7 unskippable marketing automation workflows in 2025
Regardless of the size, maturity, or complexity of a business, marketers must deal with the ever-growing number of tasks daily. That’s why automation, along with the use of generative AI, is a key marketing trend in 2025, according to Deloitte.
Automating marketing workflows is inevitable even if you’re running a small business that offers a single product or service to a limited number of customers. So, let's explore the key marketing workflows worth automating that can become a game changer for your business.
Overview of marketing automation workflows
Marketing automation workflows enable organizations to automate diverse kinds of tasks related to marketing, sales, team performance, and so on. Simply said, automating marketing workflows implies moving from one step to another automatically.
There are dozens of marketing automation workflows that you can set up for your business. While lead generation and nurturing remain core marketing functions, most automation workflows help professionals manage these tasks one way or another. As a result, 80% of marketers reported increased leads after implementing marketing automation software.
The challenge is to find the right blend of tools that best suit your business goals. Before we review the automation workflows in detail, let's consider their benefits.
Benefits of marketing workflow automation
Automating a marketing workflow may have a different impact on your business, but its key benefits remain the same. The major advantages of marketing workflow automation include the following:
- improved efficiency: Moving from one stage to another is done smoothly, with no time wasted;
- cost and resource reductions: Manual marketing workflows are not only more time-consuming but also more expensive;
- enhanced data accuracy: The minimized risk of error means more accurate calculations and marketing data processing;
- conversion optimization: Effective and timely marketing processes ultimately lead to better conversions.
Essential marketing workflows you can't ignore automating
Now, what are the major marketing workflows that you should automate? Let's have a look.
User onboarding
It's a common practice to send new subscribers an automatic welcome email with all the details needed to proceed with the work. Further user interactions with the product are accompanied by specific onboarding emails or messages sent automatically according to the previously set up logic.
(Source: Email from GitHub)
Meanwhile, there are solutions (e.g., Customer.io) to set up compound user onboarding flows with in-app messages, push notifications, and so on.
Sign-up workflows
If you work in a SaaS business, you must know how meaningful the first interactions with a new client are. The question is how to make these interactions timely, effective, and valuable. That's precisely where automated sign-up workflows can help.
Suppose a new subscriber has just registered on your product platform. In that case, they may automatically receive a demo video or a wizard asking short questions to adjust the product setting to their particular need.
You can also create interactive product tours dedicated to separate features and set up a sequence of interactive tutorials and then send it to a recipient based on their product activity or chosen setup.
Another scenario is events. Sometimes, there is no need to build a sophisticated logic of YES/NO events followed by one or another communication. If you organize a webinar or other online events, all you need is a registration confirmation email and one or two automatic reminders sent before the event.
(Source: Contrast)
Usually, the common tools used for online events (e.g., Zoom) are enough to cover most sign-up automation workflows. When subscribers sign up for an online event, keep in mind that you must provide a permission reminder or checkbox for them to give consent to receive further emails from you.
So, for example, if you use Zoom, you can set up a sign-up email and reminder emails with a few clicks right in your event settings dashboard. Alternatively, you can try specialized webinar software that will help with custom event sign-up workflow automation.
Lead nurturing and management
Even if you are running a small business, managing and nurturing leads manually become challenging at a certain point.
Lead nurturing via automated drip campaigns is an effective and sustainable way to transform yesterday's website visitors into today's loyal customers.
You might offer diverse freebie content on your website that would be interesting for different profiles of potential subscribers. Once a lead leaves contact data, consents to receiving emails from you, and downloads a particular piece of content, a drip email campaign is triggered. You can go further and try out dynamic email sequences with personalized content suggestions.
In terms of lead generation and management, there's also a space for automation:
- consolidate lead tracking in a CRM (Pipedrive or similar), automating task assignments for the team based on the lead's actions;
- synchronize lead data from cold outreach channels (emails, calls, LinkedIn, etc.);
- assign lead scores based on their interactions, which can be automatically displayed in the CRM.
(Source: Email from Fireflies)
Automating lead-related processes can save time for your marketing and sales teams while helping to improve conversion rates.
Customer retention workflows
Retention management workflows come in handy for a business to keep its customers loyal and engaged. Managing retention manually may be challenging, especially if the customer base grows.
On another note, implementing automation enables companies to monitor customer activities and identify potential signs of churn early. Once events signify decreasing customer interest or satisfaction, an automated set of actions is triggered.
You can start with re-engagement email automation. For instance, if a customer's trial is about to end, send them a reminder and explain the perks of a paid subscription.
(Source: Email from Coupler.io)
If the customer's annual subscription expires soon, an email reminding them to renew it with a special offer or recognition would be a good option. In addition, you can send customers a discount on their birthday, loyalty perks, or a reward for their first-purchase anniversary.
(Source: Email from H&M)
Re-engagement emails are just one example of customer retention automation. With solutions such as Omnisend, you can set up automated in-app messages, send SMS, and trigger web push notifications, thereby retaining your customers.
Digest/News update workflows
It is important to publish useful content on your blog for your existing or potential customers. At the same time, you can amplify this activity by distributing engaging content via newsletters.
(Source: Email from AppSumo)
Implementing marketing automation here allows you to segment subscribers, use predefined templates, personalize, and automatically send newsletters.
Some solutions that can help with automatic sending while crafting a newsletter are manual (but you can still create templates). This may be a suitable option for those who rarely send newsletters and product updates.
If you want to set up weekly newsletters for different segments, you need a more advanced approach. For example, tools such as HubSpot allow for setting up fully automated newsletters with fresh information automatically obtained from your website, blog, or other resources. Such workflow automation would work perfectly for businesses with regularly updated blogs.
Upselling workflows
Similar to customer retention workflows, it's important to track how customers use your product and what's going on with their subscriptions.
For instance, a SaaS product can offer different plans with various limits or credit usage, and you may use this opportunity to upsell on a higher plan or offer extra credits.
You can use triggers to automate this workflow and reach out to customers with a particular proposition. Tools such as Intercom can send automated in-app messages to notify subscribers about hitting limits and to offer an upgrade.
(Source: Appcues)
You can also automate conditional upsell messages in chatbots. Alternatively, you can send web push notifications, send SMS, or even launch retargeting ads using information from your CRM and customer success software.
Marketing team and projects
Marketing automation workflows are not only about interacting with leads or existing customers. Dozens of automation solutions are also aimed at improving the work of marketing teams.
Each marketing team member should know their tasks and have all the necessary details to complete them. That's where project management tools such as Trello can help. You can assign a particular task, set a deadline, and track progress using these or similar tools.
Tasks can also be assigned automatically immediately after a particular event. For example, if a new content lead is converted, a marketing manager can receive an automated notification to review it and take relevant actions.
When it comes to team performance, time-tracking tools can help monitor how a marketer processes particular tasks and their overall productivity. You can also set up triggered messages when a person doesn't record working hours or some other actions that need attention.
Moreover, it's worth tracking team expenses and budget allocations. You can automatically collect data from your accounting software or create a dashboard for each channel. For example, if you run paid advertising, export Google Ads data to track spending conveniently and plan further activities.
Apart from these cases, you can automate tasks related to new team member onboarding, such as sending automated notifications to a corporate messenger, creating onboarding checklist templates, and sharing guides via email.
Bonus: Marketing analytics workflow
Apart from the workflows described above, a crucial task for marketers is to process data and measure campaigns, which requires specific attention. Today, the challenge is not only to get data from dozens of sources but also to ensure that the data you track are relevant and valuable for decision-making. That's where automated workflows can help.
First, many marketing tools have analytics functionality, where you can check data by channel, such as SEO, PPC, and email marketing. However, modern businesses invest in multiple channels simultaneously, which can make marketing analytics decentralized or time-consuming.
To handle this, you should use marketing analytics software to automate your entire analytics workflow. It'll help you:
- automate data export from marketing platforms and other tools;
- simplify marketing reporting;
- create unified dashboards;
- minimize errors and the resources of a marketing team.
One such solution is Coupler.io, providing users with reporting automation capabilities, pre-built marketing dashboard templates, and real-time multi-channel insights.
(Source: Coupler.io)
According to McKinsey, an integrated analytics approach can free up 15–20% of marketing spending. For this reason, the use of marketing analytics tools not only improves business efficiency but also saves money.
Wrapping up
The question is no longer whether to automate marketing workflows but what to automate first and which tools would be the most relevant to your business. Most workflow automation solutions offer free trial modes to help you understand if you need a particular product.
Of course, it takes time to implement marketing automation workflows and to make your team adopt them effectively. However, it is evident that in the long run, companies that systematically automate workflows dominate the market.
