Marketing automation is one of the best investments a loan officer can make. It's also one of the most commonly botched. I've audited hundreds of LO automation setups, and the same five mistakes show up over and over — each one silently costing deals.
The good news: every one of these is fixable, usually in an afternoon.
Mistake 1: Set It and Forget It (Permanently)
The #1 automation mistake isn't technical — it's behavioral. An LO spends a weekend building drip campaigns, feels productive, and then never looks at them again. Six months later, leads are getting emails referencing "the spring market" in December. Rate information from last quarter is still going out. And a campaign that was supposed to end after 90 days has been running for a year.
The Fix
Put a quarterly review on your calendar. Every 90 days, spend one hour:
- Reading through every active automation sequence
- Checking that rate references, market commentary, and seasonal content are current
- Reviewing performance metrics — open rates, response rates, unsubscribes
- Killing campaigns that aren't performing and iterating on ones that are
Automation is not "set and forget." It's "set, monitor, and optimize."
Mistake 2: One Campaign for Everyone
This is the lazy path: build one drip campaign and put every contact on it. First-time buyers, past clients, realtor partners, refinance prospects — all getting the same generic emails about "your mortgage journey."
The result? Abysmal engagement. A past client who closed with you last year doesn't need an email about "what to expect during the mortgage process." A realtor partner doesn't need tips about improving their credit score. When content isn't relevant, people unsubscribe — or worse, they just start ignoring everything you send.
The Fix
Build at minimum these four separate campaigns:
- New lead nurture — educational content for prospects who aren't ready yet, with periodic check-ins
- Active pipeline — milestone updates and next-steps communication for borrowers in process
- Past client — long-term relationship maintenance with rate alerts, home value updates, anniversary messages, and refinance triggers
- Referral partner — market updates, co-marketing opportunities, and relationship touchpoints for realtors and other partners
Your CRM should segment contacts automatically so the right people get the right campaigns without manual sorting.
The Segmentation Payoff
LOs who segment their automation into at least 3-4 distinct campaigns see 2-3x higher engagement rates compared to single-campaign approaches. Relevance is everything.
Mistake 3: Automating Without a Human Escape Hatch
Here's a scenario that happens more than you'd think: a lead responds to an automated text saying "Actually, I just had a baby and we're not looking to buy anymore." The automation, oblivious, sends another follow-up text two days later asking if they've been pre-approved yet.
Automation doesn't understand context. It can't read between the lines. When someone responds to an automated message, a human needs to step in — or at minimum, the automation needs to pause.
The Fix
- Auto-pause on reply. Configure automations to stop the sequence the moment a contact responds. You (or your AI assistant) take over from there.
- Build opt-out handling. If someone says "stop" or "not interested," they should be removed from active campaigns immediately.
- Review replies daily. Even with auto-pause, check your reply queue every morning. Some responses need a personal touch, not another automated message.
Mistake 4: Too Many Touches, Too Fast
Enthusiasm is great. Blasting a new lead with three emails, two texts, and a voicemail drop in the first 24 hours is not. I've seen automation sequences that send 14 messages in the first week. That's not follow-up — that's harassment.
There's a fine line between persistent and annoying, and your automation cadence needs to respect it — especially given TCPA compliance requirements.
The Fix
Follow this general cadence framework:
- Day 1: Immediate response (within 60 seconds), then one follow-up 2-3 hours later if no reply
- Days 2-7: One touch per day, alternating between text and email
- Weeks 2-4: 2-3 touches per week
- Month 2+: Weekly, then bi-weekly, then monthly
The cadence should taper gradually, not blast heavily and then go silent. And every message should provide value — market insight, helpful information, or a genuine question — not just "checking in."
Mistake 5: Ignoring the Data
Your automation platform tracks everything: open rates, click rates, response rates, unsubscribes, conversion rates by sequence. Most LOs never look at this data. They have no idea that their "past client refinance" campaign has a 3% open rate (terrible) while their "new buyer tips" sequence has 45% opens (excellent).
Without looking at the data, you can't improve. You're flying blind, spending money on campaigns that might be actively hurting your brand.
The Fix
Track these metrics monthly:
- Open rate by campaign — below 20% means your subject lines or send timing need work
- Response rate — the metric that actually matters; are people replying to your messages?
- Unsubscribe rate — a spike means something went wrong; investigate immediately
- Conversion rate — how many contacts in each automation actually become applications or closings?
Use your reporting dashboard to spot trends. Double down on what's working. Fix or kill what isn't.
"I thought my automation was running great because I had it 'set up.' When I actually looked at the numbers, my past client campaign had a 6% open rate and I'd had 200+ unsubscribes. I rebuilt it in an afternoon and within two months, I'd gotten three refinance referrals from the new version."
The Automation Audit Checklist
Use this quarterly:
- Are all active campaigns still relevant and current?
- Are contacts properly segmented into the right campaigns?
- Do automations pause when contacts reply?
- Is the messaging cadence reasonable (not too aggressive)?
- Have you reviewed performance data in the last 30 days?
If you answered "no" to any of these, block out an hour this week to fix it. Your future self — and your conversion rate — will thank you.
Need help building automation that actually works? See how Empower LO handles automation with built-in best practices, or talk to our team about an automation audit.