Behind the fix
Fixing the content feed
→
Adding an error tracker & fallback logic
→
Tracking performance
→
Fixing the content feed → Adding an error tracker & fallback logic → Tracking performance →
Building an Error trACKER
With 50+ weekly campaigns across multiple brands, small mistakes in newsletters easily slid through the crack. Manual checks were inconsistent and time-intensive, with our team spending over 10 hours per week collectively scanning the feeds.
To solve this, I:
Built a custom Google Apps Script that automatically scans each campaign send.
Implemented key checks including:
Broken or missing image URLs
Placeholder text (e.g., “%%page%%”)
Duplicate subject lines (within a 24-hour window)
Visible HTML entities (e.g., “&”)
Automated notifications so the script emails me a summary of flagged errors prior to each send window.
Result: The script became our internal “error safety net,” catching issues before they reached our audience. This reduced manual team effort, minimized internal errors, and gave the team confidence in scaling up volume without sacrificing quality.
Fixing a Faulty ESP Feed
Our ESP (Sailthru) feed was intermittently serving stale or duplicate content, which risked outdated stories appearing in live campaigns. Manual refreshes were time-consuming and inconsistent.
To solve this, I:
Traced feed issues to a hidden caching parameter in our ESP, confirming it couldn’t be seen or edited in the UI.
Created a Webhook that programmatically forces the feed to regenerate on demand, eliminating reliance on manual refreshes.
Automated the process by linking the Webhook to campaign prep, ensuring every send pulls in a fresh, deduped feed.
Set up monitoring (See the Error Tracker) so the team can quickly confirm successful refreshes.
Result: Feeds now regenerate automatically before campaigns deploy, reducing errors, contributing to the time-save, and guaranteeing up-to-date content for subscribers.
Interim Task Dashboard
To bridge a gap in project management tools, I created a Google Sheets dashboard that gave a real-time view of individual and team progress.
The dashboard included:
Task tracking by person — showing what each team member was actively working on.
Project progress tracking — visual updates on how close large initiatives were to completion.
Live performance metrics — connected to Google Analytics to surface weekly and monthly pageview totals for key initiatives (e.g., Expanded Efforts).
Result: This interim system became a single source of truth, keeping projects transparent, progress measurable, and performance tied directly to impact — all without needing a dedicated PM platform.
