Albert Einstein may be best known for his work as a theoretical physicist, yet he also had plenty to say about creativity, dubbing it: “intelligence having fun".
In business, having fun might not be a top priority but the same cannot be said for being creative. Innovative campaigns that halt consumers in their tracks are the Holy Grail of brand advertising: everyone wants their product or service to go viral.
From playing around with iconic brand colours to arresting images that are guaranteed to make people stop, stare and think: the work of a creative team can be literally groundbreaking.
But how can something as important as creativity be defined and measured? What metrics can determine whether clients are getting value for money? Is a successful campaign enough of an indicator that a creative team works well, or is there more to it?
In this blog, we’re going to break down the key performance indicators (KPIs) for creative teams that will help measure their performance, why doing so benefits their clients, and how our Renaissance platform can ensure everything happens as and when it should.
A key performance indicator is a trackable, measurable piece of information that helps assess performance, helping determine whether business objectives will be achieved or not.
KPIs can be used to assess anything, from an entire organisation right down to a single individual. These benchmarks can vary, depending on the strategic and operational goals being assessed.
They can supply objective evidence of a firm’s progress towards a goal, provide measurements that enable enhanced decision making, and insights into the evolution of performance over time.
KPIs can also track:
In short, KPIs are a useful way to see what and who works in an organisation, enabling upper management to develop strategies and implement improvements that could eventually boost profit margins.
But when assessing the performance of something a little more nebulous, such as a creative team, are KPIs still the right tool for the job?
Yes, but it’s definitely not the case that one set of KPIs fits all.
Brands seeking to measure the performance of their internal creative teams should focus on three main areas:
The question now, of course, is: which KPIs should you adopt in order to build your own complete performance measurement arsenal?
We have put together a list of what we believe are the most important key performance indicators (KPIs) to track for a creative team.
They cover everything from costs to content, and will provide creative teams with all the insights they need to maximise efficiency, ROI and business growth.
Every business on the planet has the same goal: to make a healthy profit. That explains why, according to Statista, revenue is the top KPI among 88% of marketing agencies.
It’s a metric that goes way beyond the bottom line. Tracking the gross profit margin can provide valuable insights about the robustness of a creative team's resource allocation, as well as its wider strategy.
Companies getting both of these right will deliver innovative creative projects using fewer resources, therefore enjoying a solid ROI.
Every creative team strives for positive feedback from internal clients. It can help build a solid reputation, and play a key role in securing both new and repeat business.
There’s no surprise that client satisfaction is one of the top key metrics for creative agencies.
There are several simple and effective ways to monitor client satisfaction levels, from a net promoter score to a questionnaire or short, post-project survey. Over time, data gathered from surveys or a net promoter score can provide insights into your reputation and how your brand fares against competitors.
Keeping a close eye on this crucial KPI can also help prevent issues such as poor communication. For example, if a client has concerns about a long lead time or potentially high project costs, they can be discussed and resolved at an early stage.
Data from long-term KPIs can also help upper management shape a brand’s creative process and ensure appropriate resource allocation for future creative projects.
Creative agencies should track their revenues over the short and long term to get a full overview of the firm’s financial performance and its potential for growth.
Be sure to include seasonality, service line and key account spending in these assessments to get the fullest picture possible.
If KPIs indicate that revenues are in line with growth targets, that’s great. If they don’t, the data can highlight areas of a creative team’s performance that need improvement, such as the time spent on rework or if specific tasks are being assigned to the wrong people.
This is one of the most important creative KPIs to track, particularly for larger organisations with multiple departments and complex workflows.
What the creative team spends compared to what was estimated is one of the clearest indicators of a creative team’s performance. If a creative team’s project costs outweigh the eventual revenues, even the most brilliant marketing work is for naught.
If, however, the creative team consistently brings in successful, quality campaigns on or under budget, then client satisfaction is likely to be very high.
Ensuring project cost efficiency does require strict monitoring of resource allocation, including how much time the creative team devotes to projects, as well as raw materials.
Nailing a brief first time is the goal of every creative team. In the real world, it doesn’t always happen and some rework within the actual project time may be needed.
One of the most important key performance indicators (KPIs) for creative agencies, rework data can bring a creative team performance into sharp focus.
High levels of rework can suggest:
Monitoring this KPI not only helps reduce rework, it can also help a creative department to identify where it needs additional resources to maximise the team’s time.
Management can also use the data from this KPI to ensure that all staff on creative projects have the correct training for future marketing projects.
Closely connected to project deadlines, these creative team KPIs can help measure creative performance by identifying who is doing what and how long they take.
One of the trickiest aspects of project management, particularly for smaller, boutique agencies, is ensuring the right people are attached to a creative project.
A slow worker with reduced creative output will be a drag on the team’s productivity, while someone who is overwhelmed could potentially negatively impact the project’s quality.
Including the capacity of creative teams in performance metrics makes it easier for creative agencies to deploy resources more efficiently, and will ensure an accurate lead time for each marketing campaign.
“If you snooze, you lose” so the saying goes. When it comes to the time a project takes to go from request to final delivery - known as the lead time - never was a truer word spoken.
This KPI often looks at the estimated vs actual lead time per project. It is a measure of how well a creative team manages client expectations and what processes it uses to deliver a project on time, on budget and to brief.
Agencies use this project data to provide more accurate estimates to clients. It’s quite a broad KPI but it can identify if your workflows are efficient and help attract new clients.
How flexible should creative departments be when it comes to project time estimates?
Figures suggest 51% of marketing projects don’t meet their original deadlines, potentially eroding client trust and impacting top line revenue.
Of course creative directors know there are many reasons why a project can overrun or be delayed. However, if it is a regular occurrence, there could be other factors at play.
Measuring the percentage of creative work delivered after deadline could highlight several interconnected issues:
Being able to accurately compare the estimated and actual times of a project can help a creative team identify bottlenecks or skills gaps.
Once it has them firmly under control, they can better organise and prioritise work among their creative team. This can help reduce the lead time per project and boost client satisfaction, as well as project profitability.
One of the most important creative KPIs is the monthly customer acquisition cost (CAC). It is a good indicator of the effectiveness of your marketing campaigns.
If new customers are beating a path to your door because of the quality or impact of your work, rather than chasing marketing channels, the lower your CAC is likely to be.
Creative teams that are spending more on finding new business can gain important, actionable insights from this KPI.
Creative agencies and project managers have increasingly turned to software to track progress, streamline workflows and boost a team’s efficiency.
Growing numbers of marketing agencies are using Renaissance. Deploying only the elements they need, they have increased efficiencies, reduced time spent on rework and boosted the quality of their output.
Not every workflow tool offers the same flexibility. Brands eager for continuous improvement could be paying over the odds for software tools they’re simply not using.
KPI tracking the software utilisation of each team member can identify unnecessary costs, as well as potential gaps in training.
Sort them out and both the amount of time your team spends on rework, as well as overall project time could improve.
As we said earlier, there is a wide range of KPIs. Identifying which ones are crucial to your brand’s financial and business ambitions will take you several steps closer to achieving them.
What are your company’s north stars? Increased sales? More brand awareness? Accelerated growth? All of the above? Remember to think for both the short and long term before you define the KPIs that will help you achieve them.
Taking a holistic approach to determining KPIs is imperative. Managers and heads of creative teams should be involved in discussions about which KPIs to start tracking. Their insights will ensure every area requiring measurement is covered.
It’s all-too easy to get bogged down in nebulous concepts or intangibles when assessing performance. Even though issues such as ‘achieving brand vision’ are very important to project management, KPIs should always be measurable and relevant.
When setting the benchmarks for your creative KPIs, make sure they are all achievable for your team. As well as providing a method for comparing performance against the company’s broader aims, targets that require work but are still within reach can be great motivators.
Once you have finalised the project KPIs, keeping an eye on them could quickly feel like a full-time job in itself. Investing in technology that automates the process and delivers key data points as and when your creative team needs them.
Many of the KPIs used by creative agencies focus on efficiency, from ensuring that estimated vs actual costs and project time are on the money, to ensuring a specific task is carried out by an appropriately qualified team member.
Although data from your KPIs can identify these efficiencies, it can’t make them for you.
Renaissance can.
Our knowledge-based workflow automation processes help to streamline production processes. These internal efficiencies enable clients to be quicker to market with their campaigns, increasing sales and ROI. The outcome: high client satisfaction levels.
The creative process differs for every team. Smaller departments are often ad hoc, with team members stepping in and helping out wherever needed.
As they grow, a hierarchy is formed, sometimes through necessity rather than deliberate organisation. This can lead to workflows that overlap, gaps in oversight and confused communication.
Our Renaissance platform streamlines those processes, enabling agencies to have complete control, oversight and collaboration across their creative teams, projects and marketing activities.
It includes media production management (MPM), digital asset management (DAM) and product information management (PIM) capabilities, as well as publication tools and online proofing features.
Renaissance elegantly cuts design and production timescales by ensuring the accuracy and consistency of all product information wherever it is published, whether that is print, digital or out of home platforms.
The production management module gives your creative team a clear and concise overview of a project at every stage, making the tightest of deadlines less intimidating.
Renaissance also enables automatic updates to image previews and QR code generation to follow product samples or digital files. Every production stage has a complete audit trail of who did what and when, with all stakeholders immediately informed of changes.
The Renaissance PIM module ensures that crucial data including SKUs, descriptions, pricing and sizing are all accurate, with any changes updated simultaneously. It eliminates the risk of obsolete information being published, reducing returns, boosting your gross profit margin and enhancing client satisfaction.
If you have any questions about Renaissance, or want to book a demo to see its benefits for yourself, we’d love to hear from you.
You can email us at info@ec2i.biz, call 01702 541311 or fill in this contact form and we’ll get back to you straight away.