Kevin Smith
Another year down, which means it's time for marketers everywhere to shift from execution mode to evaluation mode.
If you're like me, the year probably felt like it flew by. But a lot happened in those twelve months that deserves your attention if you want to actually improve your marketing in the year ahead.
But where should you start? Here are 8 steps you can take to spot patterns, pull out real insights, and set a smarter course for the upcoming year.
1. Set Up Your Review Process
Before you dive into the data, figure out the logistics of your review.
Who needs to be part of this? At minimum, it should include your marketing team, but consider pulling in someone from sales, customer service, or leadership, depending on what you're evaluating.
What timeframe are you analyzing? Full calendar year? Fiscal year? Or are you comparing Q4 2024 to Q4 2023? Be specific so everyone's looking at the same window.
What data and tools will you need access to? Make sure you can pull reports from your ad platforms, analytics, CRM, your email system, and anywhere else you track performance. If someone needs to request access or export historical data, do that now, not when you're sitting in the review meeting.
Make sure you set aside actual time for this. Don't try to squeeze a year-end review into a 30-minute meeting. Block off enough time to dig in properly.
2. Revisit Your Marketing Goals
Did you achieve your goals? Great! Now figure out what worked so you can repeat it. Did you miss them? That's fine, but you need to understand if the goals were unrealistic or if something broke in your execution.
If your goals shifted mid-year (and let's be honest, they probably did), document what caused that change. It'll help you spot patterns so you can plan better next time, rather than being reactive.
Were your targets even the right ones to begin with? Sometimes we set goals that sound good in January but turn out to be disconnected from what actually drives business results. If that's the case, recalibrate for the upcoming year based on what you've learned.
And of course, if you didn't set specific marketing goals, use your year-end review to establish benchmarks for the year ahead.
3. Gather Feedback
Talk to people beyond your immediate marketing team. Consider speaking to anyone who touches your work or experiences its impact, such as sales, customer service, as well as your clients or customers.
Rather than doing this casually, use surveys or structured interviews to get feedback that's actually specific and useful.
The key is making people feel like their input matters and that you'll actually do something with it. Share what changed because of their feedback. When stakeholders see their insights turn into action, they'll keep giving you good feedback. When they feel ignored, they'll stop trying.
We've found that things run much more smoothly when everyone feels heard and part of the process.
4. Gather Customer Insights
Don't wait until you're launching a new campaign or refreshing your brand to check in with your audience. Stay connected to them throughout the year, but especially during your year-end marketing review.
A lot can shift in twelve months: market conditions, competitor moves, or just life circumstances that change how people think about your category. Running surveys or conducting interviews can provide you with a direct line to their experiences, preferences, and frustrations.
These conversations show you what's working in your current marketing and what's missing the mark. They highlight opportunities you might not see in your analytics.
Plus, talking to customers can reveal gaps between what you think you're saying and what they're actually hearing. That's gold.
Between AI adoption, economic shifts, changing privacy expectations, and everything else that's happened, your audience has most likely evolved. Use what you learn to update your customer personas (or create them if you don't have any). Look at changes in demographics, shopping, or purchase behavior, and how they move through the decision journey. Having this documented gives you something concrete to reference throughout the year.
5. Audit Lead Quality
Figure out where your customers are actually finding you, then identify which marketing channels are bringing in your best leads, not just the most leads.
Calculate the cost per lead for each channel. Include everything: media spend, event costs, content production, and the time your team spent on it. And yes, as we know well in the agency world, time counts as a cost.
Once you know which tactics deliver your highest-quality leads at a reasonable cost, double down on those. Trim the stuff that's just burning budget without returns.
6. Competitive Research
How did your marketing stack up against competitors this year? Where did they outperform you? What can you learn from their wins (and their failures)?
Look at their tactics, channels, brand positioning, how customers perceive them, and their pricing strategies. This isn't about copying what they do—it's about understanding the full competitive landscape so you can find your advantages.
Your annual review shouldn't just be looking in the mirror at your own data. See how you performed relative to the market as a whole.
7. Identify Trends
Think about the bigger industry and digital trends that shaped this year and will impact next year.
In 2025, that means looking at how AI tools changed content creation, customer service, and data analysis. It means understanding how privacy changes and cookie deprecation impacted your tracking and attribution. It means paying attention to which social platforms are gaining traction with your audience and which are losing relevance.
Read industry reports and trade publications. Attend conferences or webinars. If you've got social listening tools, use them to spot shifts in consumer sentiment before they become obvious.
Our blog covers a lot of these trends if you want to stay informed—you can sign up for updates right here: 😉
8. Document Everything
Write down your findings, insights, and decisions from this review. All of it.
This documentation becomes a reference point when you're planning next year. It also makes next year's review easier because you can see what you predicted, what actually happened, and where you were off.
AI tools can help organize and summarize this documentation if you want, just make sure a human is validating the insights and not just accepting whatever the tool spits out.
A year-end marketing review isn't busywork. It's how you get better at this.
When you approach it strategically, the end of the year becomes a moment to celebrate what worked, learn from what didn't, and set yourself up for stronger performance ahead. Follow these steps and you'll build a solid foundation for the year to come.
Like what you read? Contact us to see how we may be able to help you meet your marketing goals.