Editorial policy

One question per sheet

Each sheet answers a single question about a direct-response campaign. The desk chooses the question from the work a campaign manager has to do on a live project, then fixes the protocol before it looks at a result: the measures that decide the question, the period they cover and the record they come from. A protocol that changes mid-sheet is written down as a change, with its date.

Figures

Every figure on a sheet is read from a named record and carries the period it covers. Response rate says what it is a rate of. Cost per booking says what was counted as a booking. Where a figure is an arithmetic result of other figures, the arithmetic is shown so a reader can redo it. Where the desk could not obtain a figure, the sheet says which figure is missing and why.

Sources

A sheet lists the sources actually consulted: campaign records, supplier terms, published regulations, rate cards, and the trade literature it read. Where a sheet quotes a rule, it names the jurisdiction the rule comes from and the date the rule was read.

Revision

A sheet is re-run when a term, a price, a list, a rate or a rule changes, and the date on the sheet is the date of the last run. A correction sent by a reader is checked against its source, applied if it holds, and the date is updated.