A brief for a marketing agency must define the product, audience, business objective, constraints, budget, timeline, available data, and success criteria.

Brief for a marketing agency

When a brand frames a task as a list of channels—"we want a campaign on Telegram, with blogger advertising, and banners"—agencies receive incomparable input data. One contractor will propose reach, another clicks, a third leads. The metrics don't overlap, budgets are built on different assumptions, and comparing proposals becomes impossible. The reason: there's no fixed definition of which specific user action counts as success.

Yandex Metrica calculates conversion as the ratio of goal completions to total visits. A goal completion visit is one during which a goal was achieved. If the goal isn't defined before the campaign launches, there's nothing to measure conversion against. An agency can report a million impressions, but without linking it to a target action, that number won't show how many people made a purchase, filled out a form, or called.

7 metricsgoal-related indicators that Metrica tracks: goal completion, goal visitor, goal visit, conversion, visitor conversion, completions per visitor, goal revenue
Multiple goal completionscan occur within a single target visit
Static / dynamicgoal value: can be set during creation or passed as a price / order_price parameter

Brief structure: from outcome to tool

An effective brief is built in reverse order — from measurable result to a set of channels. First, the product is defined: what we're selling, to whom, what differentiates it from competitors, what constraints exist (seasonality, region, age restrictions, regulatory ad labeling requirements). Then the audience is described: not "youth 18–25," but a specific segment with verifiable characteristics — where they spend time, what content they consume, what stage of decision-making they're at.

The next block covers the business goal and its translation into a target user action. If the objective is sales growth, the target action might be "completing an order on the website" or "calling the phone number." If the objective is brand awareness among a new audience, the target action is harder to measure directly, but indirect signals can be tracked: visiting the "About the brand" page, subscribing to a newsletter, adding a product to favorites. Yandex Metrica allows you to create goals of different types — from simple "visiting a specific page" to complex conditions with multiple steps.

A goal in Yandex.Metrica is an action taken by a website visitor that the site owner cares about. The same logic applies to a brief: first you define the target action, then you determine the ways to achieve it.

Economics and constraints: what an agency needs to know before estimating

A brief sets the budget and its structure: how much is allocated for media buying, how much for production, whether there's a reserve for hypothesis testing. Without this data, an agency either proposes a plan that doesn't fit the actual budget or builds in excess reserves and misses opportunities. Economics also includes the payment model: CPM (cost per thousand impressions), CPC (cost per click), CPA (cost per action) or a hybrid scheme with KPI bonuses.

Constraints are a separate section of the brief. Legislation: is ad labeling mandatory, are age restriction markings required, are there bans on mentioning competitors. Technical constraints: is cross-platform analytics available, are tracking pixels installed, are goals configured in Yandex.Metrica, can agency access to CRM be granted to match leads with sources. Without this data, measuring results becomes pure guesswork.

Available data and verification criteria

An agency must understand what data a brand can provide for analysis: previous campaign history broken down by channel, current audience profile, average transaction value, repeat purchase frequency, and Customer Lifetime Value. If no data exists, that's valuable information too—it signals that the first phase should focus on implementing analytics systems and collecting baseline metrics before launching a large-scale campaign.

Success criteria must be verifiable. "Increase brand awareness" is not a criterion. "Drive 500 clicks to the landing page with conversion to lead submission of at least 8%" or "record 200 target visits of the "checkout" type during the campaign month" are measurable metrics. Yandex Metrica allows you to configure conversion reports and track goal achievement in real time, provided goals are set correctly before placement begins.

How ETC Uses a Brief to Build Strategy

ETC agency builds its influencer advertising strategy from the goal documented in the brief. If the target action is webinar registration, influencers are selected whose audiences align with potential attendees, and integration formats are chosen to communicate the event's value. If the goal is a first purchase with a promo code, publication frequency and budget distribution across influencers of varying reach are planned to ensure the total number of unique codes reaches the target value.

A media plan is built after the brief has defined the product, audience, target action, and budget economics. Only then can you compare CPM from blogger advertising against display banners or contextual ads—because you know the cost per target action the brand is willing to pay. Ad labeling for sponsored integrations is planned at the brief stage: if the product requires mandatory labeling, this affects author selection (not all platforms support the required tools) and approval timelines.

KPI forecasts are built on data provided in the brief. If the brand shares statistics from previous campaigns—average CTR by creative type, landing page conversion rates, seasonal demand fluctuations—the agency can calculate expected target actions adjusted for channel specifics. If no historical data exists, the first campaign wave runs as a test phase, with metrics locked in for future scaling.

Checklist: how to prepare a brief that delivers comparable proposals

  • Product. Name, category, competitive advantages, price, sales model (e-commerce, physical retail, marketplace), seasonality, audience or geographic restrictions.
  • Audience. Sociodemographic traits (age, gender, region, income), psychographics (interests, values, media consumption), funnel stage (awareness, consideration, comparison with competitors).
  • Business goal. Increase sales by X%, acquire Y new customers, raise average order value, enter a new region, launch a new product—with specific timeframe and target value.
  • Target user action. Complete purchase, fill out form, make a call, install app, subscribe, navigate to a specific page—the action that will be recorded as a goal in your analytics system.
  • Budget and economics. Total budget, allocation between media placement and production, acceptable cost per action (CPA), payment model, testing reserve allocation.
  • Constraints. Legal requirements (ad labeling, age restrictions, category advertising bans), technical (landing page availability, tracking pixels set up, CRM integration), timing (deadlines, ad-free periods), reputational (blacklisted authors or formats).
  • Available data. Previous campaign history, website analytics, current audience profile, average order value, funnel conversion rates, LTV—anything you can share with the agency for analysis.
  • Success criteria. Quantitative metrics (X target actions, Y% conversion, Z₽ revenue) and verification method (Metrica report, CRM export, call tracking data).
  • Timeline. Campaign launch date, duration, checkpoint dates, final report deadline.
  • Contacts and access. Who from the brand will approve creatives, provide assets, and receive reports; analytics tracker access (if available at brief stage).

Frequently Asked Questions

Can you specify desired placement channels directly in the brief?

You can, but only after describing the target action and audience. If you lock in "we want bloggers on Telegram" first, and then discover your target audience spends time on VK, you'll either need to change channels or accept poor performance. The correct sequence is: goal → audience → channels where that audience is active.

What if the brand has no data to fill out the brief?

State this honestly in the brief. Missing data signals that the agency's first step is setting up analytics, configuring goals in Metrica, and running a pilot campaign to gather statistics. Attempting to launch large-scale placements without basic metrics will result in wasted budget and no way to evaluate results.

How do you verify that a goal in Metrica is set up correctly?

Yandex Metrica offers a debug mode: add the parameter _ym_debug=2 to the page URL, complete the target action, and check the debug panel to see if the goal was registered. Information about goal completion will appear in the Events and Console tabs. If the event displays, the goal is configured correctly; if not, check the conditions and tracking code.

In brief

  • A brief to an agency should start by defining the target user action, not a list of preferred channels — otherwise, proposals from different contractors will be incomparable in terms of metrics and economics.
  • Yandex Metrica defines a goal as an action taken by a visitor that interests the website owner, and calculates seven goal metrics: from goal completion to goal revenue; the same logic applies to setting a task for an agency.
  • Economics in the brief includes total budget, allocation between media and production, payment model (CPM, CPC, CPA), and acceptable cost per target action — without this data, it's impossible to build a realistic media plan.
  • Constraints — legislative, technical, temporal, reputational — should be documented before selecting channels, because they influence the choice of creators, formats, and timelines for ad labeling approval.
  • Success criteria must be verifiable: not "increase brand awareness," but "500 clicks with conversion rate not below 8%" or "200 target visits of the 'checkout' type," which can be checked in the Metrica report.
  • If a brand lacks data to fill out the brief — campaign history, audience profile, configured analytics — the agency's first stage of work consists of setting up measurement systems and running a test campaign to collect baseline metrics.

CEO comment

Leonid Naumtsev CEO, ETC AGENCY

I see the same mistake in every third brief: a brand writes "we want blogger advertising and banners," then can't compare agency proposals because one counts impressions, another counts clicks, and a third counts leads. The problem is that the target user action isn't defined before launch. Yandex Metrica defines a goal as a specific visitor action—completing an order, filling out a form, making a call—and calculates conversion as the ratio of goal visits to total visits. Without this definition in the brief, an agency can report a million impressions, but you won't know how many people actually made a purchase. At ETC, we build strategy from a measurable outcome backward to a set of channels: first we define the target action, then the economics, constraints, and available data, and only then do we select creators and formats. If a brand has no campaign history or configured analytics, the first stage is setting up measurement systems and a test wave to collect baseline metrics.

ETC AGENCY

ETC helps you build a brief from a verifiable KPI and develop an influencer marketing strategy with projected outcomes: from audience research through media planning and ad labeling.

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