Marketing automation promises efficiency and scale. Instead, most companies use it to annoy more people faster. Here’s what’s actually broken—and the middle ground nobody talks about.
You connected with someone on LinkedIn yesterday.
This morning, they sent you a pitch. A full sales deck. Complete with calendar link and “just 15 minutes of your time.”
You didn’t ask for it. You didn’t want it. You barely remember accepting the connection.
But there it is. Sitting in your inbox like an uninvited guest at dinner.
That’s b2b marketing automation in 2025. And it’s making everyone miserable.
The irony? Automation was supposed to make marketing better. More personal. More relevant. More human.
Instead, we’ve built industrial-scale systems for irritating strangers.
Marketing Automation and the Speed Problem Nobody Admits
Here’s what makes automated outreach suspicious: the speed.
When someone connects with you and immediately follows up with a sales message, your brain knows something’s off. Real people don’t move that fast. Real relationships don’t work that way.
The instantaneous response is the tell. It screams: “I automated this.”
And once your prospect knows it’s automated? The game’s over. You’ve revealed that you’re not actually interested in connecting. You’re interested in converting. In counting them as a touch point. In moving them through your funnel.
They’re a number. Not a person.
B2B marketing automation has turned relationship-building into a transaction. And buyers can smell it from miles away.
When Marketing Automation Kills Connection
Think about the last genuinely good conversation you had with a salesperson or marketer.
What made it good? They listened. They asked questions. They cared about your actual problem. They didn’t immediately pitch.
Now think about your automated sequences.
Do they listen? Or do they broadcast?
The brutal truth: most marketing automation is designed for the marketer’s convenience, not the buyer’s benefit. It scales our ability to reach people. But it doesn’t scale genuine human connection. Those are fundamentally different things.
You can’t automate trust. You can’t automate care. You can’t automate the feeling that someone actually gives a damn about your problem.
Yet that’s exactly what we’re trying to do.
What businesses need to know about automating marketing
Not all automation is evil. Welcome emails? Great. They’re expected. They’re contextual. They serve the recipient.
But beyond that? Most companies are just spamming at scale.
The question isn’t whether to use automation. It’s how to use it without being disingenuous.
And that requires asking different questions.
The Questions You’re Not Asking
Before you set up another drip campaign or LinkedIn automation sequence, answer these:
For mass emails: Does this actually address the segment’s core problem? Or is it just our message, scaled?
Most “segmentation” is lazy. You split your list by industry or title and call it personalized. But you’re still sending the same generic message to thousands of people who have wildly different contexts and problems.
Real segmentation means understanding what keeps your ICPs up at night. What they’re measured on. What political dynamics they’re navigating internally. What failed initiatives are making them cautious.
If your automated email doesn’t address that level of specificity, it’s noise.
For automated LinkedIn messages: What’s the connection value for them?
Not you. Them.
Why should they read your message? What do they get out of this interaction? If the answer is “they learn about my product,” you’ve already lost.
The LinkedIn connect-then-pitch move is the perfect example of automation abuse. You’re using the platform’s connection feature to bypass genuine relationship-building. You’re gaming the system.
And everyone knows it.
Beyond speed: What does this automation serve for the consumer?
Speed benefits you. It lets you reach more people with less effort. That’s efficiency.
But efficiency for whom?
If your automation makes the buyer’s life harder—more emails to sort, more pitches to ignore, more spam filters to configure—then it’s not serving anyone except your activity metrics.
What The Automation Data Actually Says (And What It Doesn’t)
The marketing automation industry loves to talk about ROI.
Companies see a $5.44 return for every dollar spent on automation. 76% see ROI within a year. The market is projected to hit $15.58 billion by 2030.
Impressive numbers.
But here’s what the data doesn’t capture: the erosion of trust happening at scale.
The Hidden Cost of Automation Abuse
91% of consumers refuse to buy from businesses using intrusive advertising. 45% will unsubscribe if emails stay irrelevant or overwhelming. 10% will mark you as spam—permanently damaging your deliverability.
And here’s the kicker: 66% of consumers report that brands continue reaching out even after they unsubscribe.
That’s not automation working. That’s automation broken.
The efficiency gains you’re celebrating are coming at the expense of your brand. You’re burning through goodwill faster than you’re generating revenue.
And you won’t see it in your automation dashboard because nobody tracks “brand damage per automated touchpoint.”
The Marketing Fatigue Epidemic
Your buyers are drowning.
They receive hundreds of marketing emails per week. Every brand is using the same automation playbooks. The same cadences. The same “personalization” that amounts to mail merge.
One study found that showing the same ad to the same person six times made 48% call it “annoying” and decreased purchase intent by 16%.
But your automation sequence? It’s probably set to seven emails over two weeks. Because some blog post said that’s the optimal cadence.
You’re not optimizing for the buyer’s experience. You’re optimizing against every other marketer doing the exact same thing.
The result? Marketing fatigue. Email burnout. Unsubscribes.
And then you blame “deliverability issues” or “email fatigue” as if they’re external problems. They’re not. They’re consequences of your choices.
What Automation Should Actually Do
Let’s reset.
Automation isn’t the enemy. Bad automation is.
The goal isn’t to eliminate automation. It’s to use it in ways that enhance human connection rather than replace it.
Marketing Automation as Enhancement, Not Replacement
Good automation handles logistics so humans can focus on relationship-building.
It should:
- Schedule follow-ups so reps don’t forget to reach back out
- Surface relevant context about prospects before calls
- Trigger alerts when high-intent actions happen
- Organize data so teams aren’t drowning in spreadsheets
Bad automation tries to be the relationship.
It:
- Sends templated pitches pretending to be personal
- Follows up aggressively without human judgment
- Blasts messages based on timers, not context
- Prioritizes volume over relevance
The difference? Good automation serves the human doing the connecting. Bad automation tries to replace them.
Less Invasive, More Contextual
Here’s the standard you should hold yourself to: Would a real human do this?
Would a real salesperson connect on LinkedIn and immediately pitch? No. That’s weird and desperate.
Would a real marketer send seven emails in two weeks to someone who hasn’t opened any of them? No. That’s harassment.
Would a real person keep emailing someone who unsubscribed? Absolutely not. That’s violating boundaries.
But your automation does all of this. Because it’s not programmed with common sense or social awareness. It’s programmed with “best practices” from vendors trying to sell you more seats.
The solution isn’t more sophisticated automation. It’s less invasive automation.
What Less Invasive Looks Like
Start with permission, not intrusion.
Don’t automate first contact. Automate the follow-up after genuine engagement happens. Someone downloads your resource? Automation can send the link. But the sales follow-up? That should involve a human deciding if it makes sense.
Use behaviour as your guide, not calendars.
Stop timing emails based on “day 3, day 7, day 14.” Start triggering them based on what the prospect actually does. Visited pricing three times? That’s a signal. Opened zero emails? That’s also a signal—stop emailing them.
Build in friction where it matters.
Not every action should be automated away. Sometimes, making your rep manually review a lead before it enters a sequence is good. It forces judgment. It prevents spray-and-pray.
Efficiency isn’t always the goal. Effectiveness is.
The Real Problem With B2B Marketing Automation
98% of B2B marketers say automation is crucial for success.
But 49% say their biggest challenge is lack of an effective strategy.
Think about that disconnect.
Everyone agrees automation is critical. But half admit they don’t have a strategy for using it well.
So what are they doing? Automating anyway. Because the pressure to “do more with less” is relentless. Because competitors are automating. Because vendors promise easy wins.
The result is automation theater.
You’re moving fast. Sending emails. Tracking metrics. Reporting activity. But you’re not actually connecting with buyers or building trust.
The Trust You’re Destroying
Every poorly-timed automated email erodes trust.
Every generic LinkedIn pitch burns a potential relationship.
Every “just checking in” message that checks nothing signals you don’t actually care.
Trust is your moat. In b2b, trust determines who makes the vendor shortlist. Who gets recommended. Who gets renewals.
And you’re systematically destroying it with automation designed for efficiency rather than connection.
The question isn’t whether automation works. The data says it does—for now.
The question is: at what cost?
How To Actually Use Automation Without Being the Problem
If you’re still reading, you probably recognize yourself in this piece. Good. That’s the first step.
Here’s what to do about it.
Audit Your Current Sequences
Pull up every automated sequence you’re running. Email drips. LinkedIn cadences. Retargeting ads.
Now ask:
- Would I want to receive this?
- Does this provide value to the recipient before asking for anything?
- Am I sending this because it works or because everyone else, does it?
Be honest. Most of your sequences will fail this test.
Kill them. Seriously. Stop running automation that you wouldn’t want to receive.
Your activity metrics will drop. Your “touches” will decrease. Your dashboard will look less impressive.
Good. Those were vanity metrics anyway.
Rebuild Around Value
Every automated touchpoint should answer one question: What does the recipient gain from this?
Not “what do I want them to do.” What do they get?
Example: The broken approach
- Email 1: “We help companies like yours with [vague value prop]”
- Email 2: “Just circling back on my previous email”
- Email 3: “Last attempt—do you have 15 minutes?”
This sequence is about you. Your needs. Your goals. Your quota.
Example: The better approach
- Touchpoint 1: They download a resource. Automation sends it. No pitch.
- Touchpoint 2: Three days later, if they opened the resource, automation sends related content that goes deeper. Still no pitch.
- Touchpoint 3: Rep reviews activity. If high engagement, manual personalized outreach referencing specific sections they engaged with.
The difference? Value first. Automation as support. Human judgment on the pitch.
Embrace Strategic Slowness
Speed creates suspicion. Slowness creates space.
Not every lead needs immediate follow-up. Not every download deserves seven emails. Not every website visit requires a notification to sales.
Give people room to breathe.
Ironically, this might improve your conversions. Because the people who do engage had time to actually consider if they’re interested. You’re not pressuring them into conversations they don’t want.
Quality over volume isn’t just a platitude. It’s a viable strategy that most companies are too impatient to try.
The Part Where We Talk About AI (Because Of Course We Do)
77% of marketers now use AI-powered automation for content personalization.
Great. More scaled mediocrity.
AI can write subject lines and generate content variations faster than humans. But it can’t determine if the entire premise of your outreach is flawed. It can’t tell you that your messaging misses the mark. It can’t rebuild broken trust.
AI amplifies what you feed it. If your strategy is broken, AI will just help you break things faster.
The same principle applies here that applies to all automation: use it to enhance human judgment, not replace it.
What AI Can Actually Help With
AI is excellent at:
- Analyzing which messages resonate with which segments
- Identifying patterns in buyer behavior you’d miss manually
- Generating variations to test different angles
- Handling data analysis at scale
AI is terrible at:
- Understanding nuance and context
- Knowing when not to send something
- Building genuine relationships
- Making strategic decisions about brand trust
If you’re using AI to generate more automated touchpoints, you’re missing the point. Use it to make your human touchpoints more informed and effective.
The Uncomfortable Truth About Marketing Automation
Most marketers won’t change anything after reading this.
They’ll nod along. Agree that automation is overused and trust is eroding. Then they’ll go back to their dashboard and optimize their sequences for more touches.
Because the incentives are wrong.
You’re measured on pipeline created. Meetings booked. Emails sent. Engagement rates.
Nobody’s measuring “brand trust maintained” or “relationships not burned.”
So you’ll keep automating. Because the alternative—sending fewer emails, moving slower, requiring more human involvement—looks like underperformance on your quarterly report.
The Companies That Will Win
The companies that will win in the next five years aren’t the ones with the most sophisticated automation.
They’re the ones that figure out how to use automation to enhance human connection rather than replace it.
They’re the ones whose prospects say: “These people actually seem to care about my problem.”
They’re the ones building trust while everyone else is burning it.
That’s not a technology problem. It’s a philosophy problem.
And it starts with asking better questions than “how can we automate this?”
It starts with: “Should we?”
What This Means For You Tomorrow
You have that planning meeting coming up. Someone’s going to pitch a new automation sequence. More touches. Better cadences. AI-powered personalization.
Here’s what to ask:
- Does this serve the buyer or just us?
- Are we using automation to enhance relationships or replace them?
- What’s the connection value for recipients?
- Would we want to receive this?
If you can’t answer those clearly, don’t build it.
The cost of bad automation isn’t just unsubscribes. It’s trust. Brand perception. The relationships you’ll never build because prospects have already written you off as another spammer.
Automation isn’t inherently good or bad. It’s a tool.
And like any tool, it reveals your values in how you use it.
Are you using it to genuinely help people? Or are you using it to scale the appearance of caring while actually prioritizing efficiency?
Your prospects already know the answer.
The question is: do you?
