Client brief

What it is#

A client brief is the artifact a marketing or services agency sends to a client on a recurring cadence — monthly, quarterly, or weekly — to summarize the work performed, the results achieved, the strategic context behind those results, and the plan for the upcoming period.

It's distinct from a dashboard (which is live and continuously updated) and from a report (which can mean any data export). A brief is a written artifact, with a narrative, delivered on a schedule, intended to be opened and read by a specific decision-maker on the client side.

Why agencies care#

For most agencies, the brief is the only artifact the client actually opens. Dashboards require the client to log in, navigate, and interpret. Briefs arrive in their inbox at 9am Monday and answer "what happened, what does it mean, and what are we doing next?" in 5 minutes of reading.

That makes the brief the most important touchpoint the agency owns with the client — far more important than the campaigns themselves in renewal conversations.

The components of a good brief#

A well-structured client brief has:

• A branded header identifying which client this is for (per-client white-label)
• A metric strip showing the headline KPIs for the period with deltas
• A narrative section explaining what happened and what it means — the agency's judgment, not just data
• A "next" section with concrete plans, owned by specific people, with dates
• An approval surface so the client can sign off (especially for retainer-billed work)
• An audit trail so disputes can be resolved by going back to "what was approved when"

In SendBriefs specifically#

SendBriefs treats the client brief as the unit of product. Every other feature (data integrations, scheduling, approvals, branding) exists to make the brief easier to produce, review, and deliver. The product is named for the artifact because the artifact is the product.