Marketers always have something to request from the team's developers. Typically, it's to connect apps that don't have native integrations or build a custom report or search tool. But devs are hard to spare at most companies. You might have a lone engineer for marketing needs, but that dev probably shares their time with the support and sales teams, too.

So what's a marketer to do when a dev isn't around to help build tools and connections? Well, that's when marketers get crafty. Ashita Patel, BuildASign.com's strategic growth manager, got crafty with automation tools.

The first step in automating? Finding the right tools. For their marketing automation and emailing, where their contacts and leads wind up, the team at BuildASign.com relies on ActiveCampaign. So while that takes care of emails and lists, Ashita still needed to get her leads and contacts into ActiveCampaign before magic could happen.

For a time, that meant moving leads and contacts from the generator to a customer relationship manager (CRM) or ActiveCampaign or both. This kept dev resources where BuildASign.com needed them, but meant more menial work for the marketing team.

That's when BuildASign.com turned to app automator Zapier.

About BuildASign.com

BuildASign.com wasn't founded in 2005 to download and import contacts from one app to another. No, it was founded to simplify the world of custom signage. Whether it's a party banner or a magnet, vinyl decals or sandwich boards, BuildASign.com wanted to make customizing signage easy for anyone.

Since then, the company has grown to over 350 employees with a clientele to match. Their workload grew too, especially their leads. It reached a breaking point and Ashita and the team had to find a smarter way to work.

How to Save 5 Hours Every Week

A bit of manual work is fine for most growing companies. Sure, it takes time but you're only uploading contacts and leads once a week. Until it's twice a week...and then every day. And twice a day. And then it's overwhelming, annoying, and pulling people resources away from the work that matters.

When BuildASign.com started to use Zapier, it was simply to save resources. By connecting their lead generators to ActiveCampaign with Zaps—our word for automated workflows—their team didn't have to pull engineers from their day-to-day work and these marketers saved themselves hours every week.

Their workflows are simple and effective, as the best Zaps are: To generate leads, BuildASign.com uses two apps: Cognito Forms and Unbounce. When potential customers fill out a form on BuildASign.com, they're triggering Zaps. Once the form has been filled out, Zapier sends the information to ActiveCampaign, creating a contact and adding them to a list.

Inside Google Sheets, BuildASign.com created an orders review database. Once an order gets to a certain stage, the team reviews the design to make sure it matches the customer's request. When someone updates a row in that spreadsheet, Zapier adds that customer to a "reviews" list in ActiveCampaign, with all the information their team needs.

Simple and effective time savers. These Zaps give Ashita and the BuildASign.com team five hours back every week. Give them a try yourself and see how much time you save:

If you don't use all these apps together, no worries—we have plenty more featuring ActiveCampaign, Google Sheets, Unbounce, and Cognito Forms:

The more work Zapier does for BuildASign.com, the less their dev team has to dedicate resources away from their priorities. The time and money saved with automation makes it easier for BuildASign.com to provide free banners and signs for returning United States veterans and discounted rates for non-profits. It means BuildASign.com lives up to their mission every day, to simplify signs.

For anyone thinking about or new to Zapier, Ashita offers this: "Spend some time just exploring the apps that work with Zapier. Some of my favorite tools were found just looking through the app list."

All images courtesy of BuildASign.com.