⚠️Using automations? What could go wrong?

In partnership with

Only 50 more days of Old Man Winter and spring will roll in. I’m gonna warm myself by the glow of Netflix until then. But today, I’m keeping my digits warm on this hot keyboard revealing what no one ever tells you about marketing automation.

Automations are supposed to save businesses gobs of time, right? Put your marketing on auto-pilot, huh? They can. However, what happens when automations get screwed up? 

After we dig into that Feature Story, sip on the following sections: 

• The Knowledge Base  

• Self Help (double dose) 

• Facts & Stats (no marketing help wanted) 

• Get Hacking (remove foot from the gas)

Onward to the Feature (take poll below if you want)…

Marketing Automations → What Could Go Wrong?

Plenty. I know, I know. Automations are saving businesses mountains of time. Freeing up salespeople to do what they do best while the machines handle tedious marketing tasks on autopilot.

Cool. Until something goes horrifically wrong. And when it does, it’s not like your automation tool is gonna raise its silicon hand to tell you it screwed up. It doesn’t even know.

Matter of fact, that little digital automaton is gonna keep making the same mistake until a human being catches it!

I’ve got embarrassing examples to prove it coming up. 

The thing is, AI gurus and cult members are now saying it’s a great idea to let their tools take over your computer and do all your tasks for you. I cannot even imagine what kind of person would let an AI bot like Claude organize their computer desktop or Google Drive.

I like Claude for some tasks. But Claude’s a liar. Makes up all kinda facts and stats just to please me, I think. Then, when I catch “him,” he’ll even fabricate sources to back up his lie, thinking I won’t check the links.

But I can trust Claude to sort through my taxes? Set up a dating profile? Reply to potential customers for me? Please…

Let’s stick to automations, though. Here’s a short list of what could go wrong.

Marketing Automations Gone Wrong

Personalization fails: Sending emails with unmodified name tags like "Hi FirstName" instead of the recipient's actual name. Or every email starting with “Hi f  jones” to someone in a hurry to fill out your email sign-up.

Poorly timed reminders: Sending insensitive automated reminders, such as anniversary emails to someone who just lost a spouse or went through the Big D.

Email list segmentation automation: Lotta ways this could go sideways. What if the automation moves a subscriber into every segment? 

Auto-generated videos: Some tools render videos better than others based on prompts or an uploaded audio file. But cheap automated tools? The results are awful. Getting a human to edit such monstrosities likely takes longer than having a flesh-n-blood video creator work on it from the start. 

Automated responses gone wrong: Using automations for customer service without oversight leads to useless replies. I’ve got a free Dunkin Donuts gift code for the first person who tells me they’ve had a good experience with a chatbot full of stock answers. Automated replies to commenters on YouTube videos are just as pitiful.

The point of replying to followers is building a relationship! That’s like asking your buddy to get your wife pregnant because you’re too busy. It’s gonna go bad, in case that analogy was unclear. 

Automatically-generated hashtags: I can think of ten different disaster scenarios here if you were to let a marketing automation tool insert trending hashtags for you. 

I’m not against automation. 

It’s just that I don’t believe a business can use them without a human checking for problems. 

Even then, what’s human nature? To relax and get complacent after everything’s running smoothly. 

Then, out of the blue. Bam! The automation bites you in the butt like with these fine brands below…

#WalkersWave Campaign. Some U.K. snack company asked followers to send in selfies for a chance to win soccer tix. Their automated system turned these submissions into videos without vetting, resulting in images of serial killers and criminals being featured.  

The New England Patriots' Twitter bot automatically retweeted a racial slur as part of a campaign celebrating reaching one million Twitter followers. It only took an hour for the social media team to notice and remove the offensive tweet.

Airbnb's Ill-Timed "Floating World" Email. The company launched an automated email campaign featuring water-themed houses with copy like "Stay above water" on the same day Hurricane Harvey was pounding Houston.

I’ll drop an extra example at the end of this email. 

Bottom Line?

I don’t trust automations any more than I trust Claude or his creepy cousin ChatGPT. Unless a human - a detail-oriented human who gives a dang - is on watch, automations can jack up your brand in a hot minute.

FAFO, if you don’t believe me (Claude’s words, not mine).

One note. A brand can just apologize for insensitive emails like the Airbnb hurricane example. I mean, the brand can’t be expected to predict hazardous weather before they shoot off a planned email.

Even if the email isn’t pre-scheduled (automated), the email marketer can’t be expected to check for disasters in every city that might relate to their upcoming email.

10x Your Outbound With Our AI BDR

Imagine your calendar filling with qualified sales meetings, on autopilot. That's Ava's job. She's an AI BDR who automates your entire outbound demand generation.

Ava operates within the Artisan platform, which consolidates every tool you need for outbound:

• 300M+ High-Quality B2B Prospects

• Automated Lead Enrichment With 10+ Data Sources Included

• Full Email Deliverability Management

• Personalization Waterfall using LinkedIn, Twitter, Web Scraping & More

Book a demo and supercharge your sales team.

Self-Help

Two tips. Both from the same anti-time management podcast episode.

#1 Erase goals that don’t get you to your dream. Do this right, and sometimes your dream moves from the end of your timeline to the front - the present. 

#2 Don’t act like you understand someone’s point if you don’t. Ask them to clarify it until you REALLY get it. This can be uncomfortable (like in the podcast) and make us miss good stuff.

Facts & Stats

Bonus: What percentage of small businesses handle their own marketing? Answer at end of email.

Get Hacking

A specific strategy to implement today

Today’s hack hits the brakes instead of the gas. 

Just because a marketing action is an alleged “best practice” doesn’t mean your brand should do it.

Example here…

I’ve read few (ok, zero) articles advising brands to NOT do a content gap analysis of their competitors. 

I guess social media is good for something because you can run across tweets like the one above. Opinions like that at least give you pause before you invest in a “best practice” that would waste your time and resources.

ALT Hack: Double-check that your members can easily find the log-in link on your website. I saw a non-profit site’s donation page where the member link was text-only (no button). And the link’s font color was not noticeably different from the regular text.

Thanks for reading Inbox Hacking. Please share it with your peeps - it’s sugar-free but stings a bit.

Shane McLendon - Copy Kingpin

Bonus answer from Facts & Stats section: 47% of small business owners handle their own marketing (Luisa Zhou)

Extra automation screw-up example: Snapchat’s automated ad system thought a domestic abuse poll would be “fun.” Umm, no. 

ICYMI: 📊Data-driven: driving projects into the ground?