How 10 Automations Saved Us 16,000 Hours a Year

Every day we are looking for new ways to improve our processes, automate the things that we can and find ways to take pressure off our team to focus even more on customer delight!?

Over the last decade we have worked hard to firstly get our processes right and then find ways to automate them.

We have helped companies much bigger than ourselves find elegant solutions in complex organisations and in the interest of democratizing digital I wanted to share some of those solutions here to help others.??

Whilst we are firmly in agency land many of these ideas could be applicable across multiple industries as they solve general business challenges, I hope you find this helpful..

Briefing Process?

Challenge

How many hours can be spent in briefing - whether this is calls, meetings, RFPs, proposals - back and forth only to have information not communicated properly? For us this had to change and this elegant solutions saves us and our clients so much time and hassle.?

Tools used

We created a form using Form Publisher, Google Forms + Zapier to capture all the information we need to start a campaign / this is then completed - a PDF copy sent to us / our client and an automation to slack to let us know a project is ready to be started.? If our client needs a rush job, a 48 hour workflow is triggered and its GO GO GO!?

Hours Saved

1440 p.a.?

2. Media Planning?

Challenge

A big part of our work is planning media against client goals - making sure it is effective and will perform well for the budget?

Tools Used

Continuing the integration using Form Publisher but with Google Sheets we are able to take information from the brief and insert into the media plan saving time with budgets/audiences and dates.? Then using BigQuery we have created benchmarking that allows us to confidently predict CPA based on sector and add to the plan with some rules around minimum budgets per channel

Hours Saved?

1100 p.a?

3. Invoicing

Challenge

Many business owners and employees may have faced sleepless nights thinking they have forgotten to bill customers or this may be incorrect - by integrating billing into our automation workflows we sleep like babies?

Tools used?

Our briefing tool also links into Xero which we use for invoicing and ensures we align the correct billing contact - this is then checked for accuracy and sent to clients with payment reminders?

Hours Saved?

960?

4. Managing Media Spend

Challenge

As paid media agencies worth their salt have had either over or underspends on budget - it's a painful lesson to learn and one we like to avoid - over the years it's been hard to get a tool that consolidates budgets accurately.? Farewell sheets forever!??

Tools Used

Shape.IO - this tool saves us so much time/stress and cash! It consolidates all our budgets across all channels and helpfully pauses them at any hour of the day.

Hours Saved?

2160 p.a. (and many grey hairs)?

5. Campaign Building?

Challenge?

Like many agencies we run a complex set of campaigns across social, search, programmatic channels and it would take a few days to build the full suite of campaigns.? Once we discovered a large portion was repeated it was time to automate.

Tools Used

Google Sheets - building custom ad builder templates per channel so that you can easily get all the information you need from the brief and build a full campaign within hours.?

Hours Saved?

7,200

6. Reporting?

Challenge

Multiple reporting platforms that do similar but not quite the same thing.? Tons of data points and dashboards.? It’s taken us the best part of 10 years to find the right tools that work for consolidation of data (in an elegant way) budget tracking and also roll up reporting (say multiple brands under one client).? To make this work you have to be brutal with your naming conventions to ensure these are bullet proof and will work.

Tools Used

Ninja Cat - reporting software that we are using a baseline but also utilising to build a new billing application on top of.?

Hours Saved?

800 p.a?

7. Financial Analysis?

Challenge

You are creating spreadsheets, management accounts, board packs, investment decks and constantly updating these and finding insights - it takes days each month and creates immense pressure at month end.?

Tools Used

Fathom - software that does cash forecasting, insights and mgt accounts? in minutes - even if you have companies in different countries and currencies?

Hours Saved?

400 p.a?

8. Marketing + Sales Automation?

Challenge?

There are multiple spreadsheets with qualifications for different people on it and where people are in sales cycles.???

Going back to the earlier topic of briefing - when we get either a proposal or a brief this goes into our deal pipeline based on what they have said in form.? Also each contact has a score based on what they have engaged with to activate the correct workflow or sequence.? CRMs are nothing new - but the investment in time to make the automation work for your business is worth its weight in gold.

Tools Used

Form Publisher + Hubspot

Hours Saved?

1150 p.a.?

9. Recording Interviews and Transcribing using AI

Challenge

People can’t attend interviews for roles or sometimes they want the feedback from an exit interview .. This is recorded (with permission) and then transcribed and summarised into actions.? This is new and experimental so whilst it doesn't save tons of hours it's got potential.?

Tools Used?

Chat GPT

Otter.Ai?

Hours Saved?

80 p.a?

10. Using Generative AI to Scale Creative?

Challenge

People have limited design resources and are struggling to think creatively about something fresh.? Free your mind with generative AI and kiss goodbye to your brand guidelines (for a little while)?

Early results are showing strong potential - even though this won't be for everyone and still will be a bit of a novelty.

Tools Used

Midjourney?

Hours Saved?

80 p.a

There are lots more tools and tricks we can share that we use in our free time so our team can focus even more on learning, insights, performance and education.

I’d love to hear what automations you have used that have been a lightbulb for your business or role.? Please comment below or ping me with any questions.