Why measurement should be planned before a campaign starts
Launch library · evergreen read
Measurement decided after a campaign has already begun is often limited by whatever data happened to be collected along the way, which is rarely as useful as data deliberately gathered from the very start with a clear measurement plan already firmly in place from the very first day of the effort.
Planning measurement early also forces useful strategic clarity, since deciding what will be measured requires being specific about what change the campaign is actually trying to produce, a question worth answering carefully before resources are committed rather than well after the fact, when little can still be changed.
Campaigns that treat measurement as an afterthought often end up unable to demonstrate their impact convincingly, not because the impact was not real, but because nobody thought to capture the evidence that would have been needed to show it clearly to others later, once it genuinely mattered most, when the campaign was already well underway.