# Scale alerts and emergency checklist

Set thresholds before increasing spend. Replace the examples with values approved by finance, operations and channel owners.

## Roles and access

- Scale decision owner:
- Finance owner and backup:
- Inventory and supply owner:
- Fulfilment owner:
- Sales or customer-support owner:
- Paid-media activation owner and backup:
- Incident channel or contact method:
- Dashboard link:
- Secure access or password-management location:

## Green: normal operation

- [ ] Contribution and CAC are inside the approved range.
- [ ] Cash and card headroom cover the planned period plus buffer.
- [ ] Hero and component stock cover exceed lead time plus safety stock.
- [ ] Fulfilment backlog and dispatch time remain inside the promise.
- [ ] Sales or support response times remain inside SLA.
- [ ] Returns, cancellations and complaints remain normal.
- [ ] Tracking and checkout are operating correctly.
- [ ] Recent marginal channel performance supports the current spend.

Green action: continue the current plan. A further increase still requires a recorded gate check.

## Amber: freeze further increases and investigate

Trigger amber when any approved warning threshold is reached. Example triggers:

- [ ] CAC is more than 10% above target over the agreed observation window.
- [ ] Contribution reserve falls below target.
- [ ] Cash or card headroom is below 30% of the planned period requirement.
- [ ] Stock cover approaches replenishment lead time plus safety stock.
- [ ] Purchase-order timing becomes uncertain.
- [ ] Backlog, dispatch time or customer response rises above normal SLA.
- [ ] Lead response or average contact attempts deteriorate.
- [ ] Returns, cancellations, refunds or complaints rise materially.
- [ ] Tracking discrepancy prevents confident optimisation.
- [ ] Creative fatigue, search saturation or audience frequency indicates weaker marginal demand.

Amber actions:

1. Freeze budget increases.
2. Record the trigger, time, owner and affected products or channels.
3. Recalculate the relevant safe-spend gate.
4. Reduce the least productive spend if the issue is likely to persist.
5. Update stock, dispatch or response messaging where required.
6. Set a decision deadline for returning to green or moving to red.

## Red: reduce or pause immediately

Example red triggers:

- [ ] CAC exceeds break-even or campaign contribution turns negative.
- [ ] An advertising payment fails or protected operating cash is at risk.
- [ ] A processor payout hold materially affects obligations.
- [ ] Protected stock is breached or overselling is possible.
- [ ] Fulfilment can no longer meet the customer promise safely.
- [ ] Qualified leads remain untouched beyond the maximum response window.
- [ ] Checkout, pricing, promotion or material tracking is broken.
- [ ] A product safety, legal, privacy or widespread customer issue appears.
- [ ] The authorised incident owner calls an emergency stop.

Red actions:

1. Pause or reduce affected campaigns using the approved access owner.
2. Confirm the action in the incident channel with a timestamp.
3. Stop owned-channel messages that continue creating unsafe demand.
4. Protect high-intent activity only when stock, service and customer experience remain safe.
5. Update the website, dispatch estimate or availability message.
6. Notify finance, inventory, fulfilment, sales and customer support.
7. Preserve screenshots and data required to diagnose the incident.
8. Define the conditions and approver required before restart.

## Restart approval

- Root cause:
- Corrective action completed:
- Current economics gate:
- Current cash and card gate:
- Current stock gate:
- Current fulfilment or lead-response gate:
- Current channel-performance gate:
- Restart budget:
- Observation period:
- Approved by:
- Date, time and time zone:

## Post-incident review

- [ ] What early warning appeared first?
- [ ] Did the alert reach the right owner?
- [ ] Could every platform and message be paused promptly?
- [ ] What customer impact occurred?
- [ ] Which threshold, access or process must change?
- [ ] Who owns the change and when is it due?