/63-campaign-retrospective-global

name: 63-campaign-retrospective-global
description: "Use when a campaign has ENDED and the team needs a structured retrospective — a scorecard against target, what worked, what did not, and why with evidence, surprises, process review, lessons written back into the playbook and Brand Hub, and action items with owners. Trigger on 'campaign retrospective', 'campaign retro', 'post-mortem', 'campaign debrief', 'what worked and what did not', 'the campaign is over, what did we learn'. Also use when a campaign underdelivered and the team is arguing about why. Not for — a periodic performance report, see `07-marketing-report-global`; diagnosing live numbers mid-flight, see `03-performance-eval-global`; the next period ads plan, see `57-next-ads-plan-global`."
metadata:
  version: 1.0.1
  category: operations
license: MIT
triggers:
  - "campaign retrospective"
  - "campaign retro"
  - "post-mortem"
  - "campaign debrief"
  - "what worked what did not"
  - "lessons from the campaign"
  - "campaign wrap-up"
output: "File .md — full retrospective: scorecard, what worked / did not / surprises, process review, playbook and Brand Hub updates, input for the next campaign, action items with owners"
related:
  - 07-marketing-report-global
  - 60-launch-playbook-global
  - 02-campaign-brief-global
  - 34-ai-marketing-os-global
  - 65-team-performance-review-global

Campaign Retrospective (Global)

> A retrospective is not for assigning blame — it is how the team and the system get better after every campaign. The best insight comes from failure, but only if it is safe to speak honestly. A retro with no action is wasted time: every lesson must become one concrete change in the playbook, the Brand Hub, or the process.

Information gathering

Ask up to 4 questions:

1. **Which campaign, and over what dates?** Name, start and end dates, original objective. 2. **Final data:** revenue, leads, CPA, ROAS, spend — final numbers versus target. (If a report already exists from `07-marketing-report-global`, use it as the input.) 3. **Who attends the retro?** Content, performance, design, sales, leader? 4. **How long ago did the campaign end?** Run the retro within 5 days of the end, while memory is fresh.

Principles

1. **Mandatory after every major campaign.** No skipping because the team is busy. No retro means paying tuition without learning the lesson. 2. **Record only claims backed by data.** "Creative A felt strong" is not an insight; "creative A hit $18 CPA against a $28 account average" is. 3. **No individual blame.** Talk about systems and process. Everyone has the floor. 4. **Every lesson becomes one concrete change** — to the playbook, a template, the Brand Hub, or a process — with an owner and a deadline. 5. **Document so it still makes sense in 6 months** — and link the retro into the next campaign's brief.

Workflow

1. Prepare (before the session)

• Pull final data: revenue, leads, CPA, ROAS, spend, timeline adherence, budget variance.
• Send the data to the team before the meeting — the meeting is for discussion, not for reading numbers.
• Book 60 minutes with a named facilitator (usually the leader). For distributed teams, pick a time that works across the relevant timezones and require written pre-reads from anyone who cannot attend live.

2. Campaign scorecard

| KPI | Target | Actual | % achieved | vs previous campaign | |-----|--------|--------|------------|----------------------| | Revenue | | | | | | Leads | | | | | | CPA | | | | | | ROAS | | | | | | Spend | | | | | | Timeline (on schedule?) | | | | | | Budget (within plan?) | | | | |

Overall verdict: **Success** (>90% of KPIs) / **Mixed** (60-90%) / **Miss** (<60%).

When comparing against category benchmarks, use the right region and industry row in `references/benchmarks-global.md` — and adjust for seasonality before declaring a CPA increase a failure, since Q4 media costs run materially above Q1.

3. What worked (repeat next time)

| # | What worked | Evidence (numbers) | Why it worked | How to apply next time | |---|-------------|--------------------|---------------|------------------------| | 1 | | | | | | 2 | | | | | | 3 | | | | |

Name the winning patterns explicitly:

• Content angle: which angle converted best
• Creative format: video / image / carousel — which performed
• Audience: which segment responded
• Timing: which day or hour performed best
• Channel: best CPA and ROAS

4. What did not work (avoid next time)

| # | What failed | Evidence | Root cause | Decision: stop / fix / retest | |---|-------------|----------|------------|-------------------------------| | 1 | | | | | | 2 | | | | |

Root cause must go past the symptom. "The ads were bad" is not a root cause; "audience overlapped with the previous campaign > frequency rose above 4 > CTR fell below 1%" is.

5. Surprises

• **Positive surprises:** what beat expectations, by how much, why — what do you take from it?
• **Negative surprises:** what came in worse, by how much, why — how do you prevent it?

6. Process and execution review

| Item | Assessment | Problems hit | Improvement | |------|------------|--------------|-------------| | Brief quality | | | | | Timeline adherence | | | | | Team communication | | | | | Review and approval process | | | | | Launch-day execution | | | | | Data and tracking setup | | | |

Biggest process bottleneck: the single thing most worth fixing next time.

7. Team callouts

Record specific contributions: [Name] — [the specific contribution and its positive impact on the result]. Recognize publicly, correct privately.

8. Playbook and Brand Hub updates plus action items

| Document to update | What changes | Owner | Deadline | |--------------------|--------------|-------|----------| | Launch playbook (`60-launch-playbook-global`) | Add or amend step: [X] | Leader | | | Campaign brief template | Adjust section: [Y] | Leader | | | Brand Hub — customer insight | Add new insight from this camp