How to Decide What to Automate First
Most marketing leaders know their teams spend too much time on repetitive data and reporting tasks. The harder question is knowing which processes are actually costing the most - and which are worth automating first.
Campaign reporting, CRM data management, lead processing, attribution, spreadsheet consolidation and performance dashboards can all consume significant time. But the most frustrating process is not necessarily the one that offers the greatest return from automation.
This framework gives marketing leaders a structured way to evaluate manual processes, identify where automation could deliver the greatest return, and prioritise the opportunities most likely to produce a fast, measurable result.
The aim is not to automate everything at once. It is to identify the one or two processes where automation can have the greatest initial impact, build the case around real numbers, and use the early win to guide what comes next.
Score each candidate manual marketing process from 1 to 5 across five dimensions. Compare the totals to identify the strongest candidates for automation.
How many hours does this process consume? High-frequency, high-hour processes usually create the fastest payback because savings accumulate every week.
How often does somebody have to go back and fix something? The true cost includes both the original task time and the time spent correcting errors.
What happens if this process goes wrong? Consider consequences beyond the hours lost.
What valuable work is not happening because skilled marketers are doing this instead? Manual work has an opportunity cost as well as an hourly cost.
How straightforward would this process actually be to automate? Prioritise processes where the path to a useful, measurable result is short and provable.
A B2B marketing team identifies four potential processes: weekly campaign reporting (8 hours per week), CRM data cleaning (5 hours per week), lead-list preparation (4 hours per week), and monthly board reporting (10 hours per month).
Weekly campaign reporting scores highly because data is manually exported from several platforms, combined in Excel, checked and reformatted every week. The process is repetitive, consumes substantial time and follows consistent rules, making it relatively straightforward to automate.
CRM cleaning has a significant error cost but requires more exceptions and human judgement. Lead-list preparation is easy to automate but consumes fewer hours. Board reporting consumes significant senior time, but its format and commentary vary each month, reducing automation feasibility.
Campaign reporting therefore becomes the first automation priority: it combines high time volume with strong feasibility and offers a clear, measurable early win.
Score each candidate process from 1 to 5 on each dimension:
Add the five scores for a total out of 25.
A high-priority opportunity, particularly where automation feasibility and time volume are also high.
Worth addressing after the strongest first candidate has produced a measurable result.
Document the process and revisit it later unless its business or data risk is unusually high.