Automation: How to Stop Wasting Time on Repetitive Tasks

A great unknown once said: “I choose a lazy person to do a hard job. Because a lazy person will find an easy way to do it”.

We at Ad Layer never thought of ourselves as lazy until now. We have, admittedly, been working extremely hard finding ways for those doing the hard jobs to save time.

If you've ever spent an afternoon copy-pasting the same ad into 27 different formats, you already understand the problem. If you haven't, congratulations! You are either not making banners as a part of your profession, or you are already using the right tools.

The reality of digital advertising in 2026 is this: campaigns are bigger, audiences are more fragmented, and the number of formats, channels, and markets just keeps growing. Display, social, video, DOOH.. Each with their own sizes, specs, and requirements. Running a multi-market campaign today means producing hundreds, sometimes thousands, of ad variations. Funnily enough, for too many teams that still means doing it manually.

That's a lot of talented people doing extra work that requires no special talent or creativity.

Choose a lazy person…

The Hidden Cost of Manual Ad Production

It's easy to underestimate how much time disappears into repetitive tasks. Resizing an ad for a new format. Updating a price across 50 versions. Translating copy into six languages. Sending files back and forth for approval. Chasing sign-offs over email.

None of this is creative work. None of it adds strategic value. And all of it slows down the time between having a great idea and getting it in front of the right audience.

For brands running campaigns across multiple markets, such as Stena Line or Polestar, the manual approach simply doesn't scale. There has to be a better way.

There is.

What Creative Automation Actually Means

Creative automation is the process of using technology to handle the repetitive parts of ad production, so your team can focus on the parts that actually require human judgment.

In practice, this means:

Feed-driven ad versioning: Connect a product feed — from Google Sheets or a data source of your choice — and generate thousands of ad variations automatically. Prices update in real time. New products appear instantly. You set it up once and let it run.

Dynamic Creative Optimization (DCO): Serve the right creative to the right person at the right moment, automatically. Weather-based ads, geo-targeted messages, retargeting creatives that reflect what someone has already browsed. The logic runs in the background. You focus on the strategy.

One-click publishing via API: Instead of downloading files and uploading them manually to each platform, publish directly to Meta, TikTok, YouTube, DV360, DOOH networks and more with a single action. No email attachments. No broken links. No "which version was final again?"

Centralized review and approval: Instead of chasing feedback across email threads and Slack messages, everything lives in one place. Stakeholders review, comment, and approve inside the platform. The creator gets notified. The campaign moves forward.

From One Ad to Thousands Without Losing Control

Here's where things get genuinely exciting. With a Creative Management Platform (CMP) like Ad Layer, you don't start from zero for every market, language, or format. You build one master template, then scale it.

Need 20 language versions? Done. Market-specific pricing? Easy. Different visuals for different regions? Just connect the right feed… The creative logic stays consistent. The brand stays consistent. And your team gets to spend their time on work that actually moves the needle.

Smart teams using Ad Layer are saving production costs by up to 70% this way; not by cutting corners, but by cutting out the waste. Maybe lazy is the new smart?

Mikael Solberg, Ad Layer Chief Product Officer, agrees that working smart is the new lazy.

"Why spend time on repetitive boring tasks, when you could spend that time doing something that actually matters!"

Automation Doesn't Replace Creativity, It Protects It

This is worth saying clearly because there's a common misunderstanding: Automation is not about removing the human from the process. It's about making sure the human is used where they're actually needed and adding the most value.

Great campaigns still require smart strategy, sharp copy, and strong creative direction. Automation handles the part that comes after: the scaling, the versioning, the distribution. It takes the idea your team worked hard to develop and gets it everywhere it needs to be, fast.

70% faster time to market isn't just a number. It means your campaign is live while your competitor is still resizing their banners.

Where to Start

If your team is still spending significant time on manual ad production, the first question to ask is: Why did we just not hire a lazy person? Or perhaps: Which tasks are genuinely creative, and which are just execution?

Resizing an existing ad is execution. Deciding what the ad should say is creative. Uploading a file to a platform is execution. Deciding which audience to target is creative.

Once you make that distinction, it becomes clear where automation can step in, and what your team's time is actually worth.

A modern ad production workflow gives you the full picture: design, scale, target, and publish, all from one platform. No repetitive tasks. No bottlenecks. Just faster, smarter, better campaigns, and more time for your team to work on tasks that matter the most.. That’s Ad Layer! 

Want to see what an automated ad production workflow could look like for your team? Book a free demo and we'll show you around. No strings attached.