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Why should you monitor progress and make adjustments in a social marketing campaign?
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What aspects of the campaign should you monitor?
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How do you monitor and adjust a social marketing campaign?
Imagine that a community HIV prevention initiative has operated for several years. During that time, HIV prevention and treatment options have changed, community needs have shifted, new data have become available, and different groups may now experience different levels of access to testing, treatment, PrEP, condoms, sterile injection equipment, and other prevention resources.
Those changes do not necessarily mean that one community no longer needs attention and another should simply become the new focus. Instead, the organization should examine current epidemiologic data, service access, inequities, community feedback, prevention coverage, treatment outcomes, and emerging needs and then adjust its strategies and resources accordingly.
The same principle applies to other social marketing initiatives. Conditions change. People change. Technology changes. Programs mature. New barriers emerge. Services improve or become less accessible. Policies change. Funding changes. A communication strategy that worked several years ago may no longer be relevant.
Monitoring and evaluation help an organization understand what is happening and decide whether to continue, adapt, expand, scale back, redesign, or conclude parts of an initiative.
Why should you monitor progress and make adjustments in your social marketing campaign?
A social marketing strategy should not be treated as fixed once it has been launched.
Ongoing monitoring can help determine:
- Whether activities are being implemented as intended
- Whether intended audiences are being reached
- Whether people can actually access the services, resources, or opportunities connected to the campaign
- Whether communication is understandable, relevant, accessible, and trusted
- Whether the desired behaviors or other outcomes are changing
- Whether outcomes differ across communities or audience segments
- Whether unintended benefits or harms are occurring
- Whether resources are being used effectively
- Whether community priorities or conditions have changed
- Whether the strategy remains consistent with the organization's mission and ethical responsibilities
Community and demographic conditions change
Neighborhoods and communities may change because of housing patterns, migration, displacement, development, population aging, economic conditions, institutional changes, or other factors.
Monitor whether those changes affect:
- Who is being reached
- Who is being missed
- Where services should be located
- Which languages and accessible formats are needed
- What barriers people experience
- Which organizations and community partners should be involved
Do not interpret demographic change as a reason simply to move resources away from one population and toward another. Examine continuing needs, inequities, and service gaps before changing priorities.
Community priorities and experiences change
An issue that receives substantial attention at one point may receive less attention later, while another issue becomes more urgent.
Changes in attention do not necessarily mean that the original issue has been solved.
Use current data and community engagement to understand whether:
- Conditions have actually improved
- People have become less concerned despite continuing risk
- New barriers or competing priorities have emerged
- Services have become easier or harder to access
- The campaign itself has become less relevant
Historical and generational context changes
Different generations may have different experiences with an issue, but do not assume what people know or believe simply because of their age.
Formative research can help identify whether changes in collective experience, technology, policy, treatment, media coverage, or community history are affecting people's understanding or behavior.
Communication channels change
Communication platforms and information habits change rapidly.
People may use:
- Search engines
- Social media
- Messaging platforms
- Text messaging
- Podcasts
- Streaming audio and video
- Community organizations
- Health professionals
- Schools or workplaces
- Community media
- Trusted interpersonal networks
Do not select channels based only on broad assumptions about age or demographic identity. Monitor how intended audiences actually obtain and use information.
Services and organizational capacity change
Monitoring should include the organization itself.
A campaign may have excellent communication but still fail if:
- Services are unavailable
- Waiting lists are excessive
- Staff capacity is inadequate
- Participants experience disrespect or discrimination
- Transportation is unavailable
- Hours are inconvenient
- Technology is inaccessible
- Costs prevent participation
- Funding is insufficient to sustain the promised service
Monitoring should therefore examine both communication and the actual program, services, systems, and conditions supporting the behavior.
What aspects of the campaign should you monitor?
Three traditional questions remain useful: Is the campaign effective? Are resources being used efficiently? Is the overall strategy still appropriate?
Contemporary evaluation can broaden those questions to include implementation, reach, equity, participant experience, unintended consequences, and sustainability.
Implementation
Ask whether the campaign and related services are being delivered as intended.
Consider:
- What activities were actually implemented?
- Were they delivered at the intended frequency and quality?
- Were appropriate staff, partners, and resources available?
- Did implementation vary by location or audience?
- What helped or interfered with implementation?
- Did the program need to adapt during implementation?
A strategy cannot be fairly judged as ineffective if major parts of it were never implemented or were implemented very differently from what was planned.
Reach and access
Determine whether the people and organizations relevant to the campaign are actually encountering and able to use the intervention.
Ask:
- Who is being reached?
- Who is not being reached?
- Who begins using services?
- Who continues participating?
- What barriers affect access?
- Are communication and services accessible to people with disabilities?
- Are language needs being met?
- Are costs, schedules, transportation, or technology excluding some people?
Effectiveness and outcomes
Determine whether the initiative is achieving the outcomes it was designed to influence.
Measures may include:
- Knowledge or understanding
- Beliefs or attitudes when relevant to the behavioral objective
- Service use
- Specific behaviors
- Organizational practices
- Policy changes
- Environmental changes
- Health or community outcomes
Distinguish outputs from outcomes.
The number of flyers distributed, advertisements viewed, social media impressions, events held, participants enrolled, or website visits can describe reach or activity, but those measures alone do not show that the desired outcome occurred.
Similarly, an increase in an outcome after a campaign does not automatically prove that the campaign caused the change. Other programs, policies, economic conditions, media coverage, social trends, or events may also have contributed.
If determining causal impact is important, use an evaluation design capable of estimating what likely would have happened without the intervention.
Equity
Overall success can hide substantial differences among communities.
For example, service use may increase overall while remaining unchanged among people facing transportation barriers, people who prefer languages other than English, people with disabilities, rural residents, or other groups experiencing barriers.
Ask:
- Who benefits?
- Who does not?
- Are outcomes improving equitably?
- Are some groups carrying greater burdens?
- Are existing inequities narrowing, remaining unchanged, or widening?
- Does the evaluation itself include perspectives that have historically been excluded?
Participant and community experience
Satisfaction can provide useful information, but it should not be treated as the only measure of quality.
Consider:
- Respectful treatment
- Trust
- Accessibility
- Safety
- Privacy
- Cultural and linguistic responsiveness
- Ease of participation
- Perceived usefulness
- Whether participants believe their concerns are heard
Quality, safety, ethics, and professional standards should still be maintained even when participants do not identify them as priorities. For example, inadequate clinical quality is not acceptable simply because respondents rank another service feature as more important.
Unintended consequences
Monitor for outcomes the program did not intend.
These might include:
- Stigma
- Misinformation
- Privacy concerns
- Increased barriers for a particular group
- Unanticipated staff workload
- Diversion of resources from other important work
- Reduced trust
- Harmful incentives
Efficiency and resource use
Efficiency asks what resources are being used and what outcomes those resources help produce.
Consider:
- Staff time
- Media and communication costs
- Technology
- Community-partner costs
- Participant supports
- Training
- Service-delivery costs
- Administrative costs
Measures might include cost per participant reached, cost per service completed, cost per desired outcome, or another metric appropriate to the intervention.
Economic evaluation may include cost analysis, cost-effectiveness analysis, cost-benefit analysis, or cost-utility analysis. Select the approach based on the question being asked rather than translating every social marketing outcome into a commercial "return on investment."
Mission alignment
Efficiency should not encourage organizations to serve only people who are easiest or least expensive to reach.
Performance-based funding can sometimes create incentives to prioritize participants who are already most likely to meet the required outcome, while people facing greater barriers receive less support.
Monitor whether financial incentives, performance measures, or efficiency targets are unintentionally pulling the organization away from its mission or widening inequities.
Sustainability
Ask whether effective parts of the strategy can continue for as long as they are needed.
Consider:
- Funding
- Staffing
- Community partnerships
- Technology
- Institutional support
- Policy environment
- Participant demand
- Whether the behavior or service should become part of routine practice
Strategy and relevance
Periodically ask whether the original strategy still makes sense.
Conditions may have changed enough that the organization needs to:
- Change its behavioral objectives
- Add or remove audience segments
- Change services
- Shift communication channels
- Address a newly identified structural barrier
- Build new partnerships
- Scale an effective intervention
- Reduce or conclude an intervention that is no longer needed
How do you monitor and adjust a social marketing campaign?
Begin with a clear description of the program
Before deciding what to measure, describe what the initiative is intended to do and why.
A logic model, theory of change, program roadmap, or similar framework can identify:
- Resources
- Activities
- Intended audiences
- Outputs
- Short-term outcomes
- Intermediate outcomes
- Long-term outcomes
- Important contextual factors
- Assumptions about how change is expected to occur
Making these assumptions explicit helps determine whether disappointing results reflect a problem with implementation, the underlying strategy, or the assumptions connecting activities to outcomes.
Decide what decisions the monitoring and evaluation should inform
Do not collect information simply because it is easy to count.
Begin by asking:
- What do we need to decide?
- Who will use the findings?
- What evidence would actually help make that decision?
- What information do community members and participants consider important?
Evaluation might be used to decide whether to:
- Continue the strategy
- Change a message
- Redesign a service
- Expand access
- Address an inequity
- Shift resources
- Scale the program
- End an ineffective or unnecessary activity
Engage people affected by the work
Monitoring and evaluation should not be designed only by program staff or funders.
Depending on the initiative, involve:
- Participants
- Community members
- Staff
- Community partners
- Service providers
- Funders
- Policymakers
- Others who will use or be affected by the findings
These perspectives can help identify meaningful questions, interpret unexpected results, identify inequities, and prevent the organization from drawing conclusions that do not match community experience.
Establish indicators before implementation when possible
Decide how progress will be measured and, when appropriate, establish baseline information before the intervention begins.
Indicators should connect directly to the program's goals.
Avoid relying only on easily available metrics such as impressions, clicks, number of brochures distributed, or attendance when the real goal involves behavior, access, health, policy, or another outcome.
Monitor implementation as the campaign operates
Ongoing performance monitoring can identify problems before a formal evaluation is complete.
Depending on the program, a monitoring system might track:
- Participation
- Service availability
- Waiting times
- Communication reach
- Referral completion
- Program completion
- Spending
- Staff capacity
- Accessibility
- Complaints or concerns
- Demographic or geographic patterns when relevant and collected appropriately
Protect privacy and collect only the information necessary for legitimate program and evaluation purposes.
Evaluate outcomes
Outcome evaluation asks whether intended changes occurred.
Compare results with:
- Baseline conditions
- Predetermined goals
- Appropriate benchmarks
- Previous program performance
- Relevant population data
When useful, compare outcomes with another population, location, or period, but recognize that simple comparisons do not automatically establish that the campaign caused the difference.
Use impact evaluation when causal attribution matters
If you need to know whether the intervention itself caused an outcome, use an evaluation design appropriate for causal inference.
Depending on the setting and available resources, this may involve:
- Randomized designs
- Quasi-experimental designs
- Carefully selected comparison groups
- Interrupted time-series approaches
- Other methods appropriate to the evaluation question
Seek evaluation or statistical expertise when causal conclusions will influence major policy, funding, or program decisions.
Gather participant and community feedback
Quantitative measures rarely explain everything.
Use interviews, surveys, listening sessions, advisory groups, focus groups, community meetings, complaint and suggestion systems, and other appropriate methods to understand people's experiences.
Ask:
- What is working?
- What is not?
- What barriers remain?
- What feels inaccessible or burdensome?
- Are people being treated respectfully?
- What has changed since the program was designed?
- What should be changed?
Do not recruit only highly satisfied participants. Include critical, disengaged, former, and underserved participants when appropriate so that feedback does not systematically exclude people who had poor experiences.
Use participant or community advisory groups
An ongoing advisory group can provide feedback at several stages rather than being consulted only once.
Members may help:
- Identify evaluation questions
- Review materials
- Interpret results
- Identify unintended consequences
- Recommend adaptations
Consider compensation for community expertise when resources allow. Make participation accessible and periodically review whether membership adequately reflects the perspectives needed.
Assess service quality directly
Participant experience matters, but it should not determine whether basic standards of quality, safety, accessibility, ethics, or professional competence are optional.
For example, a health clinic should maintain appropriate clinical standards even if survey respondents do not list provider competence as their highest priority.
Quality review may involve:
- Professional standards
- Clinical guidelines
- Safety requirements
- Accessibility standards
- Staff training and supervision
- Program fidelity or implementation quality
- Participant outcomes
Distinguish inaccurate perceptions from valid criticism
Negative views of an organization should not automatically be classified as a public-relations problem.
Investigate the underlying reason.
If information about the organization is inaccurate, provide transparent evidence and correct the information respectfully.
If criticism reflects a real problem - such as disrespectful staff behavior, inaccessible services, misleading communication, weak program quality, discrimination, privacy problems, or excessive use of fear or guilt - acknowledge the issue and address the cause.
Depending on the seriousness of the problem, responses may include:
- Training
- Supervision
- Policy changes
- Service redesign
- Accountability processes
- Changes in staffing through appropriate organizational procedures
Review costs and resource use
Examine how resources are being used and what outcomes they support.
Questions might include:
- What does the intervention cost?
- Which activities consume the most resources?
- Which activities produce meaningful outcomes?
- Could the same outcome be achieved with fewer resources?
- Would reducing cost undermine quality, access, or equity?
- Are participants being asked to absorb costs that should be included in the program budget?
For fundraising campaigns, financial return may appropriately be part of the analysis. For health and community interventions, however, financial return is only one consideration and may not be the primary measure of value.
Watch for performance incentives that undermine equity or mission
Funding systems can sometimes reward organizations for serving people who are easiest to enroll, retain, or move toward a specified outcome.
This can unintentionally discourage organizations from serving people facing greater barriers.
Monitor:
- Who is being enrolled
- Who is being screened out
- Who leaves the program early
- Whether performance measures create unintended incentives
- Whether funding structures adequately account for participants with different levels of need
Where possible, work with funders to develop performance expectations that reward meaningful outcomes without discouraging equitable service.
Review geographic reach
Ask whether services and communication are located where they are needed.
Examine:
- Where participants live or spend time
- Transportation access
- Service gaps
- Rural and urban differences
- Neighborhood change
- Geographic inequities
Avoid assuming that resources should simply be moved to areas with the highest numbers. Severity of need, inequity, historical underinvestment, and barriers to access may also affect decisions.
Review audience segmentation
Ask whether your current audience segments remain useful.
Consider whether differences in:
- Behavior
- Barriers
- Motivation
- Access
- Trust
- Language
- Geography
- Service experience
still require distinct approaches.
Do not prioritize only people who are easiest or most ready to change. If one audience experiences greater barriers, the appropriate response may be to invest more resources or change the environment rather than shift attention away from that audience.
Review communication and service-delivery channels
Determine whether current channels are still appropriate.
Examine:
- Reach
- Trust
- Accessibility
- Cost
- Privacy
- Language
- Engagement
- Changes in technology or platform use
Consider communication and service channels together. A successful advertisement for a service that people cannot access is not a successful intervention.
Reassess competing influences
Social marketing uses the concept of competition broadly.
Competing influences may include:
- Existing habits
- Competing demands on time
- Cost
- Convenience
- Commercial marketing
- Misinformation
- Lack of transportation
- Unavailable services
- Social norms
- Policy barriers
- Insurance or benefit structures
Ask what actually makes the alternative behavior or inaction easier or more attractive.
For example, someone may strongly want to participate in workforce training and employment but face loss of health coverage, childcare costs, transportation problems, or schedules incompatible with caregiving. The important competing condition is not necessarily a lack of interest in employment; it may be the financial and institutional consequences of taking the available job.
Monitor organizational strategy
Social marketing strategy should remain connected to the organization's overall mission and strategy.
Ask:
- Is the issue we are addressing still important?
- Are our goals still appropriate?
- Has new evidence changed what we understand about the problem?
- Have community priorities changed?
- Are we still the appropriate organization to do this work?
- Should we partner with another organization?
- Are we duplicating services that already exist?
- Are emerging technologies or policies changing how the work should be done?
- Do our current activities still advance our mission?
Monitor longer-term trends
Strategic planning should consider developments that may affect the work over several years.
Depending on the issue, these may involve:
- Population change
- Economic conditions
- Technology
- Climate and environmental conditions
- Health trends
- Laws and policies
- Funding
- Workforce changes
- Communication platforms
- Community institutions
Forecasting is uncertain, so do not assume one predicted future will occur. Scenario planning can help organizations consider several plausible developments and prepare flexible responses.
Conduct a periodic strategic review
A periodic social marketing and program review can bring these questions together.
Review:
- Community and environmental context
- Behavioral objectives
- Audience segmentation
- Formative research and community insight
- Service design
- Communication
- Partnerships
- Implementation
- Reach
- Outcomes
- Equity
- Costs
- Unintended consequences
- Sustainability
- Alignment with organizational mission
The traditional 4 Ps - product, price, place, and promotion - may be included in this review, but they should not be the only framework used to judge the strategy.
Act on findings
Evaluation is useful only if findings inform decisions.
Possible actions include:
- Continuing what is working
- Correcting implementation problems
- Changing communication
- Improving accessibility
- Removing service barriers
- Changing staffing or training
- Reallocating resources
- Building new partnerships
- Expanding an effective intervention
- Redesigning an ineffective intervention
- Addressing inequitable outcomes
- Ending activities that are ineffective, harmful, unnecessary, or no longer aligned with community priorities
Communicate findings transparently
Share findings with appropriate participants, partners, staff, funders, board members, community members, and others who have an interest in the work.
Report:
- What was evaluated
- What methods were used
- What was found
- Important limitations
- Differences across communities when relevant
- Unintended consequences
- What the organization plans to change
Do not report only favorable findings. Transparency strengthens accountability and makes evaluation more useful.
Continue learning and adapting
Monitoring and evaluation are ongoing learning processes rather than one final judgment about whether a campaign "worked."
Continue asking:
- What have we learned?
- What has changed?
- What assumptions were wrong?
- What should we preserve?
- What should we change?
- Who is still being missed?
- What new questions have emerged?
In Summary
Monitoring and adjusting are essential parts of social marketing. Community conditions, behaviors, technologies, services, resources, and communication environments change, so a strategy that was appropriate at one point may need to be adapted later.
Monitoring should examine more than whether a message is visible or whether participation numbers increase. Organizations should consider implementation, reach, accessibility, effectiveness, equity, participant and community experience, unintended consequences, efficiency, sustainability, and alignment with mission.
Outputs such as advertisements delivered, people reached, or participants enrolled are useful, but they should not automatically be treated as outcomes. Outcome evaluation can determine whether intended changes occurred, while stronger impact-evaluation designs may be needed when the organization needs to determine whether its intervention caused those changes.
Financial and operational efficiency also matter, but efficiency should not be pursued by systematically excluding people who face greater barriers or by reducing service quality. Resource decisions should be considered alongside mission, equity, accessibility, and community benefit.
Community and participant feedback should be part of monitoring, but satisfaction is not the only standard of quality. Safety, ethics, accessibility, professional standards, evidence, and equitable outcomes remain important even when they are not the highest-ranked concerns in a satisfaction survey.
Finally, monitoring should lead to action. Organizations should use what they learn to improve services, communication, partnerships, access, resource allocation, and strategy. A successful social marketing initiative is not one that continues unchanged indefinitely; it is one that continues to learn, respond to evidence and community experience, and remain effective, equitable, ethical, and relevant as conditions change.