Designing notifications that scale beyond a single alert.

Setting the Scene

The Problem

CSMs were checking stock balances by hand in Campaign Manager, with no automated alert when levels ran low. That created three issues:

• · Risk of over-collection and unnecessary media spend
• · Hours lost to manual checks and cross-referencing campaign data
• · Room for human error

There was also little context. It was hard to see which campaigns, activities or channels were affected, which meant even more investigation.

My Role

With my Product Manager, I led the design definition of the system, aligning Product, Engineering and CSMs around a shared model for how notifications should be structured, triggered and displayed. That included:

• · Validating information context and language with internal users
• · Mapping data triggers and escalation rules in Campaign Manager
• · Designing notification hierarchies and patterns: toasts, alerts and history
• · Defining scalability principles for future use cases such as campaign approvals and integration monitoring
• · Connecting notification states to the stock visualisation data, for direct traceability

The result was a notification architecture rather than a single feature, giving the product a consistent, reusable pattern. It builds directly on the stock and fulfilment work.

Process

I began with quick sketches and low-fidelity prototypes to clarify scope and data dependencies, then moved to annotated mid-fidelity designs for Engineering hand-off.

Throughout, I tested tone, timing and escalation behaviour with CSMs, to balance visibility against cognitive load. Alerts had to be actionable without being overwhelming. The questions that guided the work were:

• · Will brands be notified, or just internal users?
• · Are alerts triggered per campaign or globally?
• · How is notification volume managed?
• · Can people customise their preferences?

That discovery work shaped how the system handles priority, delivery method and user control.

Outcome and Next Steps

The framework has three parts. The first release, in 2025, focused on stock notifications and delivered all three:

• · In-app toasts for quick updates
• · Email summaries for detail and history
• · A Notifications area for tracking and review

User preferences sit on top, so people can manage the type and frequency of what they receive.

Since that first rollout, the system has grown to include data lifecycle notifications for opt-in data, and commenting within the campaign builder. That was the first real proof of its flexibility as a platform-wide framework.

It was engineered to scale, with a clear extension path to approvals, campaign status changes and integrations. Success was to be measured through user satisfaction, adoption and reduced helpdesk contact.

Reflection