ApproveThis manages your Buttondown Integration approvals.

Why This Integration Isnt Just Another Workflow Solution

Lets cut through the noise: most approval processes suck. Theyre either rigid as concrete or chaotic as a group chat. Buttondown makes newsletters simple. ApproveThis makes decisions less painful. Together? They fix the three big headaches every mid-sized company has with content approvals:

1. Bottlenecks: Legal wants to vet every email, but marketing needs to ship campaigns yesterday.
2. Visibility: Is the draft with the CEO? Design? Or lost in someones inbox?
3. Compliance: Miss one approval on a promo email? Hello, regulatory fines.

This isnt about automation for automations sake. Its about giving 50-5,000 person companies the guardrails they need without the bureaucracy they hate. Your team keeps using Buttondown like normal. Approvers keep living in email. But now, every newsletter draft or subscriber list change gets the right eyes on it  before things go sideways.

Where This Combo Actually Moves The Needle

Were not here to sell you on streamlined synergies. Heres exactly what happens when you connect Buttondown to ApproveThis via Zapier:

Use Case 1: Newsletter Drafts That Dont Die in Committee

The Problem: Marketing creates a killer draft in Buttondown. It needs legal review, then CMO sign-off. But legal takes 3 days, the CMO is traveling, and suddenly youre late on the Q2 campaign.

The Fix: Auto-create an ApproveThis request for every new Buttondown draft. Route it to legal first, then the CMO. Legal gets email reminders (with a direct approve/reject link). If theyre OOO, it auto-reassigns. CMO gets SMS alerts if its urgent. Everyone sees the drafts version history and comments in one place.

Who This Helps:
- Healthcare/Finance Teams: Mandatory compliance reviews without holding up comms
- Distributed Companies: No more Who has edit access to this draft?
- Enterprise Marketing: Track every change for audit trails

Use Case 2: Subscriber Lists That Stay Clean (Without Manual Grunt Work)

The Problem: Sales signs a big client who wants weekly updates added to their 50-person team. But your CRM shows 30 of those emails are invalid. Now support gets tickets about bounced emails.

The Fix: When new subscribers confirm in Buttondown, trigger an ApproveThis workflow that:
1. Checks their email against your CRM
2. Flags domains from unapproved partners
3. Requires sales lead confirmation if its a high-value client list

Who This Helps:
- Channel Managers: Prevent partners from spamming their own lists
- Customer Success: Keep client-specific newsletters actually relevant
- IT Teams: Reduce spam complaints that blacklist your domain

Use Case 3: Post-Approval Actions That Actually Happen

The Problem: The compliance team approved the earnings report email but someone forgot to schedule it. Now IR is pissed because it went out late.

The Fix: When ApproveThis gives the green light, Buttondown automatically:
- Schedules the email
- Adds UTM tags for tracking
- Notifies the PR team via Slack
Even better: If denied, it triggers a draft reset and notifies the writer.

Setting This Up Without Overcomplicating Things

If you can make a Zapier account, you can do this in 20 minutes:

1. Connect Buttondown to Zapier
   Use Buttondown's API docs if needed, but Zapier's pre-built connector covers 90% of cases.
2. Pick Your Trigger
   New draft? New subscriber? Archived email? Match it to your biggest pain point.
3. Map Fields to ApproveThis
   Zapier pulls the draft content/subscriber email into an approval request. Add context like "Urgency Level" or "Client Name" using calculated fields.
4. Set Escalation Rules
   Example: If not approved in 24 hours, notify the requester's manager. Use approval thresholds to auto-approve small list adds under 50 contacts.

Pro Tip: Start with one workflow. The sales team's newsletter approvals are low-risk vs. legal-heavy comms. Prove value there first.

Why Teams Stop Dreading Approvals With This Setup

For Approvers:
- No new logins  they approve via email
- Vacation coverage auto-assigns their queue
- See all pending requests in one dashboard

For Requesters:
- Real-time status updates (no Slack pings)
- Automatic version control
- Denied requests explain why via custom fields

For Admins:
- Audit trails for every decision
- Custom reports per department
- SLA tracking on approval times

When To Steal These Playbooks

Compliance-Heavy Industries:
Auto-route any newsletter mentioning "investment returns" or "clinical results" to legal. Use conditional logic so only flagged content needs review.

Agencies Managing Client Newsletters:
Clients approve drafts via email (no Buttondown access needed). If they don't respond in 48h, escalate to their account manager.

Enterprise IT Teams:
Require infosec approval for any email collecting user data. Auto-scrub drafts that include non-compliant fields.

The Part Where We Tell You What To Do Next

If your company's growth is getting held up by "just one more sign-off," you have two options:
1. Keep letting human bottlenecks delay campaigns and annoy clients.
2. Spend 20 minutes setting up a Zapier automation that makes approvals suck less.

ApproveThis works because it doesn't force your team to change tools. Buttondown stays your email home base. Approvers keep using Gmail. But now, there's actual accountability without the micromanagement.

Book a 10-minute demo to see real client workflows, or start a free trial and connect your first Zap in under an hour. No "platform migration" required  just fewer headaches.