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Get the Basics Right: Analyse and Optimise Your Marketing Campaigns

Too often, marketing leaders invest in ambitious campaigns without refining the fundamentals. In an economic environment where 43.5% of CMOs report marketing budget cuts and 64% struggle to demonstrate impact, the need to optimise what’s already running has never been more critical. This article offers a tactical and strategic guide for CMOs and Digital Marketing Managers to get the basics right by deeply analysing current performance, realigning KPIs with business outcomes, and leveraging AI to enhance campaign efficiency.

Why “Fix the Foundation” Is Now the Winning Strategy

Despite new AI tools, evolving channels, and shifting customer expectations, marketing underperformance often stems from basic neglect:

  • Inconsistent metrics across platforms

  • Disconnected customer journeys

  • Over-reliance on vanity metrics

According to the 2025 CMO Survey, demonstrating financial impact remains the top challenge for marketing leaders, followed by focusing data and analytics on the most important problems

Before chasing new tools or formats, you must diagnose and improve what already exists.

Diagnose with Precision: Campaign Analysis Framework

Ask These Five Diagnostic Questions:

  1. Are we measuring the right KPIs?

    • Link metrics to financial impact, not just awareness or reach.

    • Replace “engagement rate” with “cost per qualified lead” or “conversion velocity”.

  2. Where are the drop-offs in the funnel?

    • Audit every stage from impression to sale.

    • Tools like Google  AI Overviews and AI mode can help surface friction points through natural language summarisation of campaign logs.

  3. How are channels performing comparatively?

    • Use cross-channel attribution to detect underperformers.

    • Forrester and Nielsen research suggest multi-touch attribution can increase campaign ROI by up to 35% when accurately deployed.

  4. Are we segmenting by customer behaviour, not just demographics?

    • Behavioural segmentation consistently outperforms traditional personas in campaign targeting effectiveness.

  5. Is campaign data accessible across teams?

    • According to Gartner, organisations with unified campaign data layers improve ROI by 30-50% over 12 months.

Optimisation Through Automation and AI

The 2025 CMO Survey shows that AI is now used in 17.2% of all marketing efforts, and is projected to reach 44.2% within three years. Yet, adoption alone is not enough. Here’s how to optimise intelligently:

Leverage Generative AI for:

  • A/B testing content variations at scale

  • Generating persona-aligned messaging

  • Predictive lead scoring

AI Overviews: A Competitive Edge

Using AI Overviews from Google, CMOs can now:

  • Summarise full-funnel analytics in real time

  • Generate recommendations based on competitor benchmarks

  • Forecast budget allocation shifts using pattern recognition

Reset Metrics That Matter

According to the CMO Survey, marketing’s ability to link investments to business outcomes has declined by 9.1% since 2023. This erosion reflects a strategic gap in aligning internal expectations.

High-Impact Metrics to Track:

  • Incremental revenue by campaign (not easy, expect to use in a more mature phase)

  • Marketing Qualified Lead (MQL) velocity

  • Customer lifetime value by channel

  • AI-generated recommendations adopted

Avoid These Common Mistakes:

  • Reporting click-through rate (CTR) in isolation

  • Aggregating impressions without conversion context

  • Relying on monthly dashboards without cohort trends

  • Using ROAS to prove ROI

Empower Teams to Act on Insight

Getting the basics right isn’t just technical—it’s cultural. The CMO Survey highlights that 34.6% of leaders struggle to secure cross-functional support for marketing investment

Action Plan:

  • Train teams to interpret AI-generated insights

  • Democratise access to real-time performance dashboards

  • Align KPIs with Finance and Sales for shared accountability

Conclusion

CMOs cannot afford to build new campaigns on flawed foundations. In 2025, the most competitive organisations will be those who get the basics right—who analyse not just for understanding, but for action, and optimise not just for efficiency, but for growth.

Don’t chase complexity. Master the fundamentals. Then scale with intelligence.

Further reading

References (APA 7)

Digital Outcomes. Make your marketing campaigns achieve higher results through Data-Driven Results. Marketing Strategy on Digital Assets.

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