Stop 13 · Marketing Tools & CollaborationTopics · 6/7

Version Control for Marketing Assets

In short

'Final_v3_ACTUAL_final2.png' is a cry for help. Simple versioning habits mean you always know what's live, what changed and how to go back when something breaks.

Keeping track of which version of an ad, landing page or email is live, and being able to revert changes — a lighter-weight discipline than software version control, but just as valuable for avoiding 'final_v3_ACTUAL' chaos.

The blob sorts printed family photos into coloured folders in an open filing cabinet drawer.

Think of it like this

The family photo cabinet

Mummy keeps every year's photos in a dated folder in the steel cabinet. When someone asks for that 2015 trip photo, it takes two minutes, not two hours. Label your ad creatives and landing page versions the same way, and finding or restoring any version becomes easy.

Watch it happen

Version history of a landing page headline

push(v1 'Learn Excel fast')

v1 'Learn Excel fast'

Top of the stack is coloured

1/5Version 1 goes live on 1 March. Saved with date and owner.

The big ideas

What you need to know

Naming convention

Use one pattern: campaign_format_version_date. Everyone follows it, no exceptions.

One shared home

Keep assets in one shared drive or tool, not in personal downloads folders.

Use built-in history

Google Drive, Canva, Figma and most CMSs keep version history. Learn how to restore.

Change log

A simple sheet: what changed, when, who, why. Gold when results suddenly shift.

See it in code

Walk through the code

text

1holi26_ig-carousel_v1_2026-03-02.png2holi26_ig-carousel_v2_2026-03-04.png3holi26_story_v1_2026-03-04.mp44holi26_lp-hero_v3_2026-03-05.jpg5holi26_email-header_v1_2026-03-06.png

1/2Same asset, new version number and date. Old one kept.

A naming convention that sorts nicely and tells you campaign, format, version and date at a glance.

Save yourself the pain

Common mistakes

Oops

Overwriting the old file when making changes.

Do this instead

Save a new version and keep the old one, so you can roll back.

Oops

Editing a live page with no record of what changed.

Do this instead

Log every change so you can match it with sudden metric shifts.

Your mission

Clean up a messy folder

~20 min

Quick check

Sign-ups dropped the day after a page edit. What helps you fix it fastest?

Go deeper

1Set up a simple, consistent file naming and folder structure for a hypothetical campaign's assets.
2Learn why a shared, single source of truth prevents team members from using outdated creative.
3Practice documenting what changed and why whenever you update a live asset.