Adobe Experience Manager (AEM) promises scale. But for many marketing leaders, that promise stalls somewhere between content publishing and campaign ROI.
Campaigns look great. Tools are powerful. Yet results plateau.
The problem isn’t strategy it’s Marketing Operations.
Behind every underperforming AEM-powered campaign lies an invisible drag: disconnected systems, broken workflows, underutilized features, or data bottlenecks. This article offers a Marketing Ops Audit Framework designed for CMOs, COOs, and Growth Leaders to diagnose what’s silently holding your campaigns back—and how to fix it.
Asset velocity: Is your content lifecycle bottlenecked?
Symptom: Campaigns are delayed or recycled because asset creation can’t keep up with demand.
- Content fragments live across siloed folders, shared drives, or multiple systems.
- Approval cycles are manual and slow.
- Localization or personalization efforts overwhelm creative teams.
Fix:
Audit your AEM Assets implementation:
- Enable dynamic media.
- Use metadata-driven automation.
- Consolidate assets across global/local use cases.
Executive Insight: If your team is still using spreadsheets to manage campaign assets, you’re scaling with hand brakes on.
Personalization gap: Are you sending the same experience to everyone?
Symptom: Campaign performance plateaus; engagement drops despite increased media spend.
- Visitor segmentation is too broad or outdated.
- Adobe Target is underutilized or disconnected from real-time segments.
- A/B test results aren’t consistently applied.
Fix:
- Align AEM with Adobe Audience Manager and Analytics to enable behavior-based personalization.
- Refresh segments quarterly.
- Use AI/ML-driven content recommendations inside AEM Sites.
Executive Insight: Lack of real-time targeting creates personalization debt. And personalization debt kills campaign scalability.
Workflow fatigue: Are your campaigns stuck in manual mode?
Symptom: Teams burn out running basic ops—version control, task handoffs, approvals, launch readiness.
- Campaign briefs are managed in emails or PDFs.
- Review and sign-off processes happen outside AEM or Workfront.
- Reporting is stitched together in spreadsheets.
Fix:
Implement structured campaign workflows inside Adobe Workfront or AEM Projects:
- Centralize briefs, assets, approvals, and timelines.
- Link directly to asset usage and publishing.
- Automate alerts for bottlenecks.
Executive Insight: Ops isn’t just backend support—it’s your campaign speed engine. Invest in its efficiency.
Data disconnect: Are insights fueling future campaigns?
Symptom: Campaigns repeat the same mistakes; learnings aren’t codified or shared.
- Adobe Analytics and Campaign reporting is retroactive and disconnected.
- Segments aren’t passed back into planning or optimization flows.
- A/B test learnings aren’t logged or reused.
Fix:
- Build a Campaign Learning System: connect Adobe Analytics to Workfront post-mortems.
- Automate tagging and data capture for each campaign.
- Set up a quarterly performance review cadence tied to segment and creative iteration.
Executive insight: Campaigns that don’t learn don’t scale. Feedback loops need to be systematized, not optional.
CDP & CRM sync: Are you talking to the right users at the right time?
Symptom: You have the data—but activation lags. Users get generic content or mistimed messages.
- Adobe RT-CDP, CRM, and campaign engines are not fully aligned.
- Profiles are incomplete, outdated, or fragmented across tools.
- Campaign orchestration is based on static, not streaming, signals.
Fix:
- Sync AEM with Adobe Journey Optimizer and RT-CDP for real-time journey triggers.
- Integrate CRM data as part of the unified customer profile.
- Test lifecycle journeys (onboarding, nurture, reactivation) for automation opportunities.
Executive Insight: Your CDP should drive campaign logic, not just reporting. The goal is real-time orchestration, not delayed batch blasts.
Global–local imbalance: Are field teams creating shadow campaigns?
Symptom: Local or regional teams build parallel systems, bypassing AEM, leading to brand inconsistency and wasted effort.
- Campaign templates are too rigid.
- Central governance blocks local agility.
- Metrics are not normalized across regions.
Fix:
- Create adaptable campaign blueprints in AEM with governance controls.
- Enable reusable blocks with localization logic.
- Normalize campaign performance KPIs across regions.
Executive Insight: Scaling means balancing consistency and agility. Give local teams tools that don’t force them to go rogue.
Conclusion: Scaling campaigns requires operational maturity, not just strategy
Your strategy may be sound. Your tools may be world-class. But without scalable, data-connected, workflow-optimized Marketing Operations, campaign performance will plateau.
This audit isn’t just about fixing problems—it’s about unlocking the next level of performance for your Adobe-powered campaigns. Start with operations. Scale from there.
Let’s audit your AEM Marketing stack – End to End
We help enterprise teams run deep-dive Marketing Ops audits to identify blockers, streamline workflows, and align content, data, and activation. From AEM to Workfront to RT-CDP, we map the full journey—and design systems that scale.
Book a 60-minute strategy session to evaluate your campaign stack, operations gaps, and personalization readiness.[Request Your AEM Campaign Audit →]
