As someone who spends their life looking at and learning from data, I know that part of the game is knowing when to pull up the stats and analyze what’s actually happening.
Right now — January — is the best time to review your past campaigns. Why?
Because you don’t want to make the same mistakes in 2026 that you made in 2025.
So, it’s time to look at them with fresh eyes. What worked? What didn’t?
How to Audit Your Content Without Overthinking It
When I go through this process, I often think about Occam’s Razor — the idea that the simplest explanation is usually the correct one.
To organize my thoughts, I like to keep a single sheet with all past campaigns, where I jot down quick pros and cons once each campaign is complete. The key here is making this easy. Don’t overthink it.
What’s the first thing that comes to mind?
If a campaign earned 100+ backlinks, what headline did journalists use? Was it driven by a financial stat? An emotional one?
If a campaign got little to no interest, why? Was the data too hard to explain? Did it hit journalists too late in the news cycle? Or was the data just… not that interesting?
Don’t be afraid to be hard on yourself. Admitting mistakes during the auditing process is one of the best gifts you can give your future self.
Using AI to Spot Patterns You Might Miss
Once everything is in one place, this is where AI can actually be useful. Feed it your pros and cons and ask it to look for patterns.
You probably already have assumptions about what worked and what didn’t. Does AI confirm those conclusions? Or does it surface a pattern you missed?
Turning Insights Into Better Campaigns in 2026
Now you have both individual data points and broader trends. The question is: what are you going to do with that information?
That part matters most.
If your holiday content always felt late, now is the time to set calendar reminders and start working on it earlier.
If your data didn’t feel interesting enough, look at competitors’ campaigns that did perform on the same topic. Find the differences — then ask AI to help you spot patterns you might be missing.
Fix the mistakes.
Build on what worked.
Give yourself a stronger starting point this year.