Marketing operations automation
Marketing already runs on automation tools, which is precisely why the problem here is different. It is rarely "we have no automation" and almost always "we have six tools that disagree with each other and nobody trusts the numbers."
1. Cross-channel campaign reporting — $9,000 to $15,000
What happens now: exports from ad platforms, the email tool, analytics and the CRM, stitched together in a spreadsheet monthly. The numbers never quite reconcile, and the meeting spends its first fifteen minutes arguing about which source is right.
What we build: a pipeline pulling from each source on a schedule into one consolidated table, with spend, sessions, leads, opportunities and closed revenue joined on a consistent key. A dashboard on top, or a scheduled summary.
The hard part is not the pipeline. It is agreeing what a "lead" is, which source wins when two disagree, and how to handle the records that exist in one system and not another. Expect to spend real time on definitions before anyone writes code — that conversation is most of the value.
2. Attribution stitching — $10,000 to $18,000
What happens now: the ad platforms each claim the same conversions, the CRM says "web form", and nobody can answer which channel actually produced revenue.
What we build: first-touch and last-touch capture persisted onto the contact record at creation, UTM parameters preserved through the form, and offline conversions pushed back to the ad platforms so their optimisation has real outcomes to learn from.
Multi-touch attribution is less reliable than vendors imply, and has become more so as tracking restrictions have tightened. We build the plumbing to capture what is genuinely capturable and we will tell you plainly which questions your data cannot answer. Anyone promising exact multi-touch attribution across paid social is overselling.
3. Lead enrichment and scoring — $8,000 to $13,000
What happens now: a form capturing name and email, then a salesperson researching the company manually to work out whether it is worth a call.
What we build: enrichment on creation — company size, industry, technology stack, funding — and a score against your ICP criteria written to the record. Sales sees the context without doing the research.
Running cost note: enrichment APIs charge per lookup, so this carries a higher monthly cost than most builds here. Worth modelling against your lead volume before committing.
4. List hygiene and suppression — $8,000 to $12,000
What happens now: bounces accumulate, unsubscribes are honoured in one tool but not another, duplicates get emailed twice, and deliverability quietly degrades until something breaks.
What we build: a central suppression list enforced across every sending tool, automatic bounce and complaint handling, deduplication, and re-engagement or sunset rules for contacts who have not opened in a defined window.
Compliance angle: honouring an unsubscribe in one system and not another is a genuine legal exposure under CAN-SPAM and GDPR, not just an etiquette problem. A single enforced suppression list is the fix.
5. Content distribution and scheduling — $8,000 to $11,000
What happens now: publishing something means manually posting to four channels, updating the newsletter, notifying sales, and adding it to a tracking sheet.
What we build: publication triggers channel-appropriate distribution from one source, with per-channel formatting, scheduling, internal notification and logging.
What we will not build: generated social copy posted without review, or engagement automation that simulates a person. Distribution is mechanical and worth automating; the appearance of a human being present is not. See what we refuse to automate.
6. Event and webinar operations — $9,000 to $14,000
What happens now: registration in one tool, reminders sent by hand, attendance reconciled afterwards in a spreadsheet, follow-up sequences split by attended and no-show, and the CRM updated eventually.
What we build: registration into the CRM with source tracking, staged reminders, attendance data pulled back automatically, differentiated follow-up, and hot leads flagged to sales while the event is still fresh.
7. MQL to sales handoff — $8,000 to $12,000
What happens now: marketing declares a lead qualified, sales disagrees, and the disagreement recurs monthly without data to settle it.
What we build: a defined handoff with the qualifying evidence attached, an acceptance or rejection step for sales with a reason code, and reporting on rejection reasons over time. The routing is the small part; the feedback loop is the point.
The pattern in marketing operations
Notice how many of these are really reconciliation problems rather than task-automation problems. Marketing usually has plenty of tools already automating the sending; what it lacks is one trustworthy version of what happened.
That changes the sequencing advice. In most functions we suggest starting with the biggest pool of hours. In marketing we suggest starting with the thing that makes the numbers trustworthy, because until the data is reliable every subsequent decision about where to spend is guesswork.
What we would do first
List hygiene, then reporting, then attribution. List hygiene is cheap, carries compliance value, and improves deliverability immediately. Consolidated reporting comes next because it forces the definitional conversation. Attribution last, because it depends on both and is the one most likely to reveal that a channel everyone likes is not working.
Nobody trusts the marketing numbers?
That is a solvable problem and usually a cheaper one than it looks. Thirty-minute call to scope it.