Here’s why campaign management is broken—and how to fix it.

We all know what good marketing looks like. From Nike’s “Just Do It” campaign to Barbie’s 2023 revival, it’s clear when brands make a lasting impression. But what we don’t see is all the chaos behind the scenes. Delays, budget overages, and late nights can pile up before campaigns cross the finish line—cutting into your company’s revenue gains. And at a time when marketers have had to tighten their belts, these inefficiencies can make or break a campaign’s success. 

It’s no secret that campaigns are complex, with many stakeholders and moving pieces. But what makes them so hard to execute, despite our best intentions? And better yet, what can we do about it? 

1. It’s hard to coordinate across functions and with external agencies

Marketing campaigns are cross-functional by nature, involving teams like copywriting, design, and PR, as well as external agencies to help fill in the gaps. This requires a high level of coordination, but marketers today aren’t feeling the pieces click into place. Instead, 69% of marketers say it’s harder to collaborate now than before the pandemic. 

Marketing collaboration is stuck because teams and agencies work in different ways. Campaign requirements and assets live in different places, making handoffs difficult. Stakeholders capture feedback in one meeting, but don’t have a way to communicate changes to the rest of the team. And a surplus of marketing apps and tools can get out of hand. According to one study, workers at three Fortune 500 companies toggled between apps and websites roughly 1,200 times each day to do their jobs—which eats up just under four hours of their time per week.

The solution

• Standardize how teams work together. Create processes for how teams should collaborate on campaign planning, creative requests, and more. For example, create a step-by-step template that lays out essential deliverables for launching a new campaign, including a rough timeline and who is responsible for each step. That way teams always have a clear roadmap for how they should collaborate. 

• Establish clear communication processes. Clarify how and when marketing teams should communicate. For example, create a communication plan that specifies which channels to use for what, when to communicate in person vs. asynchronously, and how to share important status updates with stakeholders. Then, use the same communication processes across all campaigns.

• Create one source of truth. According to research from Asana’s Work Innovation Lab, 74% of knowledge workers say they prefer that everyone in their organization use the same set of core collaboration technologies. Marketers are fed up with switching between apps and searching for information in different places. Instead, centralize campaign requirements, assets, timelines, and communication into one source of truth like a work management platform. This prevents work from falling through the cracks and helps internal and external teams work together smoothly. 

2. There’s little visibility into campaign progress and performance

To run successful campaigns, you need to understand how they’re tracking against your timeline and marketing goals. That way, you can remove blockers and adjust your strategy mid-flight, while changes can still make a difference. But despite the importance of data, marketers  struggle to access the information they need. According to Work Innovation Lab research, the average worker spends nearly an hour and a half (84 minutes) each workday looking for information they need to get their work done. 

This happens because marketing data is scattered in many different places. Employees track campaign deliverables in one place, timelines in another, and use a handful of analytics and CRM tools to collect performance data. They have to constantly switch between tools to find the right information—a task made even harder when teams aren’t consistent in how they document work. 

The solution

• Share regular status updates. Establish a cadence and stick to it, like sending out an update every week or month. This ensures two things: (1) that you’re regularly pulling data and monitoring campaign performance, and (2) that you’re keeping key stakeholders in the loop. 

• Streamline your tech stack. When it comes to marketing tools, less is more. Work Innovation Lab research finds that sticking to two data analytics apps leads to the biggest productivity gains. Ideally, your teams should choose one tool that’s purpose-built for data exploration and one that’s built for data consumption. 

• Centralize campaign data. Research from The Work Innovation Lab shows that when all employees use the same work management software to report and track progress, they’re 60% more likely to feel very productive. Since work management tools store all your campaign information—including deliverables, timelines, and progress—it’s easy to generate dashboards and pull reports. Plus, you can integrate your software with CRM and reporting apps like Salesforce and Tableau to synthesize detailed campaign data.

3. It’s difficult to allocate resources across campaigns

All campaigns need resources to run smoothly. But it’s hard to staff the most business-critical work at the right time without big-picture insight into what teams are working on. This visibility is crucial, but according to a 2022 report, 41% of respondents struggle with visibility into available resources, and overcommitted resources are a major cause of project delays. 

Lack of visibility happens when marketing teams don’t document exactly what people are working on, and at what time, across every campaign. Instead, they rely on back-and-forth communication with managers and leaders to determine availability, which is never an exact science. As a result, it’s hard to accurately forecast what resources will be available for upcoming initiatives, let alone understand current team capacities. This is a big problem—research shows that the biggest contributors to poor resource management are lack of adequate forecasting and capacity planning. 

The solution

• Track how long work takes. This is essential for creating accurate resourcing plans. Use a time tracking feature or app to document time requirements for different types of work, like writing marketing copy or filming a webinar. With that data, you can measure how actual campaign timelines compare to your initial estimates, and make better resourcing decisions for future campaigns. 

• Monitor team workloads. To effectively allocate resources, you need to see at-a-glance what teams are working on, now and in the future. Create a system to document what’s on everyone’s plate and what new projects are on the horizon. This is where work management software can really shine. Since all work is documented in one place, a work management platform provides a complete view of how teams are staffed and what resources are available across your business. As a result, you can quickly shift workloads and prioritize the most high-impact campaign work. 

4. It takes too long to incorporate creative feedback

Creative assets are essential for every marketing campaign. But with so many stakeholders involved in the creative process and so many different tools in use, review and feedback cycles can drag on and on. It’s hard for team members to know where to find assets, where feedback is being captured, and which versions of creative assets they should review. This leads to exhaustion and longer timelines. According to The Work Innovation Lab, about two-thirds (64%) of knowledge workers report digital exhaustion from navigating too many collaboration technologies—and creative tools are no different. 

The solution

• Streamline your review process. Nothing slows down creative processes more than too many reviewers. To solve for this, try to only include stakeholders whose input is absolutely essential. Then, when looping in reviewers, specify what type of feedback they should provide. For example, a PMM partner shouldn’t copyedit a landing page, but rather provide high-level messaging guidance. 

• Pick one design tool. According to The Work Innovation Lab, using a single design tool (like Adobe Creative Cloud, Figma, or Canva) leads to the biggest productivity gains. If you currently use more than one design tool, consider picking one that fits all of your team’s use cases—and stick to it. 

• Streamline your document storage. More research from The Work Innovation Lab suggests that having three document file tools provides the biggest boost in productivity. This is because the widespread adoption and availability of document file management tools, combined with their distinct yet complementary features, makes it essential to use multiple tools to boost productivity. 

• Integrate apps with work management software. Multiple creative tools are necessary for different tasks like design and video production, but you can get even bigger gains by integrating them with a single work management platform. This gives stakeholders one place to review, capture feedback, and approve creative assets—rather than hunting through different documents and apps. It also lets you see and document all of your creative assets in one place, ensuring brand consistency and helping you keep work on track. 

Streamline your campaign processes

Campaigns don’t have to be such a headache. See how Asana can help you rally your marketing team to deliver more impact and drive more revenue this year.  

3 ways to launch marketing campaigns faster with Asana

Join Gympass’ Head of Marketing Program Management and Asana’s Marketing Lead for Northern Europe and Pan-EMEA as they discuss how to align stakeholders, see campaign progress in one place, and avoid one-off requests with automated intake processes.

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