Approvals for agencies

An agency's reputation rests on never sending something a client did not approve. Email threads with screenshots do not scale, and they do not prove anything when a client remembers the conversation differently. Inbrovia's approval workflow puts the exact campaign in front of the reviewer on every device, records their decision with a name and a time, and freezes the approved version for sending. This guide sets it up for a typical agency.

Decide who reviews

Most agencies use two layers. An internal reviewer, often an account manager, checks the campaign against the brief and the brand before the client sees it. Then the client approves. In Inbrovia, the internal reviewer is a team member with the Reviewer role on the brand. The client can be either a workspace member on their brand or an external reviewer who receives a link.

Setting up the brand

• Create a brand per client. Each brand has its own domain, audience, suppression list, brand kit and templates, so nothing leaks between clients.
• Invite your internal team to the brand with the roles they need: Designer, Campaign Manager, Reviewer.
• If the client wants to log in, invite them as a Reviewer. They see only their brand's campaigns and approvals.
• If the client prefers not to, you will use external approval links from the campaign.

Requesting approval

When a campaign passes the Check step, open Approve. Add the reviewers: choose team members or enter a name and email for an external reviewer. Inbrovia creates an expiring link for each external reviewer. Send the link in your own message, or let Inbrovia send it. The campaign moves to In Review and cannot be sent until the required approvals are recorded.

What the reviewer sees

The review page shows the subject, preheader and sender, a summary of the audience, and the campaign rendered on desktop, tablet and mobile. Reviewers leave comments, each attached to the block they are looking at, and finish with Approve or Request Changes plus an optional note. External reviewers enter their name so the decision is attributed. Nothing on the page requires an account, and the link stops working when it expires.

Handling change requests

A change request moves the campaign back to Changes Requested and lists the comments in Studio, next to the blocks they refer to. Designers resolve each comment as they fix it. When the campaign is ready again, run Check and request approval once more. Every round is kept in the campaign's history, so the account manager can show exactly what changed between versions.

Approval and the frozen version

When the final approval arrives, the campaign moves to Approved and the approved version is frozen: subject, preheader, document, sender and audience summary are stored together and cannot be edited. Sending uses that frozen version. If someone edits the campaign afterwards, it leaves the Approved state and the approvals must be repeated. This is what lets you tell a client, with evidence, that what they approved is what was sent.

The audit record

Every approval, change request, comment and override is written to the audit trail with the actor and the time; external reviewers appear by name. Combined with the frozen version and the campaign results, this gives you a complete record per campaign, per client. When a client asks what happened, you can answer in a minute, with the record to show for it.