Can you send over some results?
The account manager is writing a client's entry for a campaign category. The judging criteria ask for objectives, strategy, execution, measurable results against objectives, a budget band, and supporting material such as images and a short video. She emails the client: can you send over any results and some images by Friday?
On Friday a few photos arrive. The following Wednesday, a spreadsheet of sales data with no explanation. The marketing director says the results are in a board deck she will dig out. The closing date is the following Monday. The entry is written on Sunday with the evidence the agency could find, and the results section says less than it could have.
Why the evidence never arrives in one go
- The request is vague, so the client does not know what counts as evidence.
- Different evidence sits with different people at the client: sales, HR, marketing, finance.
- Some evidence needs approval before it can be shared with judges.
- Items arrive by email, WeTransfer and shared folders, and get lost.
- Each category asks for different things, but the request is the same generic email.
Awards judges look for evidence against the category criteria. Entries lose ground not because the work was weak but because the proof was not in the entry.
What thin evidence costs
A strong campaign with thin evidence loses to a weaker one that was documented well. The entry fee is spent either way. The account manager spends the last days chasing rather than writing, and the client ends up disappointed with the result without seeing that the gap was in what they sent. The pattern also repeats every season.
How we build the evidence request
- Each award category in your calendar has its criteria stored in a short structured form: what is asked, word limits, and any required attachments.
- When an entry is started, an evidence checklist is generated from those criteria, and the account manager edits it for the client: for example, sales in the campaign period against the same period the year before, or a customer quote.
- The client gets a link to a simple page with each item listed, a one-line explanation of why judges want it, and an upload or text box for each.
- Each item can be assigned to a different person at the client, who gets their own link.
- Items needing internal approval at the client can be marked as approved to share, with the approver's name.
- The account manager sees a progress view: arrived, partly arrived, missing, with gentle reminders sent automatically before the date the writer needs them.
| Criterion | Evidence asked for | Usually held by |
|---|---|---|
| Objectives | Original brief or plan | Marketing |
| Results | Figures against objectives, with source | Marketing, sales or finance |
| Budget | Budget band | Marketing or finance |
| Supporting material | Images, video, coverage | Marketing and agency |
| Endorsement | Customer or partner quote | Account owner at the client |
Evidence is stored with the entry, so it can be reused for other entries and next year's version without asking again.
An entry written with the evidence in hand
Six weeks before the closing date the checklist goes to the client. The marketing director assigns the sales figures to finance and the customer quote to the account owner. Finance uploads a figure with a note on its source. The customer quote arrives approved. By the time the writer starts, most of the evidence is on the page next to the draft.
The results section is written from actual figures, the supporting material is chosen from a full set, and the Sunday before closing is spent proofreading.
If this sounds like your agency
- Evidence requests go to clients as a single vague email.
- Results arrive days before closing, or not at all.
- Evidence is scattered across email, transfers and folders.
- Entries are written without the figures the judges ask for.
- The same evidence is requested again for each award.