The Biggest Bottleneck in Digital Marketing Teams

The most common challenge I see in marketing teams today?

It’s the communication gap between media buyers and creative directors.

At The Visionary Group, my partner Zach Fruehe has worked tirelessly to address this, and here’s why it’s such a critical issue:

• Media buyers are all about the numbers—they test creatives, analyze performance, and optimize campaigns for results.

• Creative directors, on the other hand, focus on producing stunning, high-quality visuals and storytelling.

The problem arises when data and creativity fail to work in harmony.

Here’s what we’ve found works:

1️⃣ Actionable Feedback

Media buyers need to go beyond ad jargon and provide clear, empowering feedback to creatives—feedback rooted in data but communicated in a way that fuels the creative process.

2️⃣ Data-Driven Creativity

Creative directors must embrace the psychology of advertising and understand the key metrics driving performance. Each ad should have a hypothesis behind it—not just random ideas thrown at the wall.

When both sides take the time to understand each other’s craft—media buyers respecting the art of creativity and creative directors respecting the science of data—the results are undeniable:

🎯 Better communication = Better creatives = Better performance.

At TVG, we’ve even built real-time dashboards and spreadsheets to bridge this gap. I’ll be sharing more about these resources later this week, so stay tuned.

How is your team tackling this challenge?

Hit reply and let me know—I’d love to hear your thoughts.

Keep moving forward,

Patrick O’Driscoll

Co-Founder, CEO

The Visionary Group