B2B omni-channel automation with AI: A lean team playbook

Most B2B teams say they’ve “automated,” when what they’ve really done is stitch together fragile hacks that break the second you scale. And as leads vanish and sales ignores marketing’s handoffs, campaigns run like isolated experiments with no system behind them.

There’s no such thing as 100% automation. The second you remove human oversight and documentation, your stack will collapse under its own weight.

In CXL’s webinar, Liana Hakobyan, Head of Marketing at Iris.ai, shared how small teams can out-execute enterprise giants faster. Not by doing more, but by building a system that works across channels, keeps QA human-in-the-loop, and compounds fast. 

And you can do it in a matter of days, not months.

This blog breaks down the exact B2B omni-channel marketing automation system lean teams can build to run multi-channel campaigns, score and route leads, and scale without breaking.

Campaigns are dead. Systems win.

Prospects don’t live in one channel. They bounce between LinkedIn, email, WhatsApp, and the occasional phone call. If your outreach runs in silos, you’re pretty much invisible.

Omni-channel isn’t about spamming more messages. It’s about coordinated touchpoints with one source of truth.

Here’s how you know you’re still “running campaigns”:

• Duplicate touches: Two reps hitting the same lead with the same pitch;
• Lead leakage: Demo requests vanish into a black hole;
• Unowned handoffs: Marketing “done their job,” sales left guessing.

The system that fixes this is simple:

• HubSpot: Owns audiences and events;
• Make: Moves data, enriches leads, and connects tools;
• Lemlist: Executes outreach at scale with personalization rules.

(Image Source: Lemlist)

Draw your next campaign as a journey map. Who enters, what triggers, where they exit. If you can’t map it, you’re still just lobbing campaigns into the void.

Small teams, big wins: The B2B omni-channel marketing advantage

Big teams have bureaucracy. Small teams have speed. That’s leverage.

With fewer people:

• You fix faster: If a flow breaks, it’s hours, not quarters;
• You own more: No hiding behind “that’s not my job”;
• You test quicker: Iteration cycles shrink from weeks to days.

The stack doesn’t need to cost a fortune. HubSpot Enterprise campaigns start at $800/month. If that’s out of reach, you can replicate the essentials with Excel + Make.

Here’s a budget stack that works:

• Planning and analytics: Excel/Sheets + Make;
• Social data: Buffer export + Make;
• CRM: HubSpot Starter/Pro, or a lightweight CRM if you must;
• Outreach: Lemlist (or similar).

Don’t chase enterprise tools or software you can’t maintain. Small teams win by staying light.

(Image Source: Make)

And if you’re comparing automation layers: Make works better for non-technical teams, with a drag-and-drop interface. N8n gives developer-level control but demands heavier configuration.

Complexity kills. Simplicity compounds.

If you can’t explain a workflow in under 5 minutes, it’s too complex. Complexity is the silent killer of lean marketing.

Most AI pilots fail because no one defines KPIs, sets ownership, or documents a rollback plan. You end up with spaghetti automations no one dares to touch.

The rule: document as you build and create guides. Every flow should have:

• Owner named;
• Last review date;
• Rollback steps.

“If I leave tomorrow and the workflows aren’t documented, the whole thing collapses. That’s why we use Miro for flow mapping, Loom for walkthroughs, and Scribe for step-by-steps. It leaves a trail anyone can pick up.”

— Liana Hakobyan

QA isn’t optional. It’s the difference between a growth system and a brand liability. Set a weekly QA cadence—sample checks, error logs, and Slack alerts. If you’re not monitoring, you’re guessing.

Checklist for a ship-ready flow:

• Owner assigned;
• Miro diagram linked;
• QA cadence set (weekly);
• Guardrails defined (brand, compliance, thresholds);
• Rollback steps documented.

(Image Source: Miro)

Beyond marketing: Make automation contagious

Omni-channel doesn’t stop at lead generation. Once you’ve built the core, expand to other teams.

At Iris.ai, automation spread from marketing to engineering. Tutorials and onboarding turned Make into a company-wide competency. The result: friction dropped across departments.

Examples:

• Founder content: Automate first drafts from webinars and social, then edit manually;
• Topic mining: Pull conversations from Reddit/Quora to spark content ideas;
• Internal playbooks: Record 5-minute Looms to scale workflows without training bottlenecks.

Skip the human edit and you’re just adding to the noise. Automation is leverage only if the final output strengthens your brand, not weakens it.

The 3-day build: HubSpot → Make → Lemlist

Stop overcomplicating. The flow is straightforward.

Day 1: Build in HubSpot

• Define audience, landing pages, UTMs, and conversion events.
• Connect LinkedIn, ads, site, and WhatsApp Business if relevant.

Day 2: Connect with Make

• Export campaign data into Sheets/Buffer.
• Use Make for AI lead research, enriching HubSpot submissions with LinkedIn and Crunchbase data.
• Run pattern checks, post Slack digests, flag underperformance.

“We built a lead research agent in Make that enriches HubSpot form submissions with LinkedIn and Crunchbase data. Now, instead of guessing, our sales team is getting more qualified calls and meetings every week.”

— Liana Hakobyan

Day 3: Orchestrate outreach with Lemlist

• High-score leads → personalized human sequences.
• Low-score leads → automated nurture.
• Sync all outcomes back into HubSpot.

Close the loop: Sales marketing alignment is non-negotiable. Sales must feed back disqualification reasons. Without it, scoring and routing rot.

Metrics that matter

Forget vanity metrics. B2B omni-channel automation lives or dies on pipeline health:

• Pipeline velocity: Time from form-fill to meeting;
• Handoff acceptance rate: % of MQLs sales actually accepts;
• MQL → SQL conversion rate: By route (sales vs nurture);
• Content assist: Replies referencing assets;
• Cost to operate: Tool spend vs time saved vs additional meetings booked.

Early results already show directional gains: more sales calls, faster handoffs, and higher-quality meetings. Over time, track the metrics above to prove ROI and optimize further.

If you can’t prove impact on pipeline velocity, your automation isn’t working.

Failure modes that will wreck you

Most teams fail in predictable ways:

• Over-automating creative: AI writes your CEO’s LinkedIn posts? Your brand voice erodes. Add a human editor;
• No sales feedback loop: Leads get thrown over the wall and ignored;
• Spaghetti integrations: Too many tools, no single source of truth;
• Tool sprawl: Five automation tools, zero accountability. Standardize on one CRM, one automation layer.

Ignore these, and you’re just flooding channels with off-brand, low-quality outreach.

Durable beats shiny

Omni-channel isn’t a shiny stack. It’s a durable system that compounds.

Small teams don’t need Salesforce armies. They need documented, QA’d workflows that sales trusts. They need to close the loop, not chase the next AI hype post on LinkedIn.

Omni-channel is buyer reality. Either you align with it, or you bleed pipeline.

Actionable takeaways

• Design journeys, not campaigns;
• Use HubSpot → Make → Lemlist as your core stack; fallback: Excel + Make;
• Keep flows simple, document as you build;
• Score, route, then personalize; don’t waste sales on junk leads;
• Close the loop with sales feedback. If disqualified leads don’t shape your scoring, you’re doing it wrong.

AI won’t save your pipeline. Systems will.

Stop patching campaigns together and hoping for the best.

Build a system in three days. Run QA weekly. Force sales feedback into marketing.

If you don’t, you’ll keep leaking leads while your competitors compound gains.

Want to see it in action?

→Watch the full webinar replay with Liana Hakobyan to see the step-by-step flow.  

→ Level up with CXL’s B2B AI Marketing program and learn how to turn omni-channel automation into revenue.