17 types of marketing campaigns to inspire your next creative project

like “online collaboration tools” or asks a question like “how do I build a creative review and approval process?”, advertisers can pay to ensure people see their website first.Creativity is the secret sauce in the marketing industry. Consumers are bombarded by advertisements and promotions at every turn — whether they’re browsing social media or driving down the road — making it critical for your brand to stand out from the competition.

But coming up with engaging and innovative campaign ideas that meet your marketing goals and incorporate all your client’s feedback feels like an uphill battle: Is it even possible to keep everyone happy and keep the creative campaign ideas flowing? 

Yes! Many brands have discovered the secrets to creating marketing campaigns that engage target audiences and drive results.

Below, we’ll explore a variety of marketing campaign examples that can inspire your creativity and help you craft successful campaigns tailored to your unique business needs. We’ll also show you how consolidating your feedback from disparate channels can help creative teams create more streamlined campaigns with an effective review and approval process. 

What we'll cover

17 types of marketing campaign examples 

Before you develop your marketing campaign, ask yourself what type of campaign you want to run. Opt for a campaign that supports your goals and complements the platform your target audience is already using.

Let’s dive into what makes each type of campaign unique and how some of the world’s most admired brands create their campaigns. 

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Ziflow accelerates the delivery of any type of marketing campaign by streamlining the review and approval of creative content.

1. Social media marketing campaign

Companies use social media marketing campaigns to reach potential customers on Facebook, TikTok, Instagram, X (formerly Twitter), and LinkedIn. Beyond choosing platforms for your marketing campaign, creative ops teams have to decide whether to use paid ads, publish content organically (non-paid), or leverage a mix of both to achieve the campaign’s goals. 

What might those goals be? Social media marketing campaigns can help you build brand awareness, retarget visitors who have previously visited your website, or even nudge customers to return to their abandoned cart and complete a transaction. Creative ops team members can look at historical data and perform market research to determine which platforms align best with the campaign goals, giving the campaign the greatest chances of success.

As with all marketing campaigns, social media campaigns require captivating content. This might include text posts, images, infographics, and videos. However, the nature of social media is that it moves fast, so your campaigns need to move fast to keep up. 

But before anything can be posted on social media, it needs approval — whether it’s visual or written campaign assets. 

Without a centralized process for review and approval, this can be tricky. Pulling feedback from disconnected email chains and Slack messages is a recipe for failure: notes will get missed, misinterpreted, and reviewers may simply forget to give feedback altogether. 

With a centralized method of collecting feedback for social media, reviewers can be alerted when it’s time for them to weigh in, feedback stays in one place, and everyone who needs access to the asset has it. This cuts down on back-and-forth, prevents delays, and gets your social media campaigns live faster — and with higher quality.

Example: Planet Fitness

Planet Fitness is another great example of a company that turned the pandemic into a marketing opportunity. One of America’s most popular gyms had to rethink its business model during pandemic-related shutdowns. Planet Fitness began offering daily classes on Facebook Livestream to keep its customer base motivated and to entice new members to join.

The campaign was a hit with the Planet Fitness audience. Each free video had thousands of views, and Planet Fitness followers wrote rave reviews about the remote classes. Not only did the campaign keep audiences engaged until their gyms reopened, but the gym won over a whole new segment of customers! 

2. Search engine marketing campaign 

Search engine marketing (SEM) involves placing paid ads on popular search platforms like Google or Bing. Search any term and the top results will be paid ads created for search engine marketing campaigns. When a potential customer searches for a term like “online collaboration tools” or asks a question like “how do I build a creative review and approval process?”, advertisers can pay to ensure people see their website first.

Since most new visitors find websites via search engines, search engine marketing campaigns are a great way to drive potential customers to your site. By carefully selecting the keywords, search engine marketing or paid search can be one of a company’s most effective lead generation channels. 

This is one way that creative ops can bring metrics into the creative workflow, helping optimize marketing efforts and costs by bidding on the most effective and cost-efficient keywords — and measuring progress via metrics.

While creative ops focuses on the structure, effectiveness, and results of these SEM campaigns, creative teams are responsible for developing copy and design for display ads and landing pages. They help streamline the process of storing, retrieving, and updating creative assets to ensure a smooth workflow for campaign managers, making sure ads fit the platform’s parameters and size requirements. 

Ads that appear in YouTube searches also fall onto the creative team’s task list. In addition to building the ads, the creative team may help create guidelines for compelling video thumbnails that grab users’ attention in YouTube searches.

Example: Upwork

Upwork is an online marketplace that matches businesses with freelancers — and the company drives significant traffic to its site using search engine marketing. 

With paid advertisements, Upwork targets specific search terms related to freelancing to get clicks. For example, if you Google ‘best freelancer,’ Upwork appears in the second slot on the search engine results page:

It’s a simple, yet effective strategy: Upwork promotes its ‘unmatched quality’ and the top-rated talent it’s ready to hire out. It also gives users site extension links to learn more about how the platform works and start hiring instantly. 

This campaign is a great example of matching search intent with paid search engine advertising to help drive traffic to a website. As shown in the image above, there’s often steep competition as other companies (Fiverr in this example) try to bid for the same keywords. Prioritizing the most relevant search is key.

3. Influencer marketing campaign 

Influencer marketing campaigns are like turbocharged referral marketing campaigns. Rather than asking customers to vouch for your product, you engage a popular social media influencer or blog writer to recommend your product on social channels like TikTok, YouTube, and LinkedIn. If the campaign succeeds, you can introduce your brand to thousands (or millions) of new people. 

Centralized review and approval in influencer marketing campaigns can help brands take advantage of the fast-paced nature of social media while also protecting their image. When an influencer submits their content for review, a centralized process allows all relevant brand stakeholders to weigh in to ensure:

• Consistency with brand messaging and identity
• Quality control, ensuring that content meets requirements
• Compliance with brand standards and any relevant industry or regulatory standards
• Brand safety, ensuring no off-brand or inappropriate content is approved that could compromise your brand image

Social media moves quickly, and influencers are experts in capitalizing on that. Leverage their expertise and following and maintain a streamlined review process and you have a unique opportunity to get your brand in front of prospective customers quickly.

Example: Chase/US Open 

After sponsoring the US Open for more than three decades, Chase decided to try a different approach for the 2016 tournament. The company partnered with one of the most popular men’s tennis players at the time, Andy Roddick. Roddick had a huge fan base, and he would engage them (and other tennis fans) by watching games, commentating live, and hosting Q&A sessions with fans. Roddick tagged Chase in his posts, increasing exposure for the brand.

[Image source: Shorty Social Media Awards]

The results were immediate: Nearly 2.5 million people watched Roddick’s broadcasts throughout the tournament. 

4. Brand awareness campaign 

A brand awareness campaign helps people recognize and remember your company’s brand. Marketers don’t generally measure direct ROI with brand awareness campaigns and instead, use them to build trust. 

You should go beyond brand and logo recognition to communicate what your business does and what sets you apart. The most successful brand awareness campaigns also convey a company’s values.

Since brand awareness is subjective, it can be tough for creative ops teams to illustrate a brand awareness campaign’s effectiveness. Company stakeholders used to seeing traditional metrics may question the value of a brand awareness campaign.

To avoid having their ideas and creative assets shot down, teams need a clear review and approval process for centralizing feedback. When those reviewing campaigns can easily collaborate with members of the creative team, they’re more likely to see the big picture. 

Example: Anheuser-Busch 

One of our favorite examples of a brand awareness campaign is from Anheuser-Busch. The American brewery changed its production process to manufacture hand sanitizer during the COVID-19 pandemic. Anheuser-Busch may not have intended to boost its brand reputation, but it definitely did!

After they started making hand sanitizer, news networks, and newspapers from across the country picked up the story. Anheuser-Busch responded to the media attention by emphasizing they were there to help. 

“Our communities and our people are incredibly resilient,” a company spokesperson said at the time. “By providing resources to those on the front lines, we are committed to doing our part to support the individuals across the country who truly represent the best of the American spirit.”

This brilliant strategy demonstrated Anheuser-Busch’s values and reached millions of American consumers. When consumers see Anheuser-Busch beer on the shelf at the store, they likely remember how the company stepped up to help their communities.

5. Rebranding campaign 

Rebranding campaigns relaunch aging product lines or introduce a company’s new values to the world. The most successful companies find a way to revitalize their products and stay relevant.

But we’re not talking about just a new logo or font. It’s a full-scale effort to modernize your product or show customers you’re slowly moving toward something different. A successful rebranding campaign can re-engage past customers while expanding your target audience as you keep up with market trends and innovations.

Creative teams walk a tightrope of familiarity and freshness. They manage stakeholder expectations and maintain a cohesive brand experience across all channels following a rebranding campaign.

With any rebranding campaign, you’ll likely get feedback from people at all levels of an organization. A company’s brand is its driving force, and many people feel passionately about how it’s represented. As stakeholders make tweaks and sign off on assets, you’ll want all files and feedback in one place for easy reference. Having a repository for centralized feedback will keep everyone sane — and it’s a simple way for creative ops to maintain efficiency, uphold brand standards, and ensure consistency.

Example: Kellogg 

When Kellogg rebranded its European cereal products, it was the biggest branding change the company had made in over 100 years. The goal was simple: bring a clean, fresh, modern look to Kellogg’s cereal packages and meet the aesthetics of the European market. 

Before their rebranding campaign, Kellogg announced its campaign goal was to have new artwork that “reflects the naturalness of the food and the heritage of the Kellogg story.” Here’s what they came up with: 

[Image source] 

The rebrand was a success. After the marketing campaign, 70% of Kellogg’s customers found it easier to identify their cereals in the store. The branding change also boosted their purchase intent by 50%. 

6. User-generated content (UGC) marketing campaign 

User-generated content (UGC) marketing campaigns invite consumers to create content, instead of the company creating it in-house. The reasoning is clear: Audiences are more likely to engage with a brand when someone they follow or admire supports that brand.

A UGC marketing campaign can boost a brand’s trustworthiness because the content comes from a reliable source: other users.

Too much direct involvement from the creative team would spoil the authenticity of a UGC marketing campaign. However, creative operations is still strategically involved in the process. Creative ops are at work behind the scenes, conducting market and competitor research to see what’s hot right now and what’s resonating with their target audience. 

From there, creative ops helps guide the creation of engaging prompts and challenges that inspire users to create content — whether it involves a clever hashtag or a short video. As the campaign runs, creative ops keeps a close eye on progress, analyzing performance and tracking insights for future campaigns.

Example: ALS Association – Ice Bucket Challenge

Remember the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge?

[Image source: Capjournal]

It spread like wildfire across social media. According to Facebook, the videos earned billions of views from millions of people. And the reason it was so popular? People — not brands — created the videos. 

The ALS Association launched this campaign to raise money and awareness for neurodegenerative disease. It surpassed that goal, resulting in a nearly 2,000% increase in donations to The ALS Association. 

7. Email marketing campaign 

Email campaigns help you connect with current and potential customers where they spend a lot of their time: their inboxes.

An email marketing campaign can make a significant impact at a low cost and with little effort. This is why email marketing is one of a business’s most profitable channels. Email campaigns allow you to talk to prospective customers one-on-one and encourage them to consider your latest products or stay in touch.

Having a place for centralized feedback on email marketing assets is vital. Imagine what would happen if a team created assets for an email campaign, and in one of those assets, the company’s name is spelled wrong. Embarrassing, to say the least — but easily catchable with a centralized review process, where all stakeholders can review and leave feedback directly on the asset. No flipping between emails or messages to find a note. 

If the right people can easily review and approve assets (or flag them for revisions), your team can catch these typos and other errors before they make their way into consumers’ inboxes.

Example: charity: water

Charity: water uses email to regularly communicate with audiences and provide progress reports. 

Emails include detailed breakdowns of how the charity spends donations, what projects are in motion, and how recipients can get involved. 

8. Public relations campaign 

Public relations campaigns help companies spread the word about events or product launches. By launching a public relations campaign, your message can reach a larger audience, and those individuals will then pass it on. 

However, the ultimate goal of a public relations campaign is to capture the media’s attention. The right campaigns have a newsworthy angle that media organizations can spin into a story to create more buzz around your announcement.

Perception is everything with public relations campaigns. Campaigns that lack a central approval system may include off-brand messaging that confuses audiences or damages a brand’s reputation. 

Teams may also miss critical media opportunities due to delays in the review and approval process. These mishaps and inconsistencies can weaken the campaign's impact. Larger companies may even encounter legal and compliance issues when approvals are rushed or nonexistent.

Example: Carlsberg

This COVID-19 marketing campaign favorite is from Carlsberg Denmark. To improve public morale during lockdown, the brewery launched its Adopt a Keg campaign, inviting people to scan the Carlsberg beer they purchased at a shop. 

Once customers purchased and scanned four Carlsberg beer cans, they filled their virtual keg and were eligible for two Carlsberg beers when bars and restaurants reopened. Thanks to the campaign’s success, Carlsberg expanded it to four other markets.

9. Product launch campaign 

A product launch campaign is a multi-channel effort where a company does everything possible to promote a new release. Effective product launch campaigns target the right audiences and create enough buzz around your offer to get people excited. They build anticipation before a product even hits the shelves, which often translates into higher sales and brand loyalty in the future.

With a product launch, you often have many moving parts and teams. Everyone needs a space to collaborate, share the most up-to-date files, and provide feedback. For creative teams, having the ability to centralize feedback from multiple sources in one place eliminates wasted time digging through file folders and jumping from application to application. 

Example: Robinhood

When Robinhood launched its stock trading app, it made audiences wait months to get a taste of the product.

[Image source: Yahoo Finance]

The message was simple: Get early access to a product that will charge you $0 commission for stock trades. But the offer was the real winner of the launch. To access it, people had to opt in for the product. If you wanted to jump ahead in line, you could invite your friends to opt in, too. The campaign strategy helped Robinhood generate interest in the product and pull off a successful launch. 

10. Referral marketing campaign 

Referral programs give customers the best of both worlds. They can recommend a product they love to friends and family and get rewarded for their efforts. Referral marketing programs are successful because consumers trust the people they know for product recommendations more than they trust companies. In fact, 92% of consumers say they’d trust a recommendation from a peer, while only 70% say they’d trust a recommendation from someone they don’t know. 

A successful referral marketing program can help your company reach an audience that’s ready to give you a chance. Referral marketing campaigns have a strong track record. Companies like Uber, Google, Amazon Prime, and Airbnb have used them to build their customer bases. 

Example: Uber 

Uber is a rideshare company that launched a simple, yet highly successful referral marketing campaign based on cash incentives. Riders not only got cash credits when they signed up, but they also received credits when a friend signed up using their referral code — and the new rider got credits, too!

Drivers weren’t exempt from the benefits either. Once a driver signed up with Uber, they became eligible to earn bonuses — as long as the person they referred completes a certain number of trips.

Uber’s referral marketing program was (and continues to be) well-cited for its success, being lucrative for drivers and riders and fostering customer and driver loyalty. well cited as — average monthly rides increased by 28% and many customers cashed in on their bonuses. 

11. SEO campaign 

Search engine optimization campaigns drive organic traffic to websites using search intent, keywords, and content. To rank on the search engines, you’ll need to optimize elements of your website and blog pages like titles, metadata, and keywords. Your domain authority, page speed, and other factors also impact your search engine rankings. 

Organic SEO is an ever-evolving game between marketers, their competitors, and the search engines. Google releases algorithm updates frequently, but it keeps those details well-hidden. This is why it’s critical for creative ops teams to stay on top of trends, monitor existing content performance, and advise creative teams about which content to update (and how) in order to increase search engine rankings.

It’s a major undertaking, but creative ops teams keep the ship on course by managing resources, workflows, tools, and processes to streamline the process. Under their direction, creative teams can focus on building and delivering new and updated content, while creative ops ensures that campaigns are effective, on budget, and on time.

Example: OVME

OVME is a medical aesthetic practice that used an SEO campaign to drive more organic traffic to its site. The company focused on simplifying its website and optimizing titles, alt tags, schema markup, page content, and metadata to include keywords potential customers would use in search queries.

Within three months, OVME saw a 10% increase in organic website traffic, and online bookings grew by more than 1,000%. Making simple SEO changes to your site can dramatically boost the number of people who land on it and become future conversions. 

12. Partner marketing campaign 

Products often sell better in pairs. In partner marketing campaigns, two non-competing companies join forces and advertise a product or service to a similar target audience. Both brands can benefit from each other’s existing customer base, and crossover is likely.

One of the most significant challenges with partner marketing campaigns is getting creative assets approved. Gathering approvals from stakeholders within one organization is difficult enough. When you add in another brand and a different set of guidelines and brand standards, the review process can quickly get complicated.

Using a collaborative proofing tool like Ziflow alleviates some of the pressure. The tool can easily bring creatives, decision-makers, and reviewers from both companies together, making it easy to share and collaborate — even if the companies have very different internal processes. 

For example, the two businesses may be collaborating on an announcement website, with both teams making edits at the same time. With Ziflow, it’s easy to see who’s changing what, tag internal and external team members with questions and notes, and compare versions to make sure feedback is implemented.

Example: Apple + Mastercard

When Apple released Apple Pay, it wanted to change the way people purchased products. Instead of using a credit card, they could pay with their phones. 

But the company didn’t have payment technology, so it needed to partner with a credit card company. Mastercard signed up for Apple Pay and became the first company to enable customers to pay using their phones or Apple Watch. 

This is a partnership marketing campaign done right. Even though the companies don’t sell the same product, they worked together to create a new service that revolutionized shopping. 

13. Conversational marketing campaign 

Conversational marketing campaigns aim to engage with website visitors using a more personalized approach. Instead of asking customers to email or call, conversational marketing engages with them in real time using automated conversations, live chat, or a combination of those methods.

Conversational marketing campaigns give your brand a chance to interact with visitors at scale, but on a relatable, human level. 

Example: JivoChat

JivoChat, an omnichannel business messenger, embodies conversational marketing. JivoChat customers use the business messenger to interact with their target audiences across channels: live chat, chatbots, Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp, Apple Business Chat, and more.

Here’s an example of what website visitors see if a company uses JivoChat: 

Using behavioral triggers, JivoChat proactively engages site visitors with personalized messaging, and they do it at scale across channels. 

14. Video marketing campaign 

With 2 billion people watching videos on YouTube every month, video marketing campaigns are powerful tools every marketer should be using. Like many other campaigns, video marketing campaigns can support various goals, from building brand awareness to selling products. 

The beauty of video marketing campaigns is their simplicity: They give audiences a way to digest your content easily without needing to read or scroll through lots of information.

But video marketing campaigns can require substantial rework if there are too many bumps in your review process. This is why it’s important to centralize feedback. If a reviewer requests a change and the video asset gets assigned back to the team that created it, having a feedback trail is important. This will allow the team member to make the required changes without missing important details that can delay or derail the process.

Example: Million Dollar Shave Club 

You have to see Million Dollar Shave Club’s iconic video marketing campaign. The company launched the campaign to sell its low-cost razor subscription to men ‘fed up with the razor monopoly.’ Million Dollar Shave Club conveyed their message in a 90-second clip:

The joke-filled video launched and immediately went viral. Within 48 hours, the company received over 12,000 orders. Four years later, Million Dollar Shave Club sold for $1 billion. 

15. Content syndication marketing campaign 

A content syndication marketing campaign uses third-party websites and publishers to increase your brand’s visibility and reach a larger audience. By partnering with other websites, you can leverage their audiences and distribute your content far and wide. 

These partnerships are generally structured as a pay-per-click (PPC) or set price bundle to host articles/ebooks/videos on the publishers’ websites or email newsletters. Keep in mind, there’s a variety of content syndication publishers and packages. You should choose the ones that match your target audience and supply them with thought-leadership-style content. 

Because content syndication campaigns push your content to a wider audience than many other traditional campaign types, it’s crucial to make sure your assets are perfect before they go live. Once your assets are in circulation, it can be difficult (or impossible) to recall them or make changes once the content is live on the syndicate’s website.

With a centralized review and approval process, you can reduce the time and effort required to review and finalize syndicated content — which is key for timely publication. 

A centralized system also simplifies quality control, allowing all relevant team members and stakeholders to weigh in to ensure accuracy, relevance, and consistency with branding and compliance standards. With all feedback living in one place, it’s easier for creative teams to take swift action, revise, and get the fast approval needed to keep content moving out the door.

Example: American Express/PayPal 

Small businesses are a key demographic for American Express and PayPal. They partnered with Marketing Dive to develop an ebook addressing the needs of mom-and-pop shops, while subtly promoting their own services in the process. 

Marketing Dive is a large publisher that owns multiple brands and newsletters. Through those distribution channels, they promoted the content and generated leads matching their ideal consumer profile. 

16. Guerilla marketing campaign 

Guerilla marketing aims to create unconventional, memorable, and high-impact campaigns on a low budget. Using creative and attention-grabbing tactics, marketing teams generate buzz and engagement and ultimately, drive sales.

To create a successful guerilla media campaign, you have to think outside of the box, have a high risk tolerance, and find a way to get free media coverage. Potential tactics, media, and resources vary widely.

While some guerilla techniques can feel chaotic, creative ops teams are behind the scenes, carefully conducting market research, orchestrating resources, and monitoring campaign performance to show just how effective these campaigns can be — when done right.

Since guerilla marketing campaigns are often a trust fall where time is money, getting stakeholders on board can be a challenge. Creative teams often encounter a lot of feedback and go through many iterations of a guerilla campaign asset before it’s finalized. Centralizing feedback reduces the back-and-forth of inefficient email or Slack feedback loops, helping get guerilla marketing campaigns off the ground faster. 

Example: Cards Against Humanity 

Back in 2016, the irreverent party card game Cards Against Humanity pulled a stunt that still can’t be explained. While many brands spend millions on ads and promotions for Black Friday, Cards Against Humanity convinced the public to donate $104k to dig a hole for no logical reason. 

This absurd effort caused hundreds of news outlets to cover the story. By spending little, Cards Against Humanity gained notoriety on websites, in newsrooms, and through word of mouth. It may be one of the highest ROI brand awareness campaigns in history. 

17. Direct mail marketing campaign 

Sometimes, you just can’t beat the classics. Direct mail is a targeted advertising strategy that involves sending good-old physical mail including postcards, letters, or catalogs to a specific group of recipients. They’re highly personalized and tailored to the recipient’s interests and demographics. They can promote products, services, or events.

Many B2B companies have recently seen success with direct mail. Some people are overwhelmed by their cluttered email inboxes and appreciate an old-fashioned letter. Traditional mail marketing can be highly effective in reaching specific audiences and generating a response, especially when combined with digital marketing. 

The process of sending a direct mail piece isn’t as simple as creating a digital campaign. There are often more reviews and approvals along the way as a piece prepares to go to the printer. The printer also sends proofs for teams to review and approve. As with any multi-step workflow, a centralized review process helps keep projects moving and prevents errors from slipping through unnoticed. Nothing is worse than sending out a mailer to thousands of contacts, only to realize it has an error. 

Example: Purple’s ‘Purple Squishy’ campaign

Purple is a mattress and bedding company that launched a direct mail campaign to promote its Purple Grid technology. They sent free Purple Squishy to select recipients, along with information on how the technology works and a coupon code good towards their next purchase. 

This tactile representation of the Purple Grid technology helped generate interest and curiosity in the brand. The campaign successfully drove sales and generated buzz on social media. 

Centralize your creative review and approval process with Ziflow 

Successful marketing campaigns amplify brand recognition, enhance your company’s reputation, and drive revenue. But creating an impactful campaign is no small feat: It requires careful planning, a deep understanding of your target audience, and an innovative, creative approach.

The creative campaign examples above all share a common feature: the assets resonate with the brand’s target audience. A successful creative campaign builds meaningful connections and inspires future campaigns.

No matter the type of marketing campaign you choose to create, Ziflow will help you manage and centralize feedback. Ziflow centralizes all discussions and comments related to creative assets so your team doesn’t have to go on a scavenger hunt for every new campaign.

With Ziflow, it’s easy to send automated review reminders, review past versions of an asset, and keep track of feedback in one place, helping creative teams produce better-quality deliverables faster.

See how Ziflow can help your team manage feedback and get started for free!