Why Process leads to Reporting

We often talk about data-driven decision making because marketing is always evolving. The marketplace is constantly changing. Customer behaviour is never consistent. Nothing is forever. Successful marketing teams learn from their campaigns, always adapting their programs based on lessons from previous initiatives. Customers don't want to see the same content repeated over and over. The business wants to develop new techniques that improve campaign performance. Individual marketers want to develop their skills and test new ideas. Marketers want to use data to boost results.

The Need for Comprehensive Reporting

Developing new strategies requires plenty of creativity and innovation. But, above all, a culture of continuous improvement requires accurate campaign performance data. Marketers aren't experimenting for the sake of it. CMOs use past outcomes to decide future budget allocations. They want to see if experiments improve business results. Without accurate reporting, marketing leaders are flying blind.

It's impossible to judge campaign performance if you're missing comprehensive campaign analytics. Gaps in reporting lead to guesswork. Campaign measurement becomes a question of gut feel rather than objective feedback. That's a major problem, because successful organisations shouldn't be making investment decisions based on guesswork. Yet, many organisations do base their marketing planning on gut feel, because they lack the dashboards needed to guide their strategies. So, why is missing reporting such a common problem?

Optimise Campaign Production

Fundamentally, too many organisations lack the operational framework that makes accurate reporting possible. Campaign budgeting and production processes should be designed for peak efficiency and delivered with rigorous accuracy every single time. Make no mistake. Marketing performance reporting relies far more on optimal process than it does on good data or advanced technology. In turn, that depends on comprehensive budget tracking and effective campaign production. This isn't just a marketing operations problem. It affects everyone, and field marketers are often the biggest culprits.

Marketers are often tempted to take shortcuts to get to market more quickly. Yet, there are no shortcuts to accurate reporting. Skipping steps in campaign production often leads to gaps between different channels or systems that have to be bridged manually, or not at all. Taking shortcuts directly impacts the accuracy of reporting, which creates more problems for marketers in the long run. Missing UTM parameters mean that web traffic can't be attributed to individual campaigns. Missing campaign codes mean that new leads can't be attributed to specific marketing programs.

Always QA Everything

Everyone hates dealing with campaign codes and UTM parameters. They're very easy to forget when launching a campaign. They create lots of extra admin for marketers. But ultimately, campaign codes and UTM parameters are the basis for almost every marketing attribution model. Regardless of how you're measuring performance, CRM campaigns are the missing link between marketing budgets and marketing qualified leads. That's why it's so important to test campaigns end-to-end. In many marketing teams, no single person tests every aspect of a campaign. Different aspects of the content and journey are tested by different people. Yet, no one makes sure that lead tracking is working properly. The reporting is only checked after the campaign is launched, when it's too late.

Ultimately, launching a campaign is a long and complex business. There are many stakeholders with many different responsibilities. Optimising the campaign content is rightfully the priority for the campaign manager. Scheduling and audience building are generally the primary focus of the ops team. Nobody ever thinks about tracking or reporting, unless you've consulted a checklist or are reminded by a project manager. Yet, reporting is ultimately the most important part of the campaign - it's how you justify the investment to the business. Automation helps close the gap by automatically adding UTMs or tagging campaign codes. Someone just needs to test the automation prior to launch. That means skipping the shortcuts and following the full campaign launch plan. Easier said than done.

6sense Expands AI Email

ABM platforms are not generally associated with email marketing. However, 6sense acquired the ability to send AI-generated personalised emails a while ago. Earlier this year, they expanded that capability to marketing workflows. This included the ability to only personalise part of the email, rather than all of it. This month, they're launching the 6sense email provider. Until now, AI emails could only be sent through the Outlook or Gmail mailbox of a named sales rep, which severely limited the volume of emails. 6sense's new email infrastructure allows many more AI personalised emails to be sent than previously.

Webinar: Driving Demand Operations at Scale 

Scalability will be critical to the success of your demand operations as you plan for 2026 and beyond. If you missed CRMT Digital's latest MOps Unlocked webinar then catch the recording, where they were joined by leading marketers Wilhelm Frank from Lenovo and Mark Wheeler from Storyblok to uncover insights for demand operations success.

Marketing Operations Roadmap Matrix

A Marketing Operations Roadmap is an essential strategic tool that aligns marketing priorities with your overall business goals. Any roadmap begins with understanding where your marketing organisation is right now, and then defining where you want to get to. This free Marketing Operations Roadmap Matrix from CRMT Digital allows you to do exactly that.