When delivering high-performing creative for clients at Brighter Click, our process is rooted in structure, clarity, and collaboration. This ensures that our designers produce work that reflects the client’s brand identity and performs well in ad campaigns. 

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Maintaining high-quality control (QC) standards while managing client relationships is vital to producing consistent results. Today, I’ll walk you through the detailed QC processes we’ve developed at Brighter Click, providing a model you can adapt for your agency or internal marketing team.

1. Establishing the Designer’s QC Process

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At Brighter Click, we expect our designers to take ownership of their work, starting with building a personalized QC checklist for each client. This isn’t a one-size-fits-all process; it’s customized for each brand based on the client’s brand guidelines and onboarding information. The designer’s checklist is tailored and evolves as we receive client feedback. This is crucial because repeated mistakes based on overlooked feedback are a quick way to erode trust.

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The designer’s checklist typically includes:

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• Adherence to brand guidelines: Ensuring fonts, colors, logo placement, and overall visual style are consistent with the client's brand.
• Technical aspect: Checking for proper dimensions, exclusion zones, and ensuring elements like text and logos aren’t hidden by platform overlays (like TikTok buttons or Instagram CTAs).
• Spelling and grammar: Simple but vital, as these are basic errors that can reflect poorly on both the client and the agency.

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This checklist is their first line of defense before they send anything up the chain for review.

2. Internal QC and Process Adjustments

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Once the designer has performed their QC check, the creative comes to the internal team for a secondary review. At Brighter Click, we follow a structured QC process:

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Step 1: Review the Brief – The first step in our QC process is to return to the brief before diving into the creative. This ensures that potential errors or misalignments with client expectations didn’t start at the handoff. A poorly communicated brief can lead to confusion and mistakes during production, so we make it a point to check this first. Any discrepancies between the brief and the creative are flagged and addressed immediately.

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Step 2: Creative Strategist QC – Our Creative Strategist takes the lead in the second stage of QC. This isn’t just about visual checks but also about performance optimization. We look at elements like:

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•   Does the creative align with the marketing goals?
•   Is the message tailored to motivate the audience effectively?
•   Does it feel engaging or lack emotion?
•   If it’s a video, are the first three seconds snappy and attention-grabbing?

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This level of QC ensures that the designer's creative meets both design and strategic performance goals, preventing issues down the line.

3. Expectations for Revisions

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One of the key learnings in managing design teams is understanding the revision process. Ideally, our internal QC process prevents the need for revisions, but they do happen, especially in the first few months of working with a new client. The goal is to keep revisions limited to one round. That should be achievable if you have the right people in the right seats. 

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Clear communication is critical here. As we onboard clients, there’s often a period of adjustment where we learn the finer nuances of their preferences. Some clients will be meticulous about things like logo alignment and font size, while others prioritize a platform-specific approach where these details aren’t as critical. 

4. Client QC: Guiding the Process

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After internal QC is completed, we move to the client QC stage. It’s crucial to guide your clients through this process and set clear expectations to avoid vague feedback. I always recommend that agencies frame the review process carefully to prevent endless rounds of revisions. 

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Here’s how we approach it:

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• Be specific with what you want the client to review: Rather than sending over the creative and asking, “What do you think?”, focus on asking for feedback on specific aspects of the creative. For example, “Please check that the colors align with your brand guidelines and that the message resonates with your audience.” Giving the client a clear focus reduces the risk of nitpicking minor details that don’t affect performance.

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• Provide context with a hypothesis: When we send creatives to clients, we don’t just send the ad and wait for feedback. We include a theory explaining the creative’s purpose and how it aligns with the client’s goals. This might consist of explaining why we’ve chosen a particular pain point to highlight or framed the creative in us versus them dynamic to build a sense of competition.

5. Presenting the Work: Loom Videos and Client Calls

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When it comes to presenting work to clients, clarity is critical. At Brighter Click, we offer several different ways to communicate the QC process with clients based on their preferences:

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Loom videos: These are a favorite for many of our clients. In a Loom video, we can walk them through the creative process, explain our thought process, and point out the key areas we want them to focus on. This allows clients to consume the information at their own pace and follow up with any questions.

Client calls or Slack messages: For clients who prefer a more interactive approach, we’ll hop on a call or send detailed messages via Slack. The method of communication is adaptable, but the goal remains the same—making sure they understand the strategy behind the creative.

6. Setting Timeline Expectations

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Managing timelines is another essential aspect of the QC process. We always give our clients a clear timeline for when we need feedback, usually within a couple of business days. Recently, we’ve instated a process where we send the client a message several days before they even receive the creatives, letting them know when the package will arrive and the window in which we’d like to receive feedback. 

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This keeps the project moving forward and ensures we stay on track to meet deadlines. Being proactive about timelines helps you stay organized and lets the client know that this is a collaborative process with a structured flow.

7. Avoiding an "Us vs. Them" Mentality

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Finally, it’s important to avoid an “us vs. them” mentality regarding feedback and revisions. The moment feedback becomes adversarial, the entire relationship is at risk. Creative ideas can feel personal, but it’s important to remember that the end goal is conversion. The best idea, ultimately, has to win out, regardless of where it comes from. 

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Encouraging clients to see revisions as a collaborative process—and framing feedback positively—is essential for long-term success. Similarly, designers should feel empowered, not criticized, during the QC process.

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Strengthening Your QC Process Will Improve Your Creative Performance

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Our QC process at Brighter Click is all about collaboration, clear communication, and structure. Whether it’s ensuring our designers are working from a solid, personalized checklist, providing context to clients during reviews, or framing feedback in a way that keeps the relationship positive, we prioritize a fluid, organized system that delivers results. 

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Ultimately, the process leads to better performance for clients, a more manageable workload for our team, and a better end result for everyone involved.

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