Power to the campaign analyst!

When thinking of a campaign analyst, would the words ‘creative’ and ‘valuable’ pop up in your mind? And at what stage of the campaign process would you involve him for the first time? Probably at the very end, when all you need is some execution help? Often, analysts are integrated too late in the process, leaving them no option to add any creativity.

Copy-paste

If a comparable campaign worked relatively well last year, it is pretty tempting to do a copy-paste and use the same selection criteria. Just contact the campaign department just in time and tell them to copy the selection from last year. At this moment of the campaign process, it is too late for the analyst to get creative and propose an alternative target based on their insights. A random analyst in the team will simply execute the request and make sure the campaign goes live. Nothing more. Nothing less. Nothing better. Nothing more innovative. Nothing data-driven. CTRL+C and CTRL+V.

Sounds familiar? Well, start empowering the campaign analyst!

Aren’t we minimizing the role of our campaign analyst?

Gone are the days that the analyst’s job is limited to creating the target and a basic campaign evaluation afterwards that is too often ignored.

Thanks to his previous experiences and all the data at his disposal, the analyst knows the customer in detail. The main problem is that he is not fully integrated in the campaign process, therefore his client knowledge is not used to the fullest. Using standard selections (driven by marketing) are very efficient time-wise, but will not lead to higher gains on the long term. Working with these ‘common’ selections can lead to campaign fatigue by targeting the same clients over and over again. Also, the method is not encouraging the analyst to think further and pro-actively deliver recommendations.

Continuous collaboration is key

In order to make sure that the business and the analyst understand each other’s needs and remarks perfectly, it is necessary to collaborate and keep up to date with each other. Make sure there is a mutual understanding of the goal of the campaign and which channel is preferred. What is the product that we would like to sell? What is the desired target? These meetings will not only make sure that everybody is acquainted with each others tasks, it will also help achieving goals together as a team. Having a good relationship with the analyst will automatically lead to greater commitment, which evolves in creatively reaching goals.

Involve the analyst by making sure you share all relevant updates or additional information. Having more context will trigger the analyst to empathise with the client that will receive the offer, questioning the existing method and making sure the end result is logic. All extra information can help the analyst to create a better target. This helps him to understand the request better, but more importantly to reduce the potential error rate.

Trust your analyst

You can also decide to change from the general marketing driven approach to a campaign driven approach. The campaign and analytics department will – based on the goal defined by marketing – propose the most suitable clients for the target. They will provide you with more creative and effective selections, which will lead to a higher response and conversion rate. Which marketer doesn’t want to know which group of clients has the highest probability to purchase a certain product? In order to find out, you must trust on the knowledge and creativity of the analyst who was given a greater role in the process.

The proposition made by the campaign and/or analytics team is not final. It is a starting point to a constructive collaboration. Based on these first insights, see how a perfect fit can be made with the initial description of the request. The characteristics of this final target should be used to tailor the visuals and the final communication to the client, not the other way around.

Once the relationship strengthens, you can fully trust the analyst to select the appropriate target and invest more time in other marketing initiatives. A win-win for all parties.

So for your next campaign, don’t forget to:

• Invite and involve the campaign analyst in the campaign process
• Work together to achieve even better results
• Build a relationship of trust