Marketers are leveraging email marketing automation to boost efficiency in delivering personalized messages. The ever-increasing demand for email content creation and management generates numerous tasks, from initial concept to execution and reporting. Approving key elements of an email campaign, such as content, targeting, or scheduling, are crucial for ensuring messages are compliant and aligned with brand guidelines. However, these approval steps are often manual and time-intensive, leading to delays and inefficiencies.

Benefits of automated approvals in email marketing.

Automated approvals are structured workflows that streamline the review and approval process for email marketing campaigns. They ensure that all necessary stakeholders have the opportunity to review and approve key elements before an email is sent. This is essential for email marketing automation because it allows campaigns to be executed faster, with improved compliance and brand consistency. Automated approvals in email marketing ensure that all emails meet the required standards before deployment.

Adopting automated approvals offers numerous advantages for email marketing teams:

• Increased efficiency and faster time-to-market: Move quickly through the approval pipeline, reducing time spent on manual reviews.
• Improved compliance with regulations and brand guidelines: Ensure all emails adhere to legal requirements and maintain brand consistency.
• Enhanced transparency and accountability: View a clear record of who approved what and when.
• Reduced errors and improved email quality: Minimize the risk of mistakes and ensure emails are error-free.
• Better collaboration and communication: Streamline communication between team members and stakeholders.

Examples of automated approval workflows in action.

Here are a few examples of how automated approval workflows can be implemented in practice:

• Content approval workflow: A draft email is created, routed to a copy editor for review, then to a brand manager for approval on brand consistency, and finally to the email marketing manager for final sign-off before being integrated into email marketing automation.
• Segmentation approval workflow: A new customer segment is created based on behavioral data, the segment is routed to the data analytics team to verify accuracy and ensure proper data hygiene, and then to the marketing manager for approval to ensure alignment with campaign goals.
• Offer/Promotion approval workflow: A new promotional offer is created, routed to the finance team to ensure profitability and budget adherence, and then to the legal team to ensure compliance with advertising regulations before being launched through email marketing automation.

Addressing common concerns and objections.

• Complexity of implementation: Some marketers worry that setting up automated approvals is complex. However, Adobe Campaign provides a user-friendly interface with drag-and-drop workflow builders, making it easy to create and manage approval processes.
• Lack of flexibility: Automated approvals don't have to be rigid. Adobe Campaign allows you to create flexible workflows with conditional branching and the ability to manually override approvals when necessary.
• Cost: While there's an initial investment in setting up automated approvals, the long-term benefits of increased efficiency, reduced errors, and improved compliance can result in significant cost savings.

Automating approvals does not eliminate human oversight. Think of it as an autopilot function on an airplane. The route can be configured, but the captain can always overrule and reroute if unforeseen weather conditions arise. Marketers remain the "captains" in this scenario. There will always be exceptional cases that require human intervention — such as addressing sensitive issues, ensuring compliance with industry regulations, or responding to unforeseen circumstances (for example, an item is out of stock, a store needs to close, or a weather change needs to be reflected immediately). Emails in the approval process can still be declined and prevented from going live. This human touch allows for thoughtful and adaptive decision-making in situations that require personalized attention and expertise.

Key considerations when implementing automated approvals.

• Clearly define roles and responsibilities for each approver.

• Establish clear approval hierarchies to avoid confusion.

• Start with pilot campaigns to test and refine your workflows.

• Provide training and support to ensure all users are comfortable with the new process.

• Regularly review and optimize your approval workflows to identify areas for improvement.

• Consider different team sizes and industries, as a one-size-fits-all approach is ineffective.

  • Usually, bigger marketing teams benefit from approval automation as there is better documentation, and it is more structured and traceable. However, some industries like pharma or finance benefit from it regardless of the team size.

Streamline email marketing with automated approvals in Adobe Campaign.

Adobe Campaign allows you to streamline and automate approval processes so marketing teams can focus on crafting engaging content, nurturing relationships, and enhancing customer experience. With its user-friendly configuration, appointing team members as approvers can be easily done through your Adobe Campaign instance. The actual approving or declining of an element can be done either via email or directly in the console. Adobe Campaign allows you to not only set up approval flows on a campaign level but also as a standalone task in a workflow allowing you to start small, then scale at your pace.

Here are four easy steps your organization can take to lay the right foundation for automated approvals:

1. Establish and document clear approval hierarchies and roles to avoid confusion.
2. Regularly review approval responsibilities to identify opportunities for optimization.
3. Start slowly, scale quickly.
4. Educate stakeholders on the role of approvals.

See how Adobe Campaign empowers you to automate your approval workflows and achieve unprecedented efficiency.

Book a demo now.

Nelly Domonkos has been a business consultant for Adobe Campaign and Journey Optimizer for the last eight years. She collaborates with clients to develop business use cases, establish KPIs, and use Adobe tools to drive value — from implementation to adoption. She brings a wealth of industry experience to the table, optimizing customer journeys and advising on reporting and analysis to guide strategic decision-making.

https://business.adobe.com/fragments/resources/cards/thank-you-collections/campaign