Low-touch campaign setup

Question

How could we create a product that was simple to launch and easy to manage?

Research

I interviewed Sales to understand advertiser expectations and Campaign Management to understand where campaign launches became slow or difficult. Those conversations made it clear that every additional asset, configuration, or creative option increased the time and effort required to launch a campaign.

I also met with Engineering early to understand the capabilities already available within our advertising platform rather than assuming new functionality would need to be built. Those conversations uncovered an existing image focal-point tool that intelligently cropped a single image across multiple placements.

Decision

I reduced campaigns to the minimum number of required assets and standardized the creative specifications. Advertisers supplied one image, one headline, one body copy, and one destination URL that could scale across the entire placement suite.

I also established shared rules for layouts, character counts, branding, and image treatment so every campaign followed the same predictable structure.

Tradeoff

I removed some visual flexibility in exchange for a much simpler campaign setup.

Why this approach

Every additional asset increased work for advertisers, Sales, Campaign Management, and Engineering while making the future self-service experience more complex. Standardizing the product reduced operational overhead, made campaign requirements easier to communicate, and created a scalable system that could support future growth without increasing implementation effort. Additionally, including some technical features like the smart cropping functionality helped create additional creative control.