Write a sponsor makegood policy before delivery misses

A makegood is a defined remedy for a defined miss

A makegood supplies replacement value after a contracted deliverable is missed or materially defective. It is not a bonus promised whenever a sponsor dislikes performance. Separate publisher-controlled delivery commitments from outcomes such as clicks, leads, or sales unless the order explicitly guarantees those outcomes. This distinction lets the team repair a missed placement without inventing a performance guarantee after the fact.

The IAB's 2026 modular direct-buy framework includes order-specific terms that can address sponsorship and cancellation. Use such standards as a review aid, then state the actual order, measurement source, discrepancy rule, notice path, and remedy hierarchy in the publisher's own documents. This guide does not interpret or replace a contract.

Source notes: Standard Advertising Services Terms & Conditions — New Terms as of May 2026

Classify the miss before choosing the remedy

Quantity misses include fewer delivered emails or impressions than the defined commitment. Timing misses include a late issue or incorrect flight. Placement misses include the wrong slot, channel, or geography. Execution defects include a broken link, wrong creative, missing disclosure, or tracking configuration that the publisher controlled. Reporting gaps are failures to produce the agreed evidence, not proof that nothing delivered.

Record sponsor order ID, deliverable ID, promised unit, actual unit, source of truth, difference, cause, discovery time, affected audience, and whether the defect can still be corrected. Preserve screenshots, send records, logs, and approvals. Do not overwrite the original delivery record when the remedy runs.

Reconcile remedy value in the sold unit

Hypothetical example: an order commits to 40,000 delivered emails across two sends for $2,000, so the contract planning value is $50 per thousand delivered. Verified delivery totals 34,000, a 6,000 shortfall. A quantity-equivalent starting remedy is 6,000 delivered emails, not a promise of clicks. If the replacement uses a different placement or season, both sides should agree its value rather than silently applying the arithmetic.

If 6,000 equivalent delivery cannot be supplied, the policy can escalate to a credit or another mutually agreed remedy as the applicable order allows. Record remedy value, fulfillment date, approval, and remaining balance. Never add the replacement delivery to the original campaign's success total as if it were paid inventory.

Use one incident and approval workflow

Pause a defective asset when continuing would deepen the miss. Notify the commercial owner, preserve evidence, correct what can be corrected, and give the sponsor a concise statement of promise, actual delivery, cause known so far, and proposed remedy. Set an internal response target without promising a legal deadline this guide has not established.

Require approval for any remedy that consumes scarce future inventory, crosses channels, changes category exclusivity, or exceeds the original deliverable value. After closure, link the incident to the inventory and revenue ledgers. Repeated misses should change capacity or QA assumptions, not simply produce a larger makegood reserve.

• Define delivery and measurement before launch.
• Keep performance disappointment separate from a delivery miss.
• Value replacement inventory in the same unit or document the conversion.
• Close the incident only after remedy delivery and ledger reconciliation.

Source notes: Standard Advertising Services Terms & Conditions — New Terms as of May 2026