From brief to send

In short

Six things we heard again and again

The range is wide: from teams of three people to large central teams, and from handling one market to more than thirty. Even so, the patterns were strikingly similar.

1. 1

   Content is still moved manually

   13 of 28

   Copy, images and links are moved from spreadsheets, documents, Figma and translation tools into the email platform. The templates are rarely the problem. It’s the moving that eats the time.

2. 2

   Language versions are the biggest time sink

   13 of 16 multilingual

   Almost everyone who sends in several languages makes the versions fully or partly manually. New and smaller markets get fewer versions, and for one team this holds back growth.

3. 3

   Approvals have many steps and no shared trail

   13 of 17

   Most approve in several steps. Almost nobody gives feedback directly on the email itself. It lives in emails, Teams, Slack, PDFs, screenshots, Figma or tickets.

4. 4

   Production rests on a few shoulders

   8 of 28

   Eight of the 28 told us themselves that one key person or a very small team is the bottleneck. Not everyone was asked directly, so this is a minimum. Seven depend on an agency or an external developer when templates or code need to change.

5. 5

   Everyone uses AI, but alongside production

   13 of 13 on AI

   Everyone who talked about AI uses it today, mostly in general-purpose tools, with the output copied into the platform. Nobody yet produces campaigns from brief to send with AI. IT, legal and language requirements are holding it back.

6. 6

   The platform changes, but the workflows don’t follow

   9 of 28

   Nine are in the middle of, or have just completed, a switch of email platform. Templates are often moved one to one, and the way they produce stays the same.