Marketing campaign management workflow: a 4‑stage playbook
Asana
4 déc. 2025
Campaign management workflow: the 4‑stage playbook
Marketing teams are under constant pressure to ship more content, generate more leads, and do it faster. When campaign management lives in scattered spreadsheets and long status meetings, work slows down and quality slips. Deadlines are missed, messaging drifts, and results suffer. The remedy is a clear, repeatable workflow that everyone follows.
This guide outlines a practical, four-stage workflow—Intake, Planning, Execution, Reporting—that the most effective teams use to deliver consistent outcomes. You can implement it with common work management platforms such as Asana and a few best practices that Generation Digital can help you roll out.
Stage 1: Intake — standardise how requests arrive
Unstructured requests cause churn. Start with a simple intake form so stakeholders submit complete briefs from day one. Include fields like objective, audience, offer, channels, timeline, budget, success metrics, and required approvals. Route submissions to the right team automatically and acknowledge receipt to set expectations.
Why it matters. A standard intake eliminates back-and-forth, raises brief quality, and lets you prioritise against capacity. It also creates a searchable record for audits and post‑campaign learning.
Quick wins
Publish a single intake link in your marketing handbook and intranet.
Add conditional questions for asset types (e.g., event, webinar, content syndication).
Map SLAs and response times so requesters know when they’ll hear back.
Stage 2: Planning — build with templates and clear ownership
Move from briefing to a structured plan using project templates. Templates should cover milestones (e.g., brief approved, creative concept, content draft, paid setup, QA, launch), RACI ownership, dependencies, and checklists. This is where you lock goals, budget, audiences, core messages, and creative direction.
Why it matters. Templates protect quality and speed. Teams don’t reinvent the wheel and critical steps (like UTM setup or legal review) aren’t missed. One organisation scaled content production 4× after adopting streamlined templates and handoffs.
Quick wins
Include prebuilt tasks for channel variants (email, social, landing page, paid).
Add approval steps with due dates to avoid last‑minute blockers.
Store reusable creative elements (brand fonts, imagery, copy snippets) in a shared library.
Stage 3: Execution — manage assets, dependencies, and changes in real time
During production, keep all assets, comments, and decisions in one place. Track dependencies (for example, “landing page built” before “ad campaign live”), and surface at‑risk items with dashboards. Use a single source of truth for versions and approvals to reduce rework.
Why it matters. Centralised execution introduces flow. People know what to do, when it’s due, and what’s blocking progress. Leaders see portfolio‑level status and can unblock issues faster.
Quick wins
Use task dependencies and workload views to catch clashes early.
Automate notifications for due dates and approvals to cut status meetings.
Maintain a change log so last‑minute scope shifts don’t derail launch quality.
Stage 4: Reporting — track KPIs, not just activity
Close the loop with reporting that maps activity to outcomes. Agree campaign KPIs upfront (e.g., MQLs, pipeline, CTR, CPL, influenced revenue, brand lift) and report progress weekly. Combine operational metrics (on‑time delivery, cycle time, rework rate) with performance metrics to show both execution health and marketing impact.
Why it matters. Reporting on KPIs builds trust with leadership, informs optimisation, and justifies investment. It also helps you refine templates and SLAs based on real results.
Quick wins
Create a portfolio dashboard showing live campaigns, status, risks, and KPIs.
Run a 30‑minute post‑launch retro to capture what to repeat or fix.
Tag assets consistently (campaign name, audience, funnel stage) so analysis is easy.
How Generation Digital can help
We help marketing teams implement this workflow end‑to‑end. Typical accelerators include:
Intake forms that route briefs, apply SLAs, and capture the right data upfront.
Project templates that encode best practice across channels and markets.
Portfolio views for real‑time visibility across all live campaigns.
Goal alignment so campaign objectives ladder up to marketing and company OKRs.
The outcome is faster time‑to‑launch, fewer surprises, and clearer links between work done and results achieved.
Implementation checklist
Document your current process and failure points.
Publish a single intake form and service catalogue.
Build or refine project templates with milestones and approvals.
Establish a portfolio dashboard with risks and KPIs.
Agree goals and measurement before work starts.
Train requesters and the team; review after two sprints.
Summary
A standardised, four-stage campaign management workflow gives marketing teams the speed and confidence to deliver. With clear intake, robust planning, disciplined execution, and KPI‑led reporting, you protect quality and prove impact. If you want help implementing this approach in your tooling, Generation Digital is ready to partner.
Ready to streamline your campaigns? Book a workflow audit with Generation Digital.
FAQ
Q1. What is a marketing campaign management workflow? A repeatable, four-stage process—Intake, Planning, Execution, Reporting—that standardises how marketing campaigns are requested, delivered, and measured.
Q2. Which KPIs should we track? Agree KPIs before launch (e.g., MQLs, CTR, CPL, pipeline, influenced revenue, brand lift) alongside operational metrics like on‑time delivery and cycle time.
Q3. Which tools work best? Any modern work management platform with forms, templates, dependencies, approvals, and dashboards. Generation Digital can configure and train your team.
Q4. How quickly can we adopt this? Most teams pilot within 2–4 weeks using lightweight templates and a single portfolio dashboard, then iterate.
