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Collaboration on creatives in Smartly.io

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Organizations that work with Smartly.io may have multiple teams working together to achieve incremental performance gains. Frequent testing needs constant refreshing of your creative concepts, and reviewing and approving them to ensure their quality. If your organization has separate teams of marketers and designers, working on changes in the creative offering might not be without its uncertainties. This article's example setup aims to give some context on how the teams can organize their team and work collaboratively in Smartly.io to make everything as seamless as possible.

Overview of the setup

The marketer and designer teams can create a setup and way of working that enables separation of responsibilities but also facilitates co-working practices.

You can personalize the platform experience by specifying different access levels for designers and marketers. Read more about Designer and Full access permissions.

Each team should be familiar with what Smartly.io Image and Video Templates are. Designers are likely working mostly in the Creative Editor as well as the Asset Library. The marketing team meets them for reviews and approvals on the Preview page, then proceeds to the implementation of the approved designs in campaigns, and analyzes the creative-specific results together with designers.

Read more about Image Templates, Video Templates, the Preview Page, and the Asset Library.

Responsibilities

The RACI matrix below covers typical steps involved in creating an Image or Video Template in Smartly.io and running ads with it.

There are four roles that designers and marketers assume during the process. Some of the tasks may also involve additional actors like data scientists and engineers. The roles are as follows:

  • Responsible [R]: Those who do the work to complete the task. Others can be delegated to assist in the work required.
  • Accountable [A]: The one ultimately answerable for the correct and thorough completion of the deliverable or task. An accountable must approve work that a responsible provides. 
  • Consulted [C]: Those whose opinions are sought, typically subject-matter experts.
  • Informed [I]: Those who are kept up-to-date on progress.

(Definitions adapted from Wikipedia.)

Example chart

The chart below serves as an example of what types of tasks need to be completed during a template adoption process and who is involved at which point. Often organizations may have additional steps that need to be accounted for. 

A template in the chart can refer to either an Image or Video Template.

In Smartly.io? Deliverable Designers Marketers
  Brief on template design and what goal it should drive A R
X Upload brand assets like logos and fonts to the Asset Library R I
X Connect a data source that contains information to be used in the template I R
X Create a template design (that uses data source) R C
X Review and approve creatives R A
X Create and launch a campaign that has the template applied to ad creatives I R
X Create and analyze a report of creative performance metrics in Campaigns C R
X Update the template or create a new template based on findings R C 

While this is not a comprehensive and exact list of tasks and roles that fits every organization, it can serve as a starting point off which to build.

A great additional exercise is building out the subtasks to get as specific as possible. Who adds image links to the data source? Who writes the ad copy? Who ensures tracking is in place? All of these are questions to ask yourself when formalizing your team's process.

Other roles

While the section on responsibilities above covered an example division of tasks between Designers and Marketers, teams can be much more complex. Some organizations have Copywriters, Analysts, and Directors handling advertising tasks; sometimes even Engineers are involved in managing data sources. Even if not all of them have Smartly.io access, they can still collaborate in specific parts of the platform that are accessible to them.

ℹ️ Note: Overall, it's important that all stakeholders involved understand how Smartly.io's automation uses the data available to create, pause, update, and archive ads. Whoever is involved in the process and whatever task they are responsible for, it should be clear how the action affects the live campaigns.

Example tasks for other roles

The following are examples of what types of tasks each role might have in an organization.

  • Copywriter
    • Responsible for writing ad copy into the campaign ad template in Smartly.io or directly into the data source.
    • Review creatives and ads to ensure the correct output to be displayed in campaigns.
    • Consulted on changes to the ad copy if it seems that the message is not resonating with the audience.
    • Informed when a marketer slightly tweaks the ad copy (correcting typos, changing small print).
  • Analyst
    • Responsible for analyzing campaign reports to understand which campaigns and ads are driving performance.
    • Consulted on campaign, ad set, and ad naming as well as tracking setup.
    • Consulted on ad study creation.
  • Engineer
    • Responsible for delivering internal data to be made available in a data source imported into Smartly.
    • Accountable for the steady availability of data so as not to disrupt any automated processes.
    • Accountable for the functionality on linked landing pages.
  • Director (ambiguous)
    • Accountable for the overall approval of creative design, ensuring it fits the brand image.
    • Accountable for the overall creative design fitting the brand image.
    • Responsible for approving the outgoing promotion validity.
    • Informed about major changes to the task list or automated advertising process.

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