I often joke that “marketing automation” is a bit of a misnomer. There’s a ton of emphasis on the automated (or appearance of automated) elements, while sidelining most of the manual work that makes it happen. It is a bit like the mechanical turk (no not that Turk), where the appearance of automation magic turns out to be a bit of a facade – more often than not, most marketing automation teams are still heavy users of duct tape and rubber bands.
It was fun talking about this, and finding the line between humanity and automation on the Trendspotting podcast recently. You can listen to the episode below.