How I automated client reports with n8n in one evening

Every Monday I assembled client reports: pull spend from ad accounts, leads from the CRM, merge, format, send. Forty minutes per client. One evening with n8n — and now the reports send themselves on Mondays. Here’s the whole setup.

What we collect

• spend and clicks — ad account APIs;
• leads and deals — a CRM webhook;
• plan vs actual — a sheet with the client’s targets.

How the workflow works

Scheduled trigger → three parallel branches fetch data → a merge node computes CPL and ROMI → a template builds the message with numbers and week-over-week deltas → delivery to the client in Telegram with a copy to me. Any branch error lands in a separate chat — the workflow cannot fail silently.

Three lessons

• Start with one client and one channel — a working prototype in an evening beats perfection in a month.
• Log the numbers into a history sheet: a quarter later you get client trends for free.
• The message template matters more than the integrations: the client reads three lines — they must answer “what about my money”.

A workflow like this pays for itself within the first week. Want the same — get in touch, I’ll wire it to your sources.