Digital marketing and AI · 3 min read

Shipped, Seen, Counted

A campaign is not done when it is scheduled. It is done when it has gone out, someone has seen it, and someone has counted what it produced.

By Jeev Trika

Most marketing loses value with every week it sits in a queue. A page that loads slowly loses visitors today, not next quarter. A campaign aimed at a moment is worth less after the moment. So I push for speed.

Speed on its own is not enough, though. The other half is proof: that the thing actually went out, and what it produced. These are the emails where I asked for both.

Fix it now

In May 2018 one of the most important pages on topseos, the rankings of SEO companies, had a speed problem. I sent the developer a two-line email under the subject “URGENT”:

Urgent:

Please go to gtmetrix.com and run scan on https://www.topseos.com/rankings-of-best-seo-companies

you will see major issues

A slow page is a leak you pay for every hour it stays open. It does not belong in next month’s sprint.

Move while the moment is there

In April 2020, weeks into COVID, I sent DMA a list of marketing and sales roles to hire for. Next to the sales associate role, the whole description was:

Sales, Sales, Sales.

Next to two others:

Barter for those that reject our services.

Work a deal out with an ex customer to bring them back, even if it means at 0 cost as a COVID deal.

As I explained to a lender the following year, COVID first cut our customer base, and then, later in 2020, brought the agency a bump, because businesses that could operate digitally were not locked down. Both halves of that rewarded whoever moved first.

Show me it went out

Speed creates its own problem: work that is reported as done but never seen. In September 2022 I asked a member of the team who ran our email campaigns:

please upload copies of blasts and emails to your eod activity email, could be screenshots, so that i can see the blasts that were sent out.

In December I had to follow up on a request to make sure every campaign was actually landing in the inbox:

I have been waiting to hear back on the request I made to you last week re: making sure all blasts are going to the inbox and that they are sent out for ventures. I never heard back; please advise.

An email that goes to spam was not sent in any way that matters.

Tell me what came back

The last step is the one most often skipped. When a daily report in 2022 said our head of business development had been connecting with former customers, my reply:

When you say connecting with ex customers, pls let me know who and what came from it. The more specificity I get, the better please…

And in 2025, handing an outside contractor a list of leads to work:

please let us know what happens with each lead.

Someone on our side would log every outcome in the CRM. Otherwise a list of leads becomes a list of names.

What I still ask

Three questions, in order. Is it live yet? Can I see it? What did it produce? Speed without the second and third is just activity, fast.