A hands-on log from an ad operations manager on automating the newsletter
"It's the same task every week — so why does it keep eating two or three hours?"
If you run ad media, you've probably had this thought at least once. For us, a single newsletter that goes out just once a week was quietly swallowing our entire Friday afternoon.
The Same Scene, Every Friday
Let me start with what we were actually doing.
The routine never changed. Pull together the week's news. Open last week's email and copy the layout. Resize every image one by one, set the sender and the recipient list, and finally schedule the send time.
Taken one at a time, none of it is hard. The problem was that it came back every single week. And the design step is where the most time leaked away.
"Maybe I'll try something different this time."
Even when that thought crossed my mind, I'd end up just copy-pasting last week's template anyway.
And it added up to more time than you'd expect. Those two or three hours spent on sending were, when you think about it, hours not spent on client communication or media proposals.
First, I Broke the Problem Into Three Pieces
One: content planning. Choosing what to cover this week and sharpening the core message.
Two: design work. Turning the chosen content into a design that fits our brand tone. Repetitive, but needing a little manual touch each time — this was the biggest time sink.
Three: campaign setup. Uploading the finished email to the sending tool, then setting the sender, recipient list, and schedule.
The Email Runs on Brevo, the Automation on Claude
We were already using Brevo as our sending tool. It turns out Brevo lets you control everything from template creation to campaign registration externally, through its API. The buttons a person used to click by hand could now be called by code instead.
So I had Claude access a specific folder on my PC — reading files, creating them, and handling the set procedure on its own.
We split the roles like this:
- Brevo = the infrastructure the email actually goes out through
- Claude = the operator responsible for everything from content planning to setup
- A person = final approval
The Heart of the Automation Is Folder Organization
The first step was setting up a fixed workspace, so that each week I'd only need to refresh the materials in the same spots.
Here's the structure I landed on:
- Brand folder : logo, colors, fonts, tone guide. Fill it once, and it gets referenced automatically every week.
- Reference folder : split into two sides. One holds newsletters we've sent before; the other holds examples from other media we want to reference.
- This week's folder : holds this issue's content and images. Each week, this is the only folder I refresh.
- Output folder : where the HTML drafts the AI builds and the work logs pile up.
- Config folder : holds the Brevo integration details.
And at the top of the folder, I placed a standing-instructions file. It's a document that spells out the rules that repeat every week — what tone to use, what order to work in, what safeguards to keep. Since the Claude reads this first every time, I no longer have to repeat the same explanation week after week.
So Here's How a Week Actually Runs
First, I drop this issue's content into the "this week's folder." Then I upload the examples I want to reference this week into the reference folder.
After that, I tell the Claude in a single line:
"Make this week's newsletter. I've put the content in this week's folder and added two reference examples to the reference folder."
It then analyzes the layout, color usage, and CTA placement of the newly uploaded references. Combining that with our brand guide and the tone of past sends, it builds an HTML draft. The result is saved to the output folder, and I can check it right away in preview.
Something I don't like? I just fix it the way I'd say it out loud. "Make the header bigger," "Make the CTA button stand out more" — that kind of thing. A few rounds back and forth, and the draft is done.
Once I approve it, the coworker moves on to Brevo. It registers the template, creates the campaign, sets the sender and recipient list, and schedules the send time. Every click I used to do by hand gets handled in one go.
This Is the Newsletter It Produced
This particular issue introduced "4 new video ad placements." All I did was drop the content and the media decks into the folder — yet the result was an email complete with section-by-section structure, placement previews, and recommended-advertiser boxes, as shown below.
The finished Adnote newsletter — Photo Widget video ad placement introduction
For each media outlet, a placement preview image goes in, with the placement details and recommended-advertiser information organized automatically below it.
In the past, building a layout at this level directly in the sending tool's editor would have taken a while. Now, I just put in the content and the design comes out along with it, in one pass.
So, Here's What Changed
The two or three hours I used to spend on the newsletter were mostly simple work — copying, adjusting, pasting. Now that time goes into thinking about "what should we cover this week" and "what message should we lead with."
It's not so much that the work shrank — it's more accurate to say the time got reallocated toward what people do well.
When I find a good reference, just dropping it into the folder is enough for it to flow naturally into the next email. I plan to keep looking for ways to make ad operations run more smoothly.
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