Without SOPs
You do everything yourself. You're the bottleneck. You can't take a day off. You can't hire because nobody knows your process. You cap at 5-7 clients.
With SOPs
You hand someone a document. They follow it step by step. Same quality output. You focus on growth, not tasks. You scale past 10+ clients.
💡 An SOP is just a checklist with context. Sounds corporate but it's really just "here's exactly what to do, in what order, and what to do if something goes wrong." That's it.
You don't write SOPs from scratch. You just tell Claude what you did and it turns your messy explanation into a clean document.
Onboard a client, launch a campaign, send a report. Whatever you normally do.
Open Claude Code and describe the steps in your own words. Messy is fine. Claude cleans it up.
I just onboarded a new client. Here's roughly what I did: - had a call, asked about their business, goals, budget, target audience - got access to their meta ad account and facebook page - looked at their past ads if they had any - set up their client folder in my project - did competitor research - wrote initial ad copy, made some images - set up the campaign structure in ads manager - launched with 3 ad sets and 3 ads each - told the client we'd check in after 5 days Turn this into a detailed SOP that a junior media buyer could follow step by step. Include specific instructions, not vague stuff. If there are decisions to make, include the criteria for making them. Add time estimates for each step.
Claude gives you a clean SOP. Read through it, fix anything that's off, and save it in your sops/ folder.
💡 5 minutes vs 2 hours. Writing an SOP from scratch takes forever. Telling Claude what you did and letting it structure the document takes 5 minutes.
Start with these four. They cover 90% of what you do every week.
Create an SOP for client onboarding at my ad agency. The steps are: 1. Initial call: gather business info, goals, budget, audience, competitors 2. Send contract and invoice 3. Get access to meta ad account (business manager) and facebook page 4. Set up their folder in the project (about.md, brand-voice.md, etc) 5. Run competitor research using Meta Ad Library 6. Create initial ad strategy doc and send to client for approval 7. Build campaigns in ads manager 8. Create ad copy and creatives 9. Launch and set a 5-day review checkpoint 10. Send client a "we're live" message with what to expect Make it detailed enough that someone who's never done this could follow it. Include time estimates for each step. Format as a markdown document.
Create an ad launch checklist SOP. Before any ad goes live, verify: - Pixel is installed and firing correctly - Conversion event is set up (leads, purchases, etc) - Audience targeting matches the strategy doc - Budget is set correctly (daily, not lifetime unless intentional) - Ad copy has been proofread - Images/video are the right dimensions - CTA button matches the goal - Link goes to the right landing page - Landing page loads fast on mobile - Tracking UTMs are added - Campaign naming convention is followed - Client has approved the creative Format as a checkoff list with brief notes on each item.
Create an SOP for weekly ad optimization. Every Monday I do this: 1. Open ads manager, look at last 7 days of data 2. Check each campaign: is it hitting the target cost per result? 3. Kill any ad set that spent 2x the target cost with zero results 4. If an ad set is performing well, consider increasing budget by 20% 5. Check frequency. If above 3, audience is getting fatigued 6. Check CTR. Below 1% means the creative isn't working 7. Check the breakdown by age, gender, placement 8. Note what's working and what's not 9. Create 2-3 new ad variations to test 10. Send the client a quick update Include the decision criteria. Like "if cost per lead is above $X, do Y." Make it so a junior buyer could follow this without asking me questions.
Create an SOP for weekly client reporting. Every Friday I: 1. Pull data from ads manager (last 7 days and month-to-date) 2. Fill in the reporting template: spend, results, cost per result, CTR, CPM 3. Compare to last week and note trends (up or down arrows) 4. Write 3-4 bullet points: what worked, what we changed, what we're testing next 5. Keep it simple. Clients don't want a 10-page report. 6. Send via email or the client's preferred channel Include a template for the actual report message. Make it something I can hand to a VA to do every week.
This is the easiest way to create SOPs. Next time you do a task, narrate it to Claude in real time.
I'm about to optimize a client's ad account. Watch what I tell you and turn it into an SOP when I'm done. I'll walk you through each step as I do it.
Then just talk through what you're doing:
"ok first I'm opening ads manager and filtering to last 7 days..."
"now I'm looking at campaign X, it spent $200 with 3 leads so $66 per lead, that's above our target of $40..."
"I'm going to kill this ad set because it's been running 5 days with no improvement..."
"now I'm checking frequency, it's at 3.5 so the audience is getting fatigued..."
"I'm going to duplicate the winning ad set and test a new creative..."
When you're done, say:
OK turn all of that into a clean SOP. Format it so someone who's never done this could follow it step by step.
💡 Way easier than writing from memory. You capture every step because you're doing it in real time. Claude organizes your stream-of-consciousness into a clean document.
When you hire someone, you share the folder. They have everything they need to do the job the way you do it.
⚠️ SOPs are living documents. Your process will change as you get better. Update them when something changes. A stale SOP is worse than no SOP because your hire will follow outdated steps.