Campaign Brief Template
One page that tells everyone what the campaign is for and what has to be made.
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| Campaign | [campaign name] |
| Budget | $ [amount] |
| Briefed on | October 14, 2026 |
1. The insight
[the true thing about the customer that this campaign is built on]
2. Who it is for
[who we are talking to]
3. The single message
[one sentence — if there are two, the brief is not finished]
4. What needs producing
| Item | Owner | Due |
|---|---|---|
| [add one deliverable per line] |
5. How we will judge it
| Measure | Target |
|---|---|
| [add one measure per line] |
What is a Campaign Brief?
A campaign brief is the single page that settles, before anything is made, what the campaign is trying to change, for whom, by when, and what has to be produced. It matters because the alternative is producing the work first and arguing about it afterwards. A brief written after the creative exists is not a brief; it is a description. Without one, three people approve three different versions of the idea and the disagreement surfaces the week before launch.
In-house marketing teams write one at kickoff and hand it to whoever makes the work: an internal studio, an agency, a freelance designer, a media buyer. Agencies write one back to confirm they heard the client correctly. The same document works for a product launch, a seasonal retail push, a recruitment drive, a fundraising appeal or an internal communications programme. It is also what a new person joining three weeks in reads first, to understand why any of this is happening at all.
What you may do with a channel depends on the market. Consent rules for email and SMS differ sharply: the UK and EU regime under GDPR and PECR, CAN-SPAM in the US, CASL in Canada, the Spam Act in Australia, and TRAI's commercial communication rules in India. Prize draws and competitions carry their own local conditions, and some sectors need pre-approval before anything runs, such as financial promotions under the FCA regime in the UK. Confirm the rule for every country the campaign will run in before you fix a launch date.
A campaign brief is not a creative brief for one asset, though it usually spawns several. It is not a media plan: it names channels, not placements and daily budgets. It is not a project plan with tasks and dependencies. And writing it is not the same as getting approval — if legal, compliance or a brand owner has to sign, put their names on the brief and get the signature before production starts rather than after.
What to put in a Campaign Brief
These are the details this template asks for. Anything left blank is marked in red on the preview so you can see what is still missing.
| Field | What goes in it |
|---|---|
| Business name | For example: Barton Supply Co. |
| Your address | For example: Unit 7, Barton Road, Columbus, OH 43212 |
| Campaign name | For example: Small Jobs, Fast |
| Total budget | For example: 6,000 |
| The insight | For example: Builders do not complain about price. They complain about waiting three days for four… |
| Who you are talking to | For example: Independent builders and joiners, one to five people, working within 40 miles of Columbus. |
| The core message | For example: Stocked for small jobs, not for volume trade — so you are not waiting three days for four… |
| What needs producing | One per line: Item | Owner | Due |
| How you will measure it | One per line: Metric | Target |
How to write a Campaign Brief
State the change you want, not the activity
Write the objective as a behaviour with a measure, a baseline and a deadline. 'Move 300 of the 1,400 customers on the monthly starter plan to annual billing by 31 March, from a baseline of 40 last quarter' can be checked. 'Raise awareness of the starter plan' cannot, which is precisely why it is the version that usually gets written.
Name one audience and what they believe now
Pick a single group specific enough to build a list from, then write two lines on what they currently think or do and why they have not acted. If you find yourself listing three audiences, you have three campaigns. The message that works on a first-time buyer and the message that works on a lapsed customer are not the same sentence.
Write the single message and its proof
One thing you want remembered, in a sentence a customer would actually say, plus the evidence behind it. If the claim is comparative or superlative it will need substantiation before it runs in an advertisement, so record the proof now — a test result, a published figure, a documented guarantee — rather than discovering at approval that nothing supports it.
List deliverables with owner, spec and date
Each asset gets a row: what it is, the format and dimensions, who is making it, the date it must be finished, and what it depends on. Copy is needed before design; product photography before both. The date an asset goes live and the date it must be finished are different dates, and only one of them can slip quietly.
Fix the budget, approvers and stop rule
Name the person who signs off, the person whose absence blocks it, and the total budget with the split by line. Then agree the checkpoint: what result, at what date, means continue, reduce or stop. Agreeing that in advance is far easier than proposing it three weeks in, when the numbers are disappointing and everyone is invested.
Common mistakes
- Listing three audiences on one brief guarantees the copy is written for nobody in particular, because the only message that fits all three is a bland one.
- Stating the objective as an activity — run a webinar, publish a video — means nobody can say afterwards whether the campaign worked, only that it happened.
- Leaving out the baseline number lets any result be presented as a success, which is comfortable at the review and useless for planning the next campaign.
- Discovering the approvers late puts compliance or legal in front of finished creative the day before launch, and either the date slips or the work is rebuilt.
- Listing deliverables without formats and deadlines produces an asset in the wrong aspect ratio on the morning it was meant to go live.
Frequently asked questions
What is the difference between a campaign brief and a creative brief?
The campaign brief covers the whole programme: objective, audience, message, channels, budget and deliverables. A creative brief takes one deliverable from that list and tells the person making it what it must do, what it must say, and what the constraints are. One campaign brief typically produces several creative briefs, all inheriting the same objective and audience.
How long should a campaign brief be?
One page, two at most. The discipline is the point: if the objective, audience and message cannot be stated briefly, they have not been decided. Supporting research, past results and brand guidelines belong in appendices or links. A ten-page brief tends to be read once by its author and skimmed by everyone else on the project.
Who writes the brief, the client or the agency?
The client writes the first version, because only they own the objective and the budget. The agency then writes it back in their own words and asks the questions the original left open. That second version, once both sides agree it, becomes the working document. Skipping the rewrite is how two organisations discover in week four that they meant different things.
What if I do not have a target number?
Write down the current number first. If you do not know how many people take the action today, the first task of the campaign is measuring it, and that belongs on the deliverables list. A target guessed with no baseline is not a target, it is a wish, and it turns the post-campaign review into an argument about interpretation.
When should the brief be written?
Before any concept work starts, and after the objective and budget are confirmed. Writing it earlier means guessing at the budget; writing it later means the creative direction has already been chosen informally and the brief is being reverse-engineered to fit. If work has already begun, write it anyway and get it agreed before more is produced.
This page explains general practice and is not legal advice. Requirements differ between countries and, in some cases, between states — check what applies where the document will be used.