Help · Free Google Ads training, Skillshop · Meta Blueprint · Certification FAQ, Meta Blueprint · Certification and training, Microsoft Advertising

Platform details as of November 2026.