‘Set it and forget it’ is how automated email ROI dies

I, like most marketers, love automation. It’s the “magic money machine” of the email world. You set up a triggered series, watch it run, and bask in its recurring revenue.

That’s conventional wisdom. But it’s not that simple.

Automated campaigns are more like houseplants than vending machines. If you don’t water them, check that links still work, images still pull in, offers are still relevant, they wither. And sometimes, they look so bad you wonder how they’re still alive.

The ghost campaigns that wouldn’t die

Years ago, I worked with a client who was in the middle of a platform migration. During the transition, we took a full inventory of their automated campaigns.

We found three that no one at the company even remembered existed. Three orphaned triggered campaigns.

One still brought in revenue, even though the main hero image was missing. There was just a blank white box at the top of the email. It looked terrible—the kind of terrible that makes you think, “This looks like spam,” and “There’s no way anyone would click on that.” And yet, people did click. Some even bought.

Dig deeper: ‘They did it, so we should too’ isn’t an email strategy

This leads to an important truth: some automations have such high revenue-per-email (RPE) that they’re still worth money even when they’re limping along. And those are the ones where optimization pays off fastest. It’s often easier, and far more profitable, to take a good automation and make it great than to try to resuscitate one that’s been underperforming for years.

The small tweaks that moved the needle

Case in point: in a recent optimization project (I wrote about it here on my blog), we took an automated email delivering zero conversions for months and quickly refreshed it.

We didn’t overhaul the strategy. We didn’t rewrite the email. Instead, we made a few small but targeted changes to the creative:

• Added urgency and a benefit to the subject line.
• Used the preheader text to support the subject line.
• Added a headline to the email, next to the brand logo.
• Incorporated benefit-oriented language to the body copy.
• Added a second CTA button to make it a choice.
• Included more benefit-driven copy after the buttons to reinforce the message.

The result? Conversions jumped from 0% to 33% overnight. Are we done? No. Even though this campaign is now pretty successful, we have no further optimization plans.

That’s the power of optimizing what you already have. It’s not about reinventing the wheel. It’s about making sure the wheel is still round and rolling in the right direction.

Why automated campaigns go stale

Even the best automations degrade over time. Common culprits:

• Platform changes: migrations break links, images, or personalization tokens.
• Business changes: products or offers become outdated, but the email still references them.
• Creative fatigue: design and messaging no longer match your current brand voice.

Tech dependencies: dynamic content fails to pull in, sometimes without anyone noticing.

The ROI case for regular optimization

Here’s the math:

If an automation already has a $5 RPE and you improve it by just 10%, that’s an extra $0.50 per send. Multiply that across thousands of monthly sends, and you’re suddenly looking at real revenue growth, without building anything from scratch.

Dig deeper: Why it’s time to reframe email from campaigns to conversations

Compare that to trying to lift a $0.50 RPE manual send campaign by 50%… and you can see why starting with your high performers makes sense.

Bottom line

Automation is a fantastic tool, but it’s not “set it and forget it.” It’s “set it and maintain it.”

The good news? A monthly or quarterly audit can uncover hidden gems and easy wins. You might even find a “ghost campaign” quietly making you money, and with a little love, it could make you a lot more.

So click those links. Check those images. And please, don’t let your best automations limp along when they could be rock star ROI performers.