How a Sports Marketing Agency Saved $25K Monthly and Tripled Athlete Deal Flow
A boutique sports marketing agency specializing in athlete-brand partnerships was facing a common challenge: operational bottlenecks. As brand demand increased, so did the complexity of managing campaigns—from matching athletes with the right brands, to coordinating creative approvals, to tracking deliverables across dozens of stakeholders.
Despite having a lean team, the agency was manually managing every step of the workflow using spreadsheets, email chains, and shared folders. As a result, campaigns often took weeks to launch, and high-value opportunities were being delayed—or worse, lost.
The Challenge
With deal volume growing, the agency hit a ceiling. Account managers were spending more time chasing approvals than closing deals. Talent coordinators juggled overlapping deadlines, and leadership struggled to get real-time visibility into campaign status.
They needed a way to automate the busywork, without hiring more staff or building a custom platform from scratch.
The Solution
NoLo Automation partnered with the agency to redesign and streamline their campaign execution using no-code workflows and AI agents tailored to their unique needs.
The solution included:
- A brand-athlete matchmaking agent that automatically filtered athletes by audience fit, social metrics, and deal history.
- An AI-powered approval tracker that monitored content status and sent intelligent nudges to stakeholders via Slack and email.
- A deliverable dashboard built with Airtable and integrated into Slack for real-time tracking and automated deadline reminders.
All of this was deployed using no-code platforms like Airtable, Slack, and Make.com—without writing a single line of custom code.
The Results
Within the first 30 days of implementation, the results were game-changing:
- Campaign launch time dropped by 70%, cutting weeks off their execution cycles.
- Labor costs dropped by $25,000 per month, as repetitive coordination tasks were eliminated.
- Brand deal volume tripled, growing from 10 to 30 active monthly campaigns without adding headcount.
One campaign manager shared, “Before NoLo, we were sprinting uphill. Now, campaigns run on autopilot and we focus on building relationships and landing bigger deals.”
Why It Worked
Rather than building a new system from scratch, NoLo tapped into what the agency already had—Slack, Airtable, and Google Drive—and transformed it into a smart operating system.
By embedding automation where it mattered most (approvals, tracking, and matchmaking), the solution improved internal coordination and enhanced the client experience. Brands began receiving updates faster, and athletes had clearer visibility into deliverables and timelines.
The agency didn’t just save time—they leveled up their professionalism and scalability in the eyes of both brands and talent.
What’s Next
Buoyed by success, the agency is now exploring AI agents for campaign performance reporting and payment tracking. With scalable systems in place, they’ve positioned themselves for continued growth—without burning out their team or adding headcount.
This story is proof that with the right no-code strategy, boutique agencies can compete like giants.
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