Campaign asset planning

Campaign asset planning starts with dependencies, then moves into writing. Map each touchpoint to the material that carries it, the system that can deliver it, and the report that will confirm what happened. The easy mistake is to count an asset as ready because it still exists somewhere. In the former outbound marketing setup, listed assets can remain stored while they cannot run in real-time journeys, and remaining tables may stop refreshing or working correctly.^{1, 2, 3, 4} Build the plan around execution and measurement together.

Start with the touchpoints

What the person

Which asset carries

What must happen

How the interaction

• What the person
• Which asset carries
• What must happen
• How the interaction

Build the inventory around the path a person takes through the campaign. Each touchpoint should have a clear purpose, an asset attached to it, and a handoff into the next action.

An integrated direct mail campaign requires multiple deliverables, assets, and a mix of digital and physical touches.⁵ Outbound sales can include email and other communication channels.⁶ Use those touchpoints to decide what the campaign needs before anyone starts drafting.

For each touchpoint, record:

• what the person should receive or do;
• which asset carries that interaction;
• what must happen before the next touchpoint can run;
• how the interaction will be recorded.

Move on when every planned touchpoint has an asset and a delivery path.

Turn touchpoints into assets

Now convert the touchpoint list into a concrete inventory. Keep the inventory specific enough that someone can tell whether an item is ready, needs rewriting, or needs rebuilding.

The asset set can include emails, content blocks, forms, marketing pages, consent data, journeys, templates, lead scoring models, social posts, and subscription lists.¹ Give every item a purpose in the campaign and a clear place in the sequence.

Live chat needs an opening prompt and a simple pre-chat survey.^{7, 8} Give the conversation a path for answering questions, providing resources, or scheduling a demo.⁹ Offer the visitor a copy of the transcript when the session ends.¹⁰

For an event-led campaign, pre-event email templates can help you build the promotion plan quickly.¹¹ Treat the asset library as its own check because it is shared and its items are available in real-time journeys.¹²

Test the delivery path

An asset is ready only after it works in the place where the campaign will use it. Check the delivery path before polishing copy or approving the launch sequence.

The outbound marketing module was removed in May 2026.¹³ Its sitemap entry and services were removed with it.¹⁴ If a planned asset depends on that setup, mark the item for a runtime check before you count it as ready.

The remaining tables can be accessed through the Power Apps Maker portal.¹⁵ You can also reach them through advanced search, and in some cases through the standard user interface.¹⁶ Access gives you a place to inspect the record. It does not confirm that the campaign can execute through it, because available tables may not work correctly and are unsupported.⁴

For each legacy asset, answer these questions:

• Can the current journey use it?
• Is the underlying record still refreshed?
• Does the user interface still perform the action the campaign needs?
• Does a custom interface or process depend on a service that was removed?

Keep the item in the plan until each answer is clear.

Rebuild audience and event dependencies

Audience records and event records often look usable before their actual dependencies have been checked. Treat them as separate workstreams inside the asset plan.

Outbound marketing segments are not updated and should not be used.¹⁷ The segment table does not contain the actual member list because that list was stored in an internal table that was removed.¹⁸ Segment queries remain available in the msdyncrm_segment table.¹⁹ Use the query as the starting point for rebuilding the audience, then verify the people who qualify in the current execution path.

Outbound marketing segments may still appear in real-time journeys.²⁰ Visibility can therefore mislead the person doing the inventory. Record whether the audience is current, where its members come from, and how the campaign will refresh it.

Marketing lists are Sales entities.²¹ You can continue using them in real-time journeys, including dynamic segments.²² Add the chosen audience method to the asset record so the campaign team knows which audience source is approved.

Event forms and pages have important differences between outbound marketing and real-time journeys.²³ Events created in outbound marketing must be recreated in real-time journeys through the user interface or an API.²⁴ Make the event, form, page, and registration handoff separate checklist items.

Make measurement an asset

Measurement needs its own place in the inventory. If the report or data path breaks, the campaign can still send materials while losing the ability to interpret the response.

Outbound marketing analytics data is merged with real-time journeys data.²⁵ Existing Power BI custom reports do not work with the consolidated data because the format, location, and access methods differ.²⁶ Reports that belonged to the outbound marketing interface are unavailable.²⁷

Reconfigure existing custom reports and pipelines to use the new Microsoft Fabric data sources.²⁸ When you inspect an interaction, retain the SourceSystem attribute because it identifies whether outbound marketing or real-time journeys generated it.²⁹

Add the export route to the campaign plan. Customer Insights data can be exported through Microsoft Fabric capabilities and its native connectors.³⁰ A third-party system can also store and process the interaction data through the documented alternative path.³¹

A usable measurement record should name the interaction, the source system, the report that reads it, and the person who checks it. Keep those fields beside the campaign asset, not in a separate reporting project.

What not to do

These are the shortcuts that create a campaign inventory full of items that exist on paper and fail during execution.

• Do not treat access through a portal as proof that a table works or is supported.⁴
• Do not use an outbound marketing segment because it is still visible in the interface.^{17, 20}
• Do not let a custom user interface depend on outbound marketing services without testing it, because it may fail when it updates or adds records.³²
• Do not carry an old Power BI custom report into consolidated data unchanged.²⁶
• Do not turn live chat into a pitch. People use it for safe, quick answers, so keep the conversation natural and end it when the interaction makes sense.³³

At the launch review, require one line for every touchpoint, asset, delivery path, audience dependency, and measurement path. You can then see what to write, what to rebuild, and what to test before the campaign runs.