I’m going to be honest: one of my biggest learnings came from a campaign that completely flopped. It was a collaboration between a Russian brand and some US influencers that looked perfect on paper and failed spectacularly in execution. We lost money, wasted six weeks, and I was genuinely frustrated.
But here’s the thing—when I finally sat down and documented what actually went wrong (task → action → result, the whole framework), I learned more about how influencer partnerships actually work than I did from any of our successful campaigns.
The breakdown was detailed: we positioned the product wrong for the US audience, chose creators who had audience overlap but different values, underestimated how long it takes to build trust with new creators, and missed a timing issue that made the campaign land during a cultural moment that made our messaging tone-deaf.
I have a pile of successful campaigns where I can point to metrics and say “it worked.” But I can’t always explain why. With the failed campaign, I can explain every part of why it didn’t work, and what I’d do differently.
Now I’m sitting with this question: should I share the breakdown with the same level of detail as I would a success? Like, would it actually be useful to other people here, or does it just look like I’m broadcasting that we messed up really badly?
I think the answer is yes—I should document it—but I’m curious: how do other people approach documenting failures alongside wins? Do you think the value is worth the vulnerability?
YES. Please document it. Honestly, from a partnership perspective, failures are gold.
When I’m introducing brands and creators, I ask about past campaigns—wins and losses. Because the person who can tell me honestly what went wrong and what they learned? That’s someone I trust. The person who only talks about wins? I wonder what they’re not telling me.
I’ve had situations where a brand and creator had what looked like a perfect fit on paper, and I almost pushed them together. But then someone mentioned a similar past collaboration that failed, explained what happened, and I realized—oh, we can fix that before it happens again.
The vulnerability isn’t weakness. It’s signal that you’re actually learning.
My suggestion: document the failure the same way you’d document a win. Task, action, result. But add a section: “If we did this again, here’s what we’d change.” That’s the part that makes it valuable to the community.
From a pure analytics standpoint, absolutely document failures. Here’s why: they’re data points, just like wins.
Successful campaigns tell you what the upper bound of possibility looks like. Failed campaigns tell you where the guardrails are. Both are necessary for building a complete model of what works and what doesn’t.
When I analyze our influencer ROI, I need the failed campaigns in my dataset. Otherwise, my success rate looks inflated and my learnings are one-sided.
But here’s the nuance: document it analytically. Don’t make it a guilt confession. Treat it like a controlled experiment that didn’t work. “We tested X, expected Y, got Z, here’s why we think Z happened, here’s what we’d change.”
The specific metrics help: How much budget did you spend? What was the engagement rate? How many sales conversions? What was the CPM versus your benchmark? What was the attribution model showing?
Those numbers are what make the failure useful rather than just… a story about something bad that happened.
I have a failed campaign story that’s become one of my best teaching moments, actually. We tried to enter a European market with a Russian playbook. It didn’t work. Spectacularly didn’t work.
At first, I was embarrassed about it. But then I realized: every founder I talk to has a similar story. The difference is whether you actually learned something and can articulate it, or whether you just… moved on.
I started sharing the breakdown casually in conversations, and people started asking me questions about it. Like, they were trying to plan their own expansion and wanted to avoid the same mistakes. That’s when I realized: this failure is actually my most valuable asset for building credibility.
So yes, document it. The framework is the same. But also include:
- What assumptions we were wrong about
- What we’d test differently next time
- What surprised us (not in a good way)
The combination of honest reflection plus data is powerful. It’s not vulnerability for vulnerability’s sake—it’s learning that you’re sharing.
From an agency perspective: your failed campaigns are your differentiator.
Every agency can show wins. The agencies that win more business are the ones who can say, “Here’s what we tried, here’s why it didn’t work, and here’s what we did differently the second time.”
I actually include a “postmortem” section in a lot of my case studies now. Not as a negative, but as a separate learning. It positions us as analytical, not defensive.
The key is framing: don’t present it as “we failed.” Present it as “we tested, learned, and here’s what that taught us.” Different energy entirely.
Also—and this is practical—when I’m pitching to a new client who’s had a failed campaign with another agency, I can say, “Yeah, I’ve seen that happen. Here’s what usually happens in your situation.” That honesty builds trust way faster than pretending every campaign is a win.
Document it. Use the same structure. Lead with the insight you extracted, not the pain of the loss.