Marketing teams handle a high volume of creative content – from ads and designs to web pages – where even small oversights can lead to costly delays or brand missteps. Implementing structured review and approval checklists ensures that every piece of content is thoroughly and consistently evaluated before it goes out the door. In fact, formalizing the review process with checklists brings much-needed clarity, accountability, and completeness to creative workflows.
As Ziflow noted in its Spring 2025 release, “With Checklists in Ziflow... reviewers don’t have to guess what they’re responsible for anymore... Checklists bring structure to every stage of your creative review – so your team stays aligned, accountable, and audit-ready.” By standardizing approval steps, some organizations have dramatically improved their efficiency – for example, teams have saved up to 59% of the time spent managing proofing workflows. The bottom line: checklists help catch errors early, prevent important requirements from being overlooked, and keep your projects on schedule.
Ziflow’s Spring 2025 Product Release Webinar introduced the new Checklists feature. This video highlights how adding structured checklists to your review process can eliminate guesswork and ensure no critical feedback is missed.
To help marketing and creative teams get started, we’ve developed sample checklist templates for common review scenarios. Each checklist is tailored to a specific area – design, legal/compliance, brand, and web content – and captures the essential items your team should verify during review. In the sections below, we define the primary use case and benefits of each checklist and provide the full list of checklist items in a handy table (just as they appear in our template). These checklists can serve as a starting point for your own process; feel free to customize them to fit your organization’s needs.
The design review checklist is used by marketing and creative teams to ensure all visual assets meet quality standards and align with the campaign’s goals before those assets are approved. In practice, this checklist acts as a rigorous design QA – helping catch issues like inconsistent branding, poor image quality, or content errors in graphics. The primary benefit is preventing costly redesigns or multiple revision rounds: by verifying every design element against a set of criteria (brand guidelines, readability, accuracy, etc.), teams can deliver finished assets in fewer cycles.
This not only maintains brand compliance but also accelerates project timelines (avoiding back-and-forth over overlooked mistakes). In short, a design review checklist gives designers and reviewers a clear, shared standard for what “done” looks like – so nothing falls through the cracks in the approval process.
Below is a sample design review checklist with typical items and pass/fail criteria that a marketing team might use to evaluate visual assets.
Checklist description:
Review that the design meets quality standards, follows the brief, and is ready for delivery across intended formats. Use this checklist to evaluate visual assets for brand alignment, clarity, and usability.
Marketing content often needs to comply with various legal, regulatory, and corporate policies – and missing a required disclaimer or making an unsubstantiated claim can lead to serious consequences.
The legal & compliance checklist is designed to help teams thoroughly vet content (campaigns, web pages, ads, etc.) for any compliance issues before approval. The primary use case is ensuring that nothing you publish will violate regulations or internal policies: this includes checking for things like correct product claims, inclusion of necessary regulatory disclosures, privacy policy notices, and adherence to industry-specific guidelines.
The benefit is twofold: it protects your organization from legal risk (such as fines or lawsuits due to false advertising) and it maintains your brand’s integrity and trust with the audience. A single overlooked mistake in this area can be costly – for example, making unproven health claims in ads led Dannon to pay a $45 million settlement over its Activia yogurt marketing. By using a marketing compliance checklist, marketing teams add a safety net that catches these issues before content goes live, avoiding reputational damage and ensuring every campaign meets required standards.
Below is a sample legal & compliance review checklist for a creative asset. Note: this sample checklist is for illustrative purposes only and should be reviewed and customized to meet your organization’s specific requirements. It does not guarantee compliance with any legal or policy standards.
Checklist description:
Review this content for potential legal, regulatory, and internal policy risks. Use this checklist to verify compliance with external laws and internal standards before approval.
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Checklist Item
|
Description
|
Type
|
| Regulatory disclosures | Verify that all legally required disclaimers, disclosures, and notices are present and accurately stated. | Pass/Fail |
| Terms & conditions | Ensure any referenced offers, pricing, or promotions include the appropriate terms and limitations. | Pass/Fail |
| Accuracy of claims | Review all product/service claims to ensure they are truthful, substantiated, and not misleading. | Pass/Fail |
| Use of testimonials/endorsements | Confirm any customer quotes or endorsements are authorized and comply with advertising standards. | Pass/Fail |
| Jurisdiction-specific requirements | Ensure the content complies with local, regional, or country-specific regulations (e.g., data protection, labeling, environmental claims). | Pass/Fail |
| Consumer protection compliance | Confirm that language and offers comply with fair marketing and consumer rights laws (no bait-and-switch, deceptive terms, etc.). | Pass/Fail |
| Privacy statements | Verify that any data collection language (e.g., via forms, QR codes, or tracking links) includes proper privacy statements or consent notices. | Pass/Fail |
| Risk & liability language | Review the wording for any necessary disclaimers that limit liability or clarify product limitations. | Pass/Fail |
| Digital compliance | If the content includes digital elements (QR codes, URLs), verify they lead to secure, accurate, and compliant online content. | Pass/Fail |
| Intellectual property use | Check for correct use of company trademarks, third-party logos, or copyrighted materials, and ensure appropriate permissions are in place. | Pass/Fail |
| Language appropriateness | Ensure the tone is professional, non-discriminatory, and free from potentially offensive or legally sensitive terms. | Pass/Fail |
| Accessibility compliance | Confirm the content meets accessibility requirements (e.g., readable fonts, alt text for digital versions). | Pass/Fail |
| Adherence to internal policies | Ensure the content follows internal marketing and communication policies, including required review sign-offs. | Pass/Fail |
Using a legal/compliance checklist not only prevents regulatory slip-ups; it also creates a documented audit trail of what was checked for each campaign. This can be invaluable if questions ever arise about how a piece of content was vetted – you can show that, for instance, all claims were reviewed for truthfulness and all privacy considerations were addressed (a key benefit for highly regulated industries like healthcare or finance).
By embedding compliance checks into the approval workflow, marketing teams streamline collaboration with legal departments and avoid the scenario of legal finding issues at the last minute. The result is faster approvals with confidence that every box has been ticked – your content is both creative and compliant.
Consistent branding is critical: studies have found that presenting a brand consistently across all channels can increase revenue by up to 23%. The brand management checklist helps marketing teams maintain that consistency and ensure every piece of content reinforces the desired brand image.
The primary use case for this checklist is to verify that any new asset – whether it’s a social post, an eBook, a video, etc. – is on-brand in look, feel, and message before it’s approved. This means checking elements like logo usage, colors and fonts, tone of voice, key messaging, and overall alignment with brand guidelines and campaigns. By running through these checkpoints, teams catch off-brand content (which could confuse customers or dilute brand equity) and ensure a unified brand experience.
Below is a brand management review checklist template covering typical brand consistency items.
Checklist description:
Review this asset to ensure it reflects the brand accurately and consistently across all elements. Use this checklist to confirm alignment with brand identity, voice, messaging, and strategic objectives for a unified brand experience.
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Checklist Item
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Description
|
Type
|
| Brand identity consistency | Confirm the use of official logos, colors, typography, and graphic elements follows brand guidelines. | Pass/Fail |
| Tone of voice | Ensure the messaging reflects the brand’s established tone – whether it’s professional, friendly, authoritative, innovative, etc. | Pass/Fail |
| Messaging alignment | Check that the content supports key brand messages, positioning statements, and campaign themes. | Pass/Fail |
| Audience appropriateness | Ensure the content, language, and design resonate with the target audience and reflect their needs and values. | Pass/Fail |
| Visual style match | Review images and design elements to ensure they align with approved visual styles (photography style, iconography, etc.). | Pass/Fail |
| Storytelling & flow | Confirm that the content tells a cohesive brand story from beginning to end, reinforcing core brand narratives. | Pass/Fail |
| Consistency across channels | Ensure the content aligns with other marketing materials (website, ads, social media) for a unified brand presence. | Pass/Fail |
| Strategic objectives support | Check that the content serves a specific brand or marketing objective (e.g., awareness, lead generation, product education). | Pass/Fail |
| Use of yaglines & slogans | Verify that official taglines, mission statements, or brand slogans are used accurately and appropriately. | Pass/Fail |
| Brand voice in CTA | Ensure the call-to-action maintains the brand’s tone and encourages the desired user action in an on-brand way. | Pass/Fail |
| Logo placement & clear space | Confirm the logo is placed correctly with appropriate spacing, size, and no distortion. | Pass/Fail |
| Brand attribution | Check for proper brand attribution, such as trademark symbols, company names, and copyright notices where required. | Pass/Fail |
The benefit of this checklist is improved brand integrity and customer trust. By enforcing branding guidelines at the review stage, companies can avoid the common pitfalls –like using outdated logos or off-message copy. Good brand management ensures that every public-facing asset tells a consistent story about who you are as a company. In practical terms, that can mean higher brand recognition and customer confidence. It also saves time for brand managers who would otherwise need to police each piece of content. The checklist makes everyone on the team a guardian of the brand.
Web content – especially webpages for campaigns, product launches, or landing pages – requires careful review because it blends both creative and technical elements. The webpage review checklist (sometimes called a webpage design & development checklist) helps teams verify that a webpage is user-friendly, error-free, and optimized before it goes live.
The use case here is to catch any mistakes that could hurt the user experience or SEO (now GEO) performance of the page: for example, ensuring meta tags are correct, forms and links all work, and the page displays properly. It prevents scenarios where a live webpage has broken links, missing metadata, or typos – issues that can undermine your marketing campaign and credibility. (Remember that 75% of consumers judge a company’s credibility based on its website design, so a polished page is crucial.) By systematically reviewing each page’s SEO details and functionality, you help maximize that page’s effectiveness (better search visibility, higher conversion rates, and a good impression on visitors).
Here’s an example of a webpage review checklist covering key items a marketing team should review on any new webpage or web content piece.
Checklist description
Review that the page is ready for launch, with accurate metadata, working forms and links, and optimized media. Use this checklist to verify that key technical, content, and SEO elements of the web page are correct and functioning.
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Checklist Item
|
Description
|
Type
|
| Meta title | Meta title matches content and is SEO optimized – up to 70 characters. | Pass/Fail |
| Meta description | Meta description matches content and is SEO optimized – up to 155 characters. | Pass/Fail |
| OG image | There is an appropriate Open Graph thumbnail image that displays when the link is shared. | Pass/Fail |
| URL confirmed | The URL slug is unique and SEO friendly (optimized for the content/topic). | Pass/Fail |
| Forms | All forms on the page are working and properly connected to the needed workflows (e.g., lead capture). | Pass/Fail |
| Image/video quality | All images, animations, and videos are properly displayed and file sizes are optimized for quick load times. | Pass/Fail |
| No typos | There are no errors or misspellings in the copy. | Pass/Fail |
| Link anchors | All hyperlinks navigate to the correct and intended destination pages. | Pass/Fail |
| Redirection (if needed) | Plan for any necessary redirects from old URLs to this new page (to avoid broken links). | Checkbox |
As shown above, most items are pass/fail checks (meet a standard or not), and one can be a simple checkbox (“Redirection needed?”) because it might not apply to every page.
The benefit of this thorough webpage QA is a smoother launch with fewer surprises. A webpage review checklist saves your team from the embarrassment and impact of launching a page with avoidable errors. And given how quickly users will abandon a site that seems poorly maintained (studies show nearly 88% of users are less likely to return after a bad experience), this checklist is essential to keep your audience engaged and confident in your website.
Using these proofing checklists, marketing teams can standardize their review and approval process across all types of content. Instead of relying on memory or ad-hoc critiques, reviewers follow a clear list of criteria for each asset, making the process both thorough and predictable. The result is higher-quality output and faster approvals – a win-win for creativity and efficiency.
By adopting checklists like the ones above (and tailoring them to your own needs), you’ll foster a culture of “getting it right the first time.” Fewer mistakes slip through, and everyone from designers to legal advisors knows exactly what to verify before giving the green light. This not only reduces rework and feedback loops, but also gives managers visibility into what was checked on each proof (useful for audits or lessons learned).
Ultimately, review and approval checklists are a simple yet powerful tool for marketing teams to deliver better work in less time. They let you focus more on the creative strategy by making the execution steps more reliable. Start with the templates provided here and in our resources, and customize them as necessary.
If you’re using Ziflow, adding checklists to your creative reviews is easy: simply go to your account level Proofing Settings and create a new checklist template—or customize our sample templates to meet your team’s unique needs. You can then include the checklists for any stage of your workflow or add them to your workflow templates to ensure a consistent and repeatable review process.
For more guidance on setting up checklists in Ziflow’s proofing platform, refer to our official help doc on checklists.