How to conduct an effective activity review?

Reviewing is different from summarizing. Summarizing is about the results of the activity, the participation in the activity, and what goals were achieved. Reviewing is the process of re-enacting what you did in the past in order to gain a deeper understanding of it. Reviewing focuses not only on a result, but also on the entire process of the activity. It is best to hold a review meeting as soon as possible after the event so that the event details and user feedback are still fresh in your mind.

The main process of activity review is as follows: review goals - evaluate results - analyze reasons - summarize experience

Review goals

An effective review should be based on the original activity goals. For example, for an event, the initial goal is to estimate how many people will participate in the event, how many new users are planned, how many people are retained, how many conversions are achieved, what the event budget is, etc.

Evaluation results

The key to evaluating results is data from the entire activity. For example, if your goal is to add new users, then you can consider the investment in activity, PV, UV, and the number of new users. Use these data to calculate the conversion rate, cost per new user, etc. Present the results of these data and use the data to analyze whether the activity is successful.

Activity data should be analyzed from point to surface and globally.

"Surface" refers to the results of the entire activity, for example: how many new users were added during the activity, and what is the time trend graph of the growth? By understanding what actions were taken during the peak period, we can verify which promotional methods are more beneficial to the event.

"Point" refers to the data results after each action during the activity. For example, what is the data after we push? This data can be used to analyze the conversion rate of each process, which can be used to improve the conversion rate. It can also be used as an opportunity to collect user feedback and deepen the understanding of user preferences based on user feedback.

Finally, calculate the input-output ratio of this activity based on the results of the activity to determine whether similar activities are worth continuing.

Analyze the causes

The main purpose of analyzing the reasons is to analyze the reasons for the success or failure of the activity based on the differences between the actual data and the goals of the activity .

In-depth analysis of the root causes of success or failure should be conducted to present the entire activity process as completely as possible so that each participant can express their ideas objectively.

If the effect of the activity exceeds expectations, then we need to analyze what went well and where the results can be used in the future.

For example, how many users did the event increase? What was the time distribution of the user growth? What events occurred at the time of the largest growth? Which channel did most users come from?

If expectations are not met, analyze the reasons for the failure. Some reasons can be seen intuitively, while others require hypotheses to be proposed and then verified.

For example, make a hypothesis: Are conversions from a certain channel overestimated? Or is the activity format not attractive enough? Doesn’t match the tone of the target users? Or is it a bad timing of the launch? The promotional copy failed to impress users? Or maybe some processes in the APP are not smooth enough? Then, we verify the hypothesis and draw conclusions through data, testing, and user research.

Specifically, you can consider it from aspects such as process issues, operational issues, rule issues, image/copy issues, and traffic issues.

Summary of experience

The core purpose of review is to learn lessons from actions and put them into practice for subsequent improvements.

The summary cannot be superficial and needs to be truly implemented in the later stage.

Therefore, determining the key reasons that lead to the success or failure of an action and finding solutions are also the most important steps in the entire review process.

1) Find out the deficiencies in the whole process and what can be optimized in the future, so as to avoid the recurrence of some problems found in this activity and achieve our expected goals more accurately in future work

2) What were the good things in the whole activity process that can be used as reference in the future? Organize them into case analysis and do secondary dissemination

In addition to solving the problems we find now, we also need to prevent them before they occur.

There are always variables in the process of an activity. Avoiding all mistakes does not necessarily lead to success, and copying all successful experiences is not a panacea.

Accumulate and learn enough experience to ensure that you can handle any operation scenario with ease and do better for the next event.

After all, the routines we can learn are just for reference. Our own experience accumulation is the most important thing, and activity review is definitely one of the most effective ways to accumulate experience.

Key points for effective review

1. After the event is over, it is necessary to review the event as soon as possible , so that many details of the event process and user feedback are vivid, and the review results are more reliable.

2. Everyone involved in the activity should analyze each other's experience, neither shirking responsibility nor belittling themselves, and try to present a complete and true activity process as much as possible. Every participant has an equal voice and can express their ideas authentically.

3. After the review is completed, a review document should be output to record the entire review results. It is also necessary to record the next actions and experience summary to help plan the next event more perfectly.

4. The review summary can be sent to every participant and even other colleagues who will be involved in the activity process for reference.

Author: Liuyue 23

Source: Operator’s Growth Notes