Case Study: How We Cut 8 Hours of Monthly Admin Per Client for a UK Email Marketing Agency

The Snapshot – Email Marketing

The Challenge

Every month, Flowly’s account managers sat down and did the same thing for every client on their books: research the brand, work through the calendar — upcoming events, holidays, key retail dates — brainstorm campaign angles, and build a set of ideas to get approved before any actual email work could start.

Eight hours per client, per month. Multiplied across a growing client base, that number compounds fast.

The problem wasn’t the quality of the thinking — it was the time it took to get to the thinking. Account managers spent the first chunk of every month on research and ideation before they could do the work they were actually hired to do. Clients waited up to two days for next month’s campaign ideas to land. Pushing back the sign-off and squeezing the time available to actually build the campaigns.

As Flowly grew, the model didn’t scale. More clients meant more hours blocked out for ideation, and there was no way to absorb that without adding headcount or cutting corners somewhere else.

The Solution

We built a campaign ideation automation using n8n, Google Sheets, and OpenAI. Slotting directly into the workflow that Flowly’s account managers were already using.

Here’s how it works:

Step one: Set up the client sheet.

The automation creates a new, structured Google Sheet for the client’s monthly ideation. The same format the team already used, so nothing changes on their end in terms of where they work.

Step two: run the ideation.

OpenAI takes the client’s details. Their brand, their audience, and their product focus and generates a full set of campaign ideas for the coming month. That includes different campaign types (promotional, educational, seasonal, loyalty). As well as ideas mapped to specific upcoming events, holidays, and key retail dates relevant to that client’s calendar.

Step three: record everything.

Every idea lands directly in the Google Sheet, organised and ready for the account manager to open, review, and work with.

The account manager’s job shifts from spending hours building the idea list to spending minutes reviewing it. Cutting what doesn’t fit, developing what does, and moving straight into client approval.

Training was minimal. The team needed to understand how the AI prompt worked and how to duplicate the workflow for new clients. That’s it. Everything else stayed the same.

The Results

• 8 hours per month, per client, removed from the team’s workload — ideation now takes minutes, not a full working day
• Client wait time cut from 2 days to near-zero — campaigns move to approval faster, giving more time for execution
• Account managers focus on development and approval — the groundwork is done before they open the sheet
• The saving scales with the client base — every new client added means another 8 hours a month that the automation handles, not the team

What Doug B Said

“When it comes to AI and automation, Phil is the only guy I go to. He leads with massive value and provides the exact solutions I need in my business. He takes a bespoke approach to my business’s individual needs and creates solutions that make my life a whole lot easier. Don’t look anywhere else.”

— Doug B, Co-Owner, Flowly

What This Means In Practice

The automation saves 8 hours per client per month, and its real value extends beyond that. It’s what those hours were costing Flowly as a business.

When account managers spend the first week of every month on ideation. They’re not winning new clients, developing existing relationships, or improving the quality of the campaigns they’re already running. The team compresses the creative and strategic work. The work that actually justifies the retainer, into the time that’s left.

This automation gives that time back, not by removing the human judgment from the process. But by handling the legwork that precedes it. The account manager still decides what’s good. Developing the ideas, refining the angles, and getting the client bought in. They just start from a position of having something to react to rather than a blank page to fill.

As Flowly’s client base grows, the automation grows with it. Every new client added is another 8 hours a month that the team doesn’t have to absorb.

If your email marketing agency is scaling but your team’s time isn’t, let’s look at where automation can take the weight.

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