Vendilli Digital Group | Blog

What Happens When Creative and Advertising Meet CRM, Automation, and AI

Written by Chris Vendilli | Jul 17, 2025 8:01:01 PM

 

In the world of advertising, marketing, and PR, many agencies stake their claim on creative brilliance, media buying power, or public relations finesse. And for good reason. These are the tools of attention. The work that wins awards. The things you can point to and say, “we made that.”

But at Vendilli, we believe the work that matters most isn’t just what’s seen. It’s what happens behind the curtain, where strategy, process, and technology combine to make marketing more than a pretty face.

We’re not just another digital agency. We’re not just a creative shop. And we’re not just HubSpot consultants. We’re the layer where design meets operations, ads meet attribution, and inbound meets intelligence.

This is what happens when creative and advertising meets CRM, automation, and AI.

Most agencies are built around functions: design, content, media, development. Some throw in SEO or PPC. But what happens when those tactics are detached from operations? You get great-looking work that doesn’t work.

Revenue Operations (RevOps) is the alignment of your go-to-market teams: sales, marketing, and service. It’s not just dashboards and reporting. It’s:

  • Smart workflows
  • Shared processes
  • Unified systems
  • Full-funnel attribution
  • Higher ROI and accountability

When we bring creative into that system, magic happens. Campaigns don’t just look good—they convert. Websites don’t just exist—they sell. Ads don’t just drive clicks—they fuel pipelines.

Let’s be honest: we don’t fit neatly into the traditional categories in the Book of Lists. Advertising, PR, and digital marketing firms all have their place. But our approach spans the gaps between them—and builds the bridges.

Clients come to us thinking they need a new website or better ads. And we ask: Why? What are you trying to achieve? More often than not, the problem isn’t creative—it’s operational. Poor handoffs between marketing and sales. No CRM. No automation. No visibility.

We’re the ones who help connect the dots. So you can stop flying blind and start building a system that scales.

One of our clients came to us with a crisis: their previous developer was holding their website hostage. They’d read a blog post we wrote years ago about that exact situation. We couldn’t save the old site, so we rebuilt it from scratch.

That’s where it started. From there:

  • We redesigned the site.
  • They asked us to run ad campaigns.
  • The ads worked—too well.
  • They couldn’t keep up with lead follow-up.

So we implemented a CRM. We took the time to understand lead qualification and routing scenarios that could be systematized. We built custom dashboards to monitor campaign AND human performance.

And then we brought in AI voice and SMS agents to help qualify leads. These agents were trained to ask the same four questions the owner and his staff used to ask by phone. And they learned to do it with empathy, speed, and consistency.

Now?

  • 150+ leads per week.
  • AI qualifies the leads.
  • Sales reps only talk to the warmest prospects.
  • ROI is tracked. The system runs 24/7.

That’s RevOps in action. And that’s the difference between marketing outputs and outcomes.

We are a HubSpot-first agency. We believe it’s the best platform for most B2B sales and marketing orgs. But we also acknowledge that there are budget-conscious alternatives.

That said, we don’t just plug in tools. We design systems. We ask:

  • What is the goal?
  • Where are the gaps?
  • Can automation solve this?
  • Can AI assist instead of adding headcount?
  • Are you measuring what matters?

We don’t just build. We optimize.

And while we don’t talk about it much, yes—we can support lightweight CRMs too. But our north star remains helping clients grow with maximum efficiency. That means:

  • Reducing waste
  • Increasing productivity
  • Empowering sales

We’ve all seen it: sales teams resist CRM. They resist change. Until one day, they see the light.

With proper training, shared templates, snippets, automated follow-ups, and AI call routing, the system stops being a burden and becomes a revenue engine that saves sales people time and helps them meet or exceed their goals.

In a world where everyone wants more leads, we help answer: What will you do when they start pouring in? Will your system bend or break?

This is what we build: systems that scale.

What happens when you apply RevOps thinking to your marketing?

  • You stop wasting money on campaigns you can’t track.
  • You stop losing leads to poor follow-up.
  • You stop hiring staff to do things automation can do better.
  • You start making smarter decisions.

More importantly, you start building momentum. You build confidence. You build predictability.

And yes—you still get beautiful creative. But it lives in a smarter system that is set up for success and has the tooling to be able to tell key stakeholders what worked, what didn’t, and why.

Let’s bring this home with a fun, true story: nobody in our office liked answering the phone. Not because we aren’t helpful. But because 90% of our calls were spam, vendors, or low-priority inquiries.

So we built Sammy.

Sammy is our AI-powered voice receptionist. She:

  • Greets callers
  • Qualifies leads
  • Checks calendars
  • Creates records in HubSpot
  • Routes calls to the right people

And she never forgets to log a call. Our clients were impressed. So now, we build Sammy-style agents for them, too.

Because sometimes the biggest ROI comes from removing friction, not just adding leads.

We’re a creative agency, sure. We build gorgeous websites, smart ads, strong brands. But we’re also a RevOps partner to our clients. A sales enabler. A technology translator. A productivity optimizer. A HubSpot-certified team that actually uses what we sell.

And increasingly, we’re an AI integrator helping clients answer the phone, respond faster, and scale smarter.

If you want a marketing partner that delivers more than marketing, let’s talk. We’ll make it work. And we’ll make it work better.

If you think we can help, give Sammy a call to see firsthand how we build smarter systems for growth: 412-530-5027

She answers 24/7/365 and is always in a good mood.