Learn the steps to conducting a killer mid-year marketing review and position your business for future success.

It might seem like yesterday that you were planning out campaign strategies and media buys, but believe it or not, we’re approaching the mid-year mark. Whether you’re doing some digital advertising here in Baton Rouge or you’re running your business across the pond, it’s time for a mid-year review. Need help figuring out how to get started? That’s where Gatorworks comes in. We’ve outlined 5 tips to help you conduct a killer mid-year advertising review. 


1. Go to the Beginning

You’ll want to take a look at what goals and objectives you outlined for the year and determine what still aligns and what feels less important than it did when the plan was made. Be flexible. It’s not a failure to strike a goal that no longer aligns with your yearly objective. Focus on the goals that really matter and use the rest of the year to get those across the finish line.


2. Analyze the Analytics

Digital advertising and analytics go hand in hand. Simply put, analytics is the information you gather from your marketing efforts; it can give you valuable insight into your goals and objectives. Not only can an analytics review help you track your progress, but it can also help you find areas of focus you might have missed the first time around. According to a 2022 survey by Gartner, marketing analytics are responsible for 53% of all marketing decisions. Check out the screenshot of the Gatorworks reporting dashboard below. Here we can see our identified KPIs, such as CPC, impressions, and clicks, and how they measure up to the previous period or year. Are you moving the needle, standing still, or worse, going backward?

The reporting dashboard from Gatorworks, a digital advertising agency in Baton Rouge.

3. Concentrate on Content

As the saying goes, “content is king,” so you can’t leave it out of a mid-year review. If content needs to be revised ( or removed altogether) due to lack of performance, now is an opportune time to make those decisions. Some questions to ask when examining your content could be: 

  • Do you still align with the sales team? 
  • Are you still reaching your audience? 
  • What is the data telling you about your audience?
  • How can you lead people to the content that’s working?
  • Does the website need a content refresh

Knowing where your content stands and where it might need to change is vital to any marketing plan. Content is a crucial driver for performance nowadays, and leaving it out of a mid-year review could mean wasting time and opportunities.


4. Identify What’s Working…and What’s Not

Now that you’ve done the work above, you can determine what’s working and, perhaps more importantly, what’s not. Were the original goals and objectives attainable? Were specific KPIs identified to measure against? It is often the case that the intended metric needed to be more clearly defined. For example, “increasing visibility” without a definitive success measure is impossible to quantify! Unfortunately, this happens a lot. But by conducting this exercise, you can further hone your objectives and metrics moving forward. 

Identify what's working and what's not.

5. Don’t Be Afraid to Move the Goal Line

If you find things need to change at the end of this review, that’s ok. If you’re off track, it might be time to examine resources and focus efforts on the pieces of the strategy that are actually moving the needle. 

Maybe you’re totally on track and ahead of projections. That’s great! This could be an opportunity to develop a few stretch goals and see how far you can take things. 
Forbes recommends regularly discussing goals and adjusting them as often as needed. The critical thing to remember is the review is only step one. What you do with the information makes the real difference.


To Wrap It Up

Marketing is a beautiful blend of art and science. We use data and creativity to craft stories that resonate with people and instill trust. But art and science are constantly evolving; therefore, we must also evolve. A mid-year advertising review is one of the best ways to ensure your strategy is working as intended. We might not always get the answer we expect, but it’s the only way to know how to move forward. 

Need help with your digital advertising? Reach out to Gatorworks and we can talk about making your marketing goals a reality.