Today, ad agencies and internal marketing teams are still expected to produce high quality campaigns but with faster turnaround times and smaller budgets. It makes sense then that more are turning to approval management software to streamline their operations to keep up with a demanding marketplace.
If you?ve been thinking about implementing approval management software, here are some steps to help you put forward a convincing case for its benefits and ROI.
1. Selecting the right approval workflow software
It can't be stressed enough that a successful implementation hinges on selecting the right approval workflow software for your business. While the selection process requires some time and effort, for the exercise of determining ROI you still need to think about what it is you want the solution to do. To do so, list some of the issues your creative teams are currently experiencing. Perhaps some of these sound familiar: incoherent or incomplete briefs; high revision counts on artwork; messy handwritten markups that are difficult to decipher; compliance issues because artwork has gone to market without sign off from the right channels; missing deadlines; final artwork being lost. This step will help you to determine the kind of features you?ll be looking for in approval management software.
2. The cost of implementing marketing approval software
So now it?s time to do a little research on the type of marketing approval software you need. Do you need one with an integrated online proofing feature with markup and compare/revision tools? Do you want a tiered approval process to ensure legal and compliance always review the artwork before it goes to market? Do you want reporting tools for WIP reports? Do need a digital asset management (DAM) feature to ensure final assets are filed away in a secure, central location?
When you find a few solutions that match your requirements, check out the vendors? payment terms. Note whether they?re a one off payment or monthly? Don?t forget to include all the costs, which may comprise of training, support and ongoing maintenance. Make sure you factor in the time required to implement the solution, that is understanding the financial cost of your team being taken away from project work to learn how to use the solution.
3. Projecting your profit from implementing approval management softwareTo estimate your profit, you need to understand the benefits your team will derive from implementing the solution. How do these benefits equate financially? For example, if your creative team drastically reduces artwork revisions, how does this time and resource reduction keep more money in your pocket? Likewise, if artwork changes are marked up electronically making them easy to understand the first time round, how does this save the agency money?
Don?t forget to look at the bigger picture. If all campaigns that go to market have no compliance or legal issues, are of excellent quality and are on time, that?s a big win in terms of keeping clients happy and for repeat business.
4. Gain Vs Cost of implementing approval workflow software
Now all you have to do is compare the benefits and financial gain of implementing approval workflow software against the cost of purchasing and implementing it. The more time you spend on understanding the benefits of implementing the right solution, the easier it will be for you to demonstrate ROI for your ad agency.
FAQs
What inputs do you need to calculate ROI on approval workflow software?
A reliable ROI calculation requires four inputs: current approval cycle time per campaign (in hours or days), average number of revision rounds per asset, the loaded hourly cost of the people involved in review and coordination, and the frequency of compliance-related rework or incidents. The first three produce a labour cost baseline for your current process. The fourth — compliance incidents — is often the most significant ROI driver for regulated industries but the hardest to quantify without historical data. Even a conservative estimate of one avoided compliance incident per year frequently exceeds the annual platform cost.
How long does it typically take to see ROI from approval workflow software?
Most marketing teams report measurable time savings within the first full campaign cycle after implementation — typically two to four weeks. The faster return comes from eliminating the most acute inefficiencies: email chain management, version confusion, and manual chasing of outstanding approvals. Longer-term ROI — reduced compliance exposure, improved brief quality, and scalability without proportional headcount increase — compounds over the first six to twelve months as teams embed the platform into standard operating procedure rather than running it alongside legacy processes.
Which approval workflow costs are hardest to quantify but most important to include in an ROI assessment?
Compliance risk exposure is consistently the hardest to quantify and the most consequential to omit. Teams in regulated industries — financial services, insurance, health and pharma — carry ongoing regulatory risk from every campaign that passes through an incomplete or undocumented approval process. The probability-weighted cost of a regulatory investigation or enforcement action is difficult to model precisely, but omitting it entirely produces an ROI estimate that systematically understates the value of structured approval governance. Brand damage from campaigns that reach market without completing required review stages is similarly difficult to quantify but similarly real.
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