Guide
The client approval workflow that ends revision chaos
Why agency approvals drag for weeks, and the four-rule workflow — one channel, one deadline, one decision, on the record — that gets them down to days.
Cadenus · 11 June 2026 · 7 min read
Most agencies don't have an approval problem. They have an approval non-system. The edit is done on Tuesday. The client sees it on Thursday, on their phone, in a WhatsApp thread that also contains invoices and memes. They reply "looks good but can the logo be bigger" eight days later, in an email, to the wrong person. Nobody can say when the clock started, who's holding the ball, or what was actually agreed.
The cost isn't just time. Unclear approvals corrode the relationship: the client feels the agency is slow, the agency feels the client is chaotic, and both are right.
After enough burned weeks, we reduced the fix to four rules. They work with any toolset, though they're easiest when your system enforces them for you.
Rule 1: One channel
Feedback that can arrive anywhere effectively arrives nowhere. Pick exactly one place where review happens (a portal link, a review URL, anything) and route everything through it. The moment a client emails feedback, the answer is polite and absolute: "Added to the review link, can you confirm it there?"
What this kills: the archaeology. No more reconstructing a decision from three threads and a call summary.
Rule 2: One deadline
An approval request without a deadline is a suggestion. Every review goes out with an explicit date: "Feedback by Thursday EOD, otherwise we ship Friday as planned."
Two things matter here:
- The default is forward motion. Silence doesn't pause the pipeline; it approves it. Clients learn quickly that review windows are real.
- The deadline is visible to both sides. Not buried in a sent email, but on the review itself.
This is the rule agencies resist most, because it feels confrontational. In practice clients prefer it: a clear window is easier to act on than an open-ended "let us know your thoughts."
Rule 3: One decision
A review has exactly two outcomes: approved or changes requested, with the changes written down. Not "mostly fine," not "let's hop on a call," not a voice note. If a call genuinely is needed, fine, but the call ends with someone writing the decision into the channel from Rule 1.
Batch the changes. Three rounds of one comment each is how a two-day revision becomes a two-week one. One consolidated list per round, and the round count drops on its own.
Rule 4: On the record
Every decision, who approved, when, with what comment, gets recorded somewhere permanent that both sides can see. This isn't bureaucracy; it's the end of the "we never approved this" conversation, in both directions. The record protects the client exactly as much as it protects you.
When a dispute does come (it will), the record turns a fight about memory into a lookup.
What this looks like in practice
A version goes out as a single review link with a deadline. The client opens it on their phone, watches the video, taps approve, or writes the change list. The decision lands with the team instantly, attached to the exact deliverable, timestamped. Revisions loop through the same link. At month's end, every approval of every deliverable is one click away.
Launch reel · v20:32That's the entire workflow. The four rules fit on a sticky note. The discipline is keeping them when a client tries to route around the system, which they'll do exactly as long as routing around it works.
Cadenus implements this workflow natively: client approvals run on magic links with deadlines, single decisions and an immutable record, and revision requests land directly in the production pipeline.