Think of Automation Like an Employee—Because It Works Like One

Would you let a new hire run sales emails or customer chat without ever checking their performance? Would you let them keep doing the same thing month after month, without feedback or adjustment?

That’s exactly how most businesses treat their automations.

But the reality is this: If an automation touches customers, controls messaging, or connects your tools, it needs someone assigned to review it. This is especially true with third-party tools like Zapier. These tools are powerful, but fragile. One small change to your Google Sheet, Typeform, or CRM permissions can break the chain. And the system won’t always tell you something’s wrong.

We’ve worked with clients who discovered entire months of leads never reached their CRM, because a Zap failed silently after a platform update. No alert. No error. Just lost opportunity.

Review Cadence: How Often Should You Check Your Automations?

There’s no universal answer—but there is a rule of thumb: the more value tied to the automation, the more frequently it should be reviewed. At a baseline, most automations should be checked biweekly. That means testing the function, reviewing recent activity, confirming success metrics, and ensuring nothing has changed in the connected tools or platforms.

If your automation is tied to revenue, like a lead routing system, a checkout flow, or a retention campaign, you’re in a different league. For one e-commerce client, we monitor purchase-related automations every three business days because a missed step could mean hundreds of dollars in lost revenue per day. For a B2B client using a multi-step Zapier flow to deliver demo requests to multiple departments, we’ve implemented a 5-day check-in cadence—plus automatic logging and failure notifications to catch silent issues.

The cadence should match the cost of failure. If you can’t afford to lose the leads or interrupt the flow, you can’t afford to wait weeks between checks.

Where Automation Breaks—And How to Avoid It

One of the most common failure points is social media automation—particularly auto-responses. Businesses set up tools to reply to comments or DMs with templated answers or links to resources. It saves time. Until it doesn’t. One client’s chatbot started responding with outdated links after a URL structure changed on the website. For a week, prospects were being sent to 404 pages—on social media, in public view.

Another example: Zapier flows built to connect forms with CRMs, email platforms, or spreadsheets. The more tools you connect, the more fragile the setup becomes. API limits, login expirations, or even renaming a spreadsheet column can break the chain without warning.

And then there’s AI-based automation—fast, flashy, and increasingly popular. But AI doesn’t understand your business goals. It doesn’t always recognize nuance. One poorly trained auto-reply system we inherited was using a chatbot to respond to customer complaints on social with overly enthusiastic, tone-deaf messages: “Thanks so much for your feedback! We appreciate you!” That’s not just ineffective—it’s brand-damaging.

These failures aren’t rare. They’re predictable. And preventable.

Automation Doesn’t Eliminate Work—It Changes the Nature of It

When done right, automation reduces repetitive manual tasks, increases consistency, and frees up human energy for creative or strategic work. But it doesn’t eliminate effort—it just moves it. The setup takes planning. The monitoring takes discipline. The improvement takes analysis.

We often tell clients: automation saves time, but it costs time too—especially upfront, and especially when it matters. The tradeoff is worth it if you build with intention. And that includes building a system for review, documentation, and evolution. The businesses that benefit the most from automation aren’t the ones using the newest tools. They’re the ones managing those tools with the same care they’d give a contractor, a key hire, or a vital platform.

Want Automation to Work? Treat It Like It Matters

It’s easy to get excited about what automation can do, and it’s easy to neglect it once it’s running. But small businesses don’t have the margin for automation gone wrong. That’s why a solid automation strategy includes not just what to build, but how to monitor, review, and improve it over time.

If you’re relying on automations for lead flow, customer service, or operational efficiency, and you haven’t reviewed them in a month… it’s time. And if you’re not sure where to start, we can help.

Anvil Media works with small businesses to plan, build, and manage marketing automation systems that actually work—consistently, and with confidence. Whether you need a one-time audit, a fix for a broken flow, or a partner to help you scale responsibly, let’s talk.

Connect with a marketing automation consultant at Anvil

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