Create a guard

The Create Guard form sets up one or many guards at once. Open it from the Guards page with Create Guard.

Before you start

Connect at least one ad platform in Settings first. Until one is connected, the form shows “No ad platform connected. Connect Meta, TikTok or Google Ads in Settings first.” and Create Guards stays disabled. See Ad platforms.

Steps

On the Guards page, click Create Guard.
Under Product & inventory, click Choose variants and pick the variants to guard.
Choose the locations, or tick All locations.
Set the Pause threshold and decide on Auto-resume above threshold.
Under Notifications, enter Email recipients or tick Saved emails.
Under Ad targets, add the campaigns, ad sets, ad groups or ads to pause.
Click Create Guards.

You land back on the Guards page, which shows how many guards were created and how many existing ones were updated (Created: N, Updated existing: M).

Product & inventory

Choose variants opens the Select products window:

Search with Search by name, SKU, vendor, or tag…, or narrow the list by vendor and tag.
Tick single variants, or Select all for everything that matches (Select all (loads remaining) when more products are still to load).
Load all products loads the rest of the catalogue into the list; Stop loading stops it.
Confirm (N selected) adds the variants to the form. Each one appears as Product — Variant with a Remove link.

The Stock shown next to a variant in this window is Shopify’s total for that variant across all locations. A guard compares the stock of its own location, so the two numbers can differ.

Locations: tick the locations whose stock should control the ads, or All locations. A store with a single location has it ticked already.

Pause threshold: “Ads pause at or below this stock level.” It starts at 0, which pauses when the variant sells out at that location. See Thresholds and auto-resume.

Auto-resume above threshold: on by default. When it is on, Guardified turns the ads back on once stock is above the threshold again. When it is off, they stay paused until you resume them.

Notifications

Every guard needs at least one email recipient. Guardified emails them each time the guard’s ads are paused or resumed.

Email recipients: one or more addresses, comma-separated (“Comma-separated. Notified on pause/resume.”).
Saved emails: addresses you have used before. Tick any of them to add them.

Addresses you enter here are saved for reuse, and you can manage the saved list under Settings › Emails. See Email notifications.

Ad targets

The Ad targets card has one button per platform: Add Meta target, Add Google target and Add TikTok target. A platform that isn’t connected yet has its button disabled, with a note that it is “disabled until connected in Settings”.

Each button opens the target picker for that platform. Pick campaigns, ad sets or ad groups, or single ads, and click Add targets. You can add targets from several platforms to the same guard. Every target shows its platform and level, with a Remove link. The picker is described in Ad targets.

What gets created

Guardified creates one guard for every variant at every location you chose, all with the same threshold, auto-resume setting, recipients and targets. Two variants at three locations make six guards.

If a variant already has a guard at one of the chosen locations, that guard is updated instead of duplicated: it takes the new threshold, auto-resume setting, recipients and targets, replacing its old targets, and becomes active again. Its current state (for example Paused) stays as it is.

A new guard starts in the Monitoring state and acts on the next stock change at its location.

Messages you may see

Message	What to do
Select at least one variant.	Choose variants under Product & inventory.
Select at least one location.	Tick a location or All locations.
Threshold must be 0 or higher.	Enter 0 or a positive number.
Add or select at least one notification email.	Enter an address or tick a saved one.
Provide valid email recipients.	Check the addresses for typos.
Add at least one ad target.	Add a target from a connected platform.