Brands rarely lie on purpose. They drift. A founder says “all natural” in an interview, a copywriter repeats it, the formula changes, and three years later nobody knows where the claim came from. The proof file stops the drift.

The row

1. The claim, word for wordExactly as published. “Made in USA” and “Made in the USA with imported fabric” are different claims with different rules.
2. Where it runsEvery place: pages, footer, email and SMS, ads, packaging, briefs, macros.
3. KindIts row on the map: fact, performance, social proof, endorsement, origin, process, health, environmental.
4. EvidenceA link to the document itself: test report, certificate, bill of materials, study, review export.
5. Source and dateWho produced the evidence, when, and whether they’re independent of you.
6. What the evidence supportsThe widest wording the evidence allows. This is the column that catches drift.
7. Owner and review dateOne person, and when they’ll check it next. Health, origin and green claims every six months or when a supplier or formula changes; the rest yearly.

A spreadsheet is enough. Appendix B has the columns ready to paste.

The column that matters most is the one that says how far the evidence goes.

A worked example

Say a candle brand’s footer reads “Hand-poured in the USA,” it sends 12 campaigns a month to 150,000 subscribers, and its product pages get 200,000 views a month. That footer claim is delivered about 1.8 million times a month in email alone, before counting the site. Now say the wax blend is imported and the pouring moved to a contract manufacturer last spring, which uses a filling machine for the 16-ounce size. The claim was true when written. For at least one product it no longer is, in two ways: origin and process.

At the review date, the “what the evidence supports” column would read “poured in the USA from imported wax; 8-ounce size poured by hand.” Still a good claim, just not the one in the footer.

Where claims hide

• Subject lines, product titles and alt text, written fast and never reviewed.
• Review widgets: “verified buyer” and “4.8 average” are claims about how you checked and counted.
• Influencer briefs and support macros, where your claims go out in other people’s words.
• AI-drafted copy, which invents plausible specifics. No number it writes ships without a row.

Score a claim

The scorer weighs four things: how little the buyer can check, how thin your evidence is, how far the wording outruns it, and whether a specific rule covers the term. It’s my weighting, not a legal test; evidence counts most because you control it.

With the example’s numbers, the “Made in USA” footer scores 73, in the band to pull or qualify now, and the first fix is the evidence: a supplier’s email is not a bill of materials. At two million views a month it would be seen about 24 million times in a year. Score your own top ten claims and fix them in score order.

Do this

• Start the file this week with your top ten claims, one row each, and score them. Anything at 65 or above comes down or gets qualified before the next campaign. Then add every new claim before it ships: no row, no publish.