Case Study

Artisan Enterprise

Creative Advertising & Marketing Agency

From lead to kickoff in minutes, not hours.

We connected Meta Ads, HubSpot, Slack, ClickUp and Google Drive with n8n so every enquiry becomes a structured opportunity, every signed client generates a complete onboarding pack, and campaign reporting runs automatically-without your team living in spreadsheets.

8-12 hours / week saved
Setup: 30-45 → 5-10 mins
Reporting: ~30 mins/week
Book a discovery call See the automations
Workflow diagram showing lead intake flowing to onboarding, approvals, and automated reporting
Industry Creative advertising & marketing
Team Sales + account management + creative ops + delivery
Tools HubSpot, Meta Ads, Slack, ClickUp, Google Drive, Google Sheets, Gmail (Google Workspace), Looker Studio, n8n
Challenge Fragmented lead handling + manual onboarding + scattered approvals
Objective Reduce admin + speed up lead-to-kickoff
Timeline 3-4 weeks
The Challenge

Before: Manual processes slowing everything down

Artisan Enterprise was growing-but delivery ops were held together with inboxes, spreadsheets, and Slack threads. Leads came in from multiple sources and were manually copied into HubSpot. Once a deal closed, onboarding relied on someone remembering every step: creating folders, duplicating templates, setting up ClickUp tasks, notifying stakeholders, and chasing assets. Approvals lived in long email chains and Slack messages. And reporting meant pulling performance metrics manually every week across platforms.

The team was talented. The system wasn't.

Key friction points

  • Leads from Meta + website arrived in different places with inconsistent routing and follow-up
  • New client onboarding required manual folder creation, template duplication, and task setup
  • Briefs, assets, and approvals were scattered across Slack, email, and Drive
  • Status updates weren't centralized-account managers spent time chasing progress
  • Weekly reporting required manual compilation from ad platforms, HubSpot, and spreadsheets
The Solution

Event-driven workflows built in n8n

Five connected automations that respond to real agency events—so onboarding, delivery, approvals, and reporting run with less manual effort.

01

Lead intake → Structured opportunity

Trigger

Meta Lead Ads (Instant Form) submission or website enquiry

Automation

Dedupe in HubSpot, assign owner based on rules, create deal with standard properties, generate follow-up task, notify assigned rep in Slack, log to tracking sheet

Outcome

Every lead is captured, owned, and actioned within minutes-not hours

Reliability: Retry logic on API failures, error alerts to ops channel
02

Deal won → Client onboarding pack auto-creation

Trigger

HubSpot deal stage changes to "Won / Closed Won"

Automation

Create ClickUp project from a client onboarding template, generate Google Drive folder structure (Brief, Assets, Creative, Deliverables, Reporting), create a kickoff checklist + internal handoff tasks, create a dedicated Slack channel, and notify the account + delivery team

Outcome

Kickoff assets and tasks are ready automatically the moment the deal closes

Reliability: Folder creation verified before task creation, audit trail logging
03

Brief submitted → Task routing + asset organization

Trigger

Brief form submission (with file uploads) or ClickUp intake task marked complete

Automation

Parse key details (service type, deliverables, due dates), route to the right delivery pod, create milestones in ClickUp, auto-file any uploaded assets into the correct Google Drive folder, and post a clean handoff summary in Slack

Outcome

No manual triage-delivery starts with the right info, in the right place

Reliability: Validation checks for missing fields/assets + alerts when something is incomplete
04

Asset ready → Approvals & status updates

Trigger

ClickUp task status changes to "Ready for Review"

Automation

Notify internal reviewers in Slack with the correct links, manage approve/revise in ClickUp, escalate to the project manager automatically, email clients when external approval is required, and log approval cycle time for reporting

Outcome

Approvals move fast, with visibility and escalation-not forgotten threads

Reliability: Escalation after 24h without response, state tracking
05

Reporting automation

Trigger

Scheduled: Every Monday at 7am

Automation

Pull Meta Ads performance metrics and HubSpot funnel data, write the latest numbers into a Google Sheets reporting dataset that powers Looker Studio dashboards, generate a weekly summary, post it to Slack, and email stakeholders via Gmail

Outcome

Team starts Monday with a complete performance picture-no spreadsheet wrangling

Reliability: API health check before pull, fallback to cached data if service unavailable
Transformation

Before vs. After

Before

  • Leads sat in inboxes before being assigned or followed up
  • 30-45 minutes to set up each new client onboarding manually
  • Briefs and assets lived in scattered folders and threads
  • Approvals were slow with no clear “who's next”
  • 2-3 hours every Monday pulling reports together
  • Team felt reactive and stretched thin

After

  • Leads assigned and actioned within minutes
  • 5-10 minutes—most of it automated
  • Briefs/assets stored automatically in the right client project pack
  • Reviewers notified instantly with escalation when needed
  • ~30 minutes reviewing pre-built dashboards
  • Team focuses on delivery quality, not admin
Estimated Impact

What changed

8-12 hrs
saved per week

Across account management, creative ops, and reporting-time previously spent duplicating projects, creating folders, chasing updates, and compiling results.

30-45 → 5-10
minutes per onboarding setup

Auto-generated Drive structure, ClickUp templates, and Slack notifications mean kickoff prep happens instantly after a deal is won.

~30 min
weekly reporting time

Down from 2-3 hours. Dashboards refresh automatically; team reviews instead of builds.

Integration

Works with their stack

HubSpot
Meta Ads
Slack
ClickUp
Google Drive
Google Sheets
Gmail
Looker Studio
n8n

"We stopped chasing updates and started shipping work faster. Onboarding happens automatically, approvals are cleaner, and Monday reporting is finally predictable."

LD
Leah Dhanda Operations Lead, Artisan Enterprise
Delivery

How we delivered

01

Audit

Mapped existing tools, workflows, and pain points

02

Blueprint

Designed automation architecture and prioritized by impact

03

Build

Implemented workflows in n8n with error handling and logging

04

Rollout

Trained team, documented processes, went live

05

Iterate

Refined based on real usage and added new automations

In Practice

What it looks like

Clean HubSpot pipeline view

HubSpot pipeline hygiene

Deals auto-stage, follow-ups auto-assign

ClickUp project template

ClickUp template project

Pre-built tasks spawn automatically

Google Drive folder structure

Drive client project pack

Briefs, assets, deliverables organized by default

Weekly reporting dashboard

Weekly reporting summary

Dashboard + Slack digest every Monday

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