Win or lose, every campaign is a valuable learning experience, and the key is to identify and study those lessons before the campaign structure dissolves. Before staff prepare for their next job and consultants begin pitching new candidates, compiling the data necessary for an after action review should be a top priority.
In order to be truly valuable, an after action review needs to be honest. This isn’t for donors and it isn’t about selling the success of your campaign. Here’s how you run your campaign’s after action review.
Collect The Data
The review is about facts, not feelings, so you need real, accurate numbers. Here’s a starting list for the data that will help you:
- Donations. Export your full contribution report from WinRed, including sources, recurring donors, upsells, etc. Detailed information about where each donors first gift came from gives you the ability to run a cohort analysis and see what turned signups into donors.
- Email performance. Pull the results for every send – clicks, unsubscribes, opens, spam complaints, and donations.
- Texting. Save your optin records and opt outs along with any click tracking data.
- Advertising. Download reports from Meta, Google, and any other platforms you advertised on. Make sure it has details about spending, reach, frequency, the creatives, and any results.
- Website traffic. From Google Analytics, export your traffic sources, top landing pages, and any conversion data.
- Social. Collect the data you can from any organic social content you posted.
Talk To Your Team
The individuals who worked on your team have insights that won’t be found in any data export, so take some time to talk with them individually and ask them to share notes or ideas.
If you really want to get the truth, make sure younger staff, like those working for a consultant, feel invited to share their opinions as well.
Write It Down
Compile the lessons learned, organize them by channel, and identify actions to change in the future, whether that’s for your own race or a candidate that follows you.
It can only help if it’s accessible to those who will benefit from it in the future.
Conclusion
Your supporters, volunteers, and donors invested in your campaign and win or lose, you earned an expensive education. You owe it to yourself and them to make the most of those lessons learned.