Automation Builds
Part of Implementing marketing automation from an approved campaign plan
Choosing what should remain manual in a marketing workflow
Decide which marketing workflow steps need human judgement, how to route them and when automation must wait.
Keep a step manual when a person must interpret ambiguous information, decide a material exception or authorise a consequential action. Automate the predictable work around that decision: gather the evidence, route it to an owner and continue only when the answer permits it.
Examine the decision inside the task
“Review leads” can describe several jobs. Checking whether a required field is present can follow a rule. Resolving contradictory answers may require a person.
A routine internal status notice can run automatically. A changed audience or claim may need renewed authorisation under the campaign’s approval process.
Ask three questions about each decision:
- Can the rule be written clearly?If trained operators must weigh context, keep the decision with an owner until the policy is clear.
- What happens if it is wrong?An internal label and a customer message have different consequences.
- Is the evidence available in time?If essential information is missing, hold the consequential action and request it.
A useful manual step asks a specific question. State the permissible answers, supporting evidence, deadline and person authorised to decide.
Give human work a clear boundary
Suppose a campaign record contains two conflicting product interests. A workflow could identify the conflict and assign it for review. The reviewer could select an interest supported by the approved rules, request clarification or remove the record from the campaign. Record the choice in a form the workflow can use.
Set a timeout. If nobody responds, notify the campaign owner and mark the record for follow-up rather than sending it by default. If the campaign window closes, the record may need to leave rather than receive an obsolete message.
Manual enrolment can also be appropriate when automatic entry lacks a defensible rule. HubSpot permits manual enrolment in place of automatic trigger criteria. Manual entry still calls for the campaign’s eligibility checks before a marketing send.
Keep compliance and approval checks current
Some checks can be automated while uncertain results still need an owner. A permission field may be blank or conflict with another source; the reviewer needs a documented way to resolve that evidence. For Australian commercial electronic messages, check current requirements before sending.
Review changes to creative or audience under the campaign’s approval policy. The approval process should define who may release a changed campaign.
Automated vs Manual Steps in Compliance Checks
- Automated Check
- Permission field status (e.g. blank or conflicting)
- Manual Review Required
- Resolved by authorised person with documented process
Keep the manual queue bounded
For each manual step, specify the reason for review, owner and backup, permissible outcomes, latest useful decision time and timeout action. Look for recurring simple cases. Improving the form, data or written rule may remove unnecessary reviews. Persistent disagreement between reviewers suggests the decision criteria need clarification.
A growing queue alone is not a reason to automate judgement. Make recurring decisions into rules only when their inputs and outcomes can be defined. Define a default outcome for unresolved cases, such as expiry or removal from the campaign, rather than treating silence as a decision.
