Unlocking campaign velocity: a guide for CMOs and digital leaders

Written by Caitlin Miller
August 20, 2025

Campaign velocity can be unlocked with an optimized workflow. But how do you achieve that as a marketing leader? We'll explore that topic in depth.

It’s easy to hear the word speed and think it’ll solve all your problems. Getting from point A to point B faster sounds great but what happens when you get somewhere faster but the result isn’t quite what you wanted? Or you have an error and need to start totally over? You see, speed without strategy is chaos, and strategy without speed is stagnation. True campaign velocity means direction with power i.e. your team is moving fast toward the right goals with the right force behind them.

But here’s the hard truth: Most marketing teams’ Creation Operating Models, the processes and systems for producing campaign assets, are stuck in the past. They’re leaking budget through inefficiencies, slowing launches, and undercutting ROI. And no amount of brilliant creative or AI hype will fix that if the foundation is flawed.

Your workflow is bleeding your budget

When CMOs and digital leaders look at campaign performance, they often focus on creative, targeting, or media spend. Yet, your workflow (the way briefs move from concept to delivery) is often the largest hidden drain on your budget.

Common signs your operating model is costing you:

Campaign build times stretch from days into weeks
Specialists are bottlenecked with manual tasks instead of high-value strategy
Multiple stakeholders work in silos, causing rework and missed deadlines
AI experiments stall due to lack of governance and trust in output
Compliance and brand review cycles slow launches to a crawl

Why velocity matters now more than ever

The SPEED Framework: Your path to true velocity

The SPEED Framework provides a structured way to diagnose and fix the operational issues that are capping your team’s performance. It’s not about working harder, it’s about making how you work your competitive advantage.

Scan the Current Workflow:Document every step from brief to launch. Who’s involved? Where are the delays? How long do handoffs take? This is your baseline for change.
Pinpoint Bottlenecks: Look for friction points: review loops that add no value, dependencies on a single resource, or fragmented tools that force workarounds.
Evaluate the Economic Impact: Quantify the cost of inefficiency: missed revenue from late launches, wasted hours on rework, and underutilized high-value talent.
Expose Opportunities for AI: Identify where AI can accelerate output (content generation, asset adaptation, QA) while governance ensures brand and compliance guardrails.
Define Guardrails: Automate the rules currently policed by people. Governance should be built into the workflow, so speed never comes at the expense of quality or control.

The AI era demands a new Creation Operating Model

AI is already speeding up parts of campaign creation, but without a modernized operating model, the risks outweigh the rewards. Poorly governed AI adoption can lead to increased costs, failed initiatives, and brand damage. AI alone can’t fix a broken process. But AI + automation within a modernized Creation Operating Model? That’s where velocity happens.

The solution to all this? Centralized, governed, and AI-enabled workflows that:

Empower non-technical users to produce production-ready assets quickly
Allow specialists to focus on strategy and creative innovation
Seamlessly connect all stakeholders in a single collaborative environment
Scale without adding headcount or sacrificing quality

Case in point:

A large software company achieved 90% faster email creation and a 140% increase in revenue by removing coding bottlenecks.
Cisco realized 30x faster creation with 4.5x higher performance after breaking dependence on external services.

From cost center to performance engine

When you control the process, you deliver the outcome. A high-velocity Creation Operating Model transforms campaign production from a hidden liability into a performance multiplier.