Setting measurable objectives before a campaign begins
Launch library · evergreen read
An objective agreed only after a campaign has already run tends to bend suspiciously toward whatever the eventual results happened to show, which is precisely why the honest version of measurement always begins well before any real activity gets underway at all, particularly once competitors start reacting to the same situation.
Writing the objective early forces useful specificity from the outset of a project, naming the audience, the change genuinely sought, and roughly how that change will later be observed, rather than settling for a broad ambition like raising awareness that nobody could ever later disprove.
This discipline also protects a team from quietly shifting the goalposts under pressure once results start coming in. When results disappoint, it is tempting to redefine success after the fact, and a written objective from the outset makes that quiet redefinition considerably harder to get away with.
Objectives set well in advance do not guarantee good results on their own merits, but they do guarantee an honest conversation about whatever results eventually arrive at the end of the campaign, whether welcome or not, long before any external adviser is brought into the room.