Back-office automation
Marketing agency workflow automation: client onboarding and monthly reporting
This illustrative example shows marketing agency workflow automation for two repeated processes: onboarding a newly signed client and preparing the monthly performance report. The proposed workflow sets up the workspace from a template, chases missing assets, gathers and validates report data and drafts commentary, but nothing reaches a client until an account manager has approved it.
A fictional 9-person digital marketing agency serving local businesses. This page shows how we would design the workflow; it is not a client project and claims no results.
- Industry
- Agencies & Service Businesses
- Workflow type
- Back-office automation
- Services involved
The business problem
Where time and enquiries get lost
Each client has different goals, access requirements, reporting formats and approval steps. After a contract is signed, account managers request assets, create folders and tasks, and chase logins and brand files, following a checklist that lives in a document and in their heads.
At month end, figures are copied by hand from advertising, analytics and project tools into slides before any analysis can start. The process depends on individual memory, and copying errors are only caught if someone notices.
The manual process today
- 01Create project folders and task boards by hand for each new client
- 02Send onboarding emails and chase missing assets and access
- 03Record goals and reporting preferences in several places
- 04Gather performance data from advertising, analytics and project tools
- 05Copy metrics into report templates and write client-facing summaries
- 06Check deadlines manually
Proposed workflow
How the automation would work
- Automated step
- A person reviews or acts
- 01
Contract confirmed (automated)
A signed-contract status in the CRM starts onboarding.
- 02
Workspace created (automated)
Project record, folder structure and task checklist are built from an approved template.
- 03
Onboarding pack sent (automated)
A reviewed email requests access, brand assets, goals and contacts.
- 04
Missing items tracked (automated)
Outstanding inputs are listed and reminders follow the agency's communication policy.
- 05
Report data collected (automated)
On the reporting date, authorised integrations pull available metrics.
- 06
Data validated (automated)
Date ranges, missing fields, duplicates and unexpected jumps are checked before use.
- 07
Draft report prepared (automated)
AI summarises the figures and drafts commentary, flagging anomalies instead of explaining them.
- 08
Review and approval (a person reviews or acts)
The account manager verifies figures, interpretation and recommendations.
- 09
Delivered and archived (automated)
Only the approved report is shared with the client and filed in the project folder.
In a real project, rules, tools and approval points are agreed with you during design.
Responsibilities
What AI handles, and what stays with your team
Automation and AI
- Building client workspaces and checklists from templates
- Tracking outstanding onboarding items and sending scheduled reminders
- Pulling and validating monthly figures from connected platforms
- Drafting report commentary that references the supplied data
- Flagging unusual movements and gaps for review
People on your team
- Approval of every client-facing report
- Strategic recommendations and their interpretation
- Budgets and any change to campaign settings
- The onboarding email wording and reminder policy
- How anomalies and incomplete data are explained to the client
Systems
Systems and integrations involved
- CRM or contract-signing system (e.g. HubSpot)
- Project management platform
- Cloud document storage
- Analytics and advertising APIs
- Workflow automation
- AI-assisted reporting
- Approval notifications
Component types, not a fixed product list. We confirm which of your tools can be connected, and how, during discovery.
Safeguards
Security, privacy and exceptions
- Reports are never sent without an account manager's approval
- Draft commentary must cite the source figures, and correlation is not presented as causation
- Client access is granted through each platform's own sharing features, never pasted into forms or email
- If a data source cannot be reached, the run alerts the team instead of leaving a silent gap in the report
- Integrations use read-only permissions, so the workflow cannot change campaign settings
Measurement
What we would measure
No results are claimed for this illustrative example. A real project would first record a baseline for onboarding and reporting effort, then compare the same metrics over an agreed period.
Potential business value
- Every new client gets the same complete onboarding, regardless of who runs it
- Account managers spend reporting time on analysis rather than copying figures
- Data problems are found before a report reaches the client
- Clear approval gates before anything is sent externally
- 01Time from contract signature to onboarding completion
- 02Number of manual steps per new client
- 03Percentage of onboarding tasks completed on time
- 04Hours spent preparing each monthly report
- 05Number of report corrections required after review
- 06Percentage of reports delivered by the agreed deadline
Related services
The services behind this workflow
Business Process Automation
Automate repetitive admin: process incoming emails, extract data, keep systems in sync and produce reports without manual effort.
About Business Process AutomationDocument & Data Automation
Extract fields from invoices, forms and contracts, validate them against your rules and send uncertain values to a person.
About Document & Data AutomationFAQ
Questions about this workflow
- Will the AI write our client reports for us?
- It drafts commentary based on the figures it has been given and marks anything unusual. The account manager checks the numbers, edits the narrative and approves the report before it is sent.
- What if an advertising platform restricts API access?
- Some platforms limit what can be pulled automatically. In those cases the workflow can accept a scheduled export instead, and the report shows which sources were included.
- Can it work with the project management tool we already use?
- Usually, yes. Most common project and document tools have integrations or APIs; we confirm this during the consultation before quoting a fixed price.
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Next step
Discuss your automation project.
Tell us how this process works in your business today. We'll map what could be automated, what should stay with your team, and how success would be measured.