The Virtuous Circle of Marketing
27 Jul 2025 » Opinion
I came up with this name while I was preparing for my Summit 2025 session. Perhaps I was simply having a good day and my neurons made the right connection. Since then, I have engaged in conversations where the same concept has emerged and resonated with others. Let me explain.
Definitions
Most people are familiar with the concept of a vicious circle. I picture this as a downward spiral, with each iteration making the situation worse than before.
The opposite of a vicious circle is a virtuous circle, where the spiral moves upwards and, with every iteration, results improve.
Campaigns are Linear
Traditionally, marketing campaigns are linear. Regardless of whether it involves an email, website personalization, display advertising, or social advertising, the approach usually follows a sequence from start to finish.
It typically begins with a brief: an outline describing what the campaign should achieve. In technical terms, this is often called the requirements document.
From the brief, the creative team begins working on the campaign’s components:
- Images must be created.
- Text must be written.
- Occasionally, a video will be included.
- A call to action is defined.
- The landing page URL is determined.
Once the creative process is complete, the marketing operations team prepares the campaign:
- Images need to be stored in a digital asset management tool.
- The HTML for the email must be created.
- Segments are created in RTCDP.
- Activities and experiences are configured in Adobe Target.
- Campaigns are set up in the relevant tools provided by social network platforms.
- Landing pages are published.
When you finally have everything ready, you publish the campaign, hold your breath and cross your fingers. Some adjustments may have to be made if issues show up.
And, last but not least, reports are generated to assess the success (or otherwise) of the campaign.
Of course, this is a simplified process. If you are part of any of the teams mentioned above, you know the work involved is much greater than what is described here. My intention was to provide an overview.
For reference, most of the above can be managed through Adobe Workfront. This is a tool I have not yet written about, but I am seeing increasing potential for it.
Closing the Loop
Although the above steps have made sense for many years, something crucial is missing: a feedback loop.
With a linear approach, once a campaign concludes, it is typically shelved. This practice leaves behind a wealth of valuable information—insights about what worked well, what did not, and what could have been done differently.
The idea behind the virtuous circle applied to digital marketing is to capture all learnings from previous campaigns and apply them to future ones. The main objective is to avoid repeating past mistakes and to continually enhance marketing results.
A word of caution: avoid the trap of repeating the same campaign with only minor changes. Instead, identify and replicate the key elements that made previous campaigns successful.
