What Is AI Marketing? The Ultimate 2024 Guide for Businesses

AI can enhance your marketing efforts in many different ways—from creating content to personalizing user experiences. 

I’ve created this start-to-finish guide with actionable tips, AI marketing tools, and case studies to help you build an effective AI marketing workflow.

What Is AI Marketing?

AI marketing refers to the use of AI tools to enhance your marketing efforts. 

For example, AI marketing tools help you generate content, gain key insights into your target audience, and personalize the customer experience..

There are multiple AI marketing use cases to explore, such as:

• AI content creation
• Customer personalization
• Social listening
• Ad targeting
• Email automation

The Pros of Using AI in Marketing (and what to look out for)

Before we explore AI's use cases in marketing, let’s take a quick look at the benefits of using AI tools—and our recommendations for getting the best from them. 

1. AI Increases Content Marketing ROI 

You might be surprised to learn that 68% of businesses see better content marketing ROI with AI. 

One reason for this success is the ability to speed up content production with AI. 

AI lets you create automated workflows to move quickly from ideation to publishing without compromising content quality. 

However, it doesn’t end there. 

67% of businesses also see an improvement in content quality, thanks to AI.

Wondering how this is possible? 

AI helps us enhance research, optimize our content for the right target audience, and improve the content user experience.

For instance, Barbara Ferrigno, the owner of a content agency, creates content 12 times faster thanks to AI. 

She uses Semrush’s ContentShake AI to generate SEO-ready articles in minutes.

What to look out for: While AI is trained on top-notch, accurate data, it’s essential to combine it with human oversight. Expertise-driven content is the only way to rank in search and engage your users.

➡️ We recommend using AI to speed up your processes and improve technical optimization. Then, review the AI-generated content carefully and infuse it with your own original insights. 

2. AI Marketing Tools Improve Customer Experience 

AI marketing tools collect customer data from multiple sources to personalize the user experience. 

These tools process this data to:

• Understand customer preferences 
• Identify behavioral changes 
• Offer personalized recommendations in real time
• Automate basic customer support.

All this helps you increase conversions and boost retention without increasing your marketing budget.

For example, online fashion retailer MandM uses AI to personalize filter recommendation buttons to engage returning customers.

What to look out for: Most AI tools self-train on the data you share. That means you may be putting your company and customer data at risk if you include it in your input when using an AI tool. 

➡️ We recommend setting guidelines and security measures to protect your data when interacting with AI tools.  

3. AI Supports Strategic Decision-Making  

AI marketing enables data-driven decision-making. 

It can help you analyze large amounts of data and create hyper-effective marketing strategies with relevant messaging, timing, and so on.

Various AI marketing tools can also predict future trends and remove human biases from the process. 

For instance, you can use them to improve marketing campaign performance and remove bottlenecks.

The Frankie Shop, another online fashion retailer, used an AI analytics tool to boost ad campaign results—simply by working with their existing data.

What to look out for: AI tools can hallucinate in different ways when it comes to analyzing data. For example, it might interpet your request in a wrong way, pull out incorrect data, or even invent things that don’t exist.

➡️ We recommend choosing AI marketing tools that offer mechanisms for avoiding hallucinations and always double-check the results they generate.

Top AI Marketing Use Cases 

60% of marketers already use AI and automation in their current jobs. 

From content generation and personalized campaigns to data analytics, AI covers the most essential marketing aspects.

Source

Let’s look at each of them in detail.

1. AI Content Creation

Marketers can use AI to create detailed blog outlines and entire articles, social media posts, landing page copy, product descriptions, and more.  

For example, AI writing tools like ContentShake AI can generate entire articles and help you enhance them using an integrated AI chat.

AI content tools can also generate videos, images, and audio content. 

For example, you can create a stellar video within minutes using an AI tool like Synthesia. 

You simply choose your avatar, pick a preferred language, add the script, and hit Generate to get your video output.

Source

When combined  with human input, AI writing tools can give you a massive competitive advantage. They allow you to create content faster and even  improve its quality.

🔥The Best AI Marketing Tools for Content Creation

• ContentShake AI: Generate SEO-rich content to attract organic traffic
• Murf AI: Create audio content in 120 AI voices and 20+ languages 
• VEED: Generate and edit videos with AI-powered text-to-speech
• Synthesia: Create professional marketing videos with realistic human avatars
• Jasper: Generate text content for various channels, from email to ads
• Midjourney: Create high-quality, realistic images and illustrations using text prompts

2. Brainstorming 

AI marketing isn’t limited to content creation.

You can use AI marketing tools as a brainstorming partner and explore multiple use cases, such as:

• Finding content and campaign ideas tailored to current trends and audience interests
• Performing competitor analysis and deepening audience research
• Gathering data from various sources and presenting it in a clear, digestible format

For example, you can ask ChatGPT to generate campaign ideas based on your audience profile:

You can also use various ChatGPT alternatives to come up with content marketing ideas for your content plans.

For instance, ContentShake AI suggests weekly new content ideas based on what’s trending in your business niche.

🔥The Best AI Marketing Tools for Brainstorming

• Miro Assist: Build AI-powered mind maps based on prompts 
• Semrush's Social Media Platform: Brainstorm ideas for social posts and manage content production and distribution in one place
• CoSchedule: Find ideas for blog posts, hashtags, and marketing campaigns
• ChatGPT: Brainstorm anything using its beginner-friendly chat functionality

3. SEO

You can use AI to improve your SEO.

While generic AI chatbots like ChatGPT don’t offer real-time SEO data such as keywords and search intent insights, there are specialized AI SEO content tools that can automate this task.

For example, ContentShake AI lets you create high-ranking content even if you’re not an SEO expert.

It integrates your target keywords and analyzes SERPs to make sure your content matches your audience’s expectations.

That said, generic AI tools can still facilitate certain SEO tasks, such as:

• Keyword clustering: Organize  related keywords in your content plan by grouping them into thematic clusters. 

Sample prompt:  “Act as an experienced SEO specialist. Group these keywords into thematic clusters and send back a new CSV file.”

• Generate meta tags: Use AI to write title tags and meta descriptions for your website pages.

Sample prompt: “Write a meta description with up to 150 characters for an article about [topic] targeting the [keyword].”

• Optimize copy for a target keyword: You can also ask AI to optimize your existing text for certain keywords.

🔥 The Best AI Marketing Tools for SEO

• ContentShake AI: Generate SEO-ready articles optimized for your target keywords
• ChatGPT: Perform basic tasks such as clustering your keywords 
• Clearscope: Optimize content for your target keywords with the ideal reading score
• SERP Gap Analyzer: Analyze the top-ranking results to produce an SEO-friendly outline

4. Productivity 

Over 60% of marketers use AI to maximize efficiency and streamline operations.

You can use AI marketing tools to automate repetitive tasks and focus on high-value activities. Here’s how AI can level up your daily productivity:

• Manage your daily schedule and block time for every task based on priority
• Schedule social media posts and auto-generate reports such as sentiment analysis
• Automate routine tasks such as transcribing meetings, managing inboxes, and more. 

For example, Semrush’s Social Content AI helps you ideate, create, enhance, and publish posts for social channels. 

It can analyze your entire social media calendar to instantly create and schedule posts for the whole month.

Source

🔥The Best AI Marketing Tools for Productivity

• Social Content AI by Semrush: Manage your social media planning and production from one place
• SaneBox: Effectively manage your inbox and keep it clean with AI
• Motion: Use an AI content assistant to plan your day and prioritize the schedule
• Fillout: Create AI-powered surveys for any use case based on templates 

5. Chatbot Marketing 

AI-driven chatbots let you automate basic customer conversations and boost conversions. For example, they can:

• Answer questions around the clock

• Guide users through their buying journey
• Offer personalized recommendations, discounts, or promotions.

These tools can also tackle repetitive queries, such as “What are your shipping options?” or “How do I reset my password?” This frees up human agents to focus on complex issues. 

Take Intercom's Fin chatbot, for example. It uses sophisticated AI language models to deliver accurate, context-aware responses based on support content. 

You can train the chatbot using FAQs or help center resources to educate potential customers.

🔥The Best AI Marketing Tools for Chatbot Marketing

• Tidio: Use chatbots to deliver support instantly based on recurring questions
• Chatbase: Train AI and customize the chatbot with your data sources
• Manychat: Build a marketing chatbot to engage and convert buyers 

6. Personalization 

Personalization in marketing lets you adjust your content to customer behavior and preferences. 

For example, you can customize elements such as product recommendations, email content, and ad campaigns.

Think of Spotify Wrapped. 

This annual campaign uses customer data within the app to curate your top songs, artists, and genres from the year. 

It’s a smart way to engage users and build product stickiness. 

When non-Spotify users see others sharing their Wrapped, they can feel left out, and so, they download the app, get engaged, and eagerly await their own version of Wrapped.

Source

🔥 The Best AI Marketing Tools for Personalization

• Sage AI: Design personalized customer experiences with AI-powered recommendations
• Mutiny: Personalize your website UX and leverage account-based marketing
• Insider: Create persona-based user journeys to resonate with your audience

7. Data Analytics

AI tools use machine learning to analyze vast amounts of data from multiple sources, such as website traffic, social media interactions, and customer feedback. 

For marketers, this means making quick, data-driven decisions based on real-time insights into user engagement, campaign performance, and more.

You can use this data to:

• Optimize ad campaigns by adjusting spend and targeting based on performance metrics
• Enhance customer journeys by identifying drop-off points in the sales funnel
• Improve social media strategies by spotting emerging trends and shifts in user behavior.

For example, AI-powered tools such as AI Narratives for GA4 source data from Google Analytics and visualize it on maps, graphs, and charts. 

This makes it easy to track channel-wise performance and make strategic marketing decisions. 

🔥 The Best AI Marketing Tools for Data Analytics

• Julius: Visualize data and derive insights for any data set
• AI Narratives for GA4: Connect to GA4 and track performance through various metrics 
• Polar Analytics: AI-driven analytics for ecommerce brands 

How to Integrate AI Into Your Marketing Strategy 

Let’s walk you through our five-step playbook for integrating AI into your marketing workflows.

1. Audit Your Current Marketing Setup and Identify Opportunities

Start by evaluating your current marketing setup. Ask yourself:

Which areas are underperforming? Are there potential bottlenecks or unnecessary expenses?

For example, you might notice that you’re losing conversions due to slow customer support. Or, you may have delays in content production because of long editing times.

All this could be improved by integrating specialized AI tools.

Here’s how you can spot and prioritize such opportunities:

1. Analyze performance metrics of various marketing channels. Look at traffic, conversions, ROI, campaign results, etc.
2. Survey your teams to identify areas that generate the most frustration. 
3. Map current processes and identify redundant manual processes that need optimization.

2. Define Clear Objectives 

List specific goals for your AI marketing strategy. 

Look at your primary business objectives and ask yourself: ow can I achieve these goals through my marketing strategy? 

For example, if your business goal for a quarter is to build customer loyalty, you can use AI tools to launch community-driven marketing campaigns. 

Repeat this exercise for all your business goals. Then, prioritize those goals based on these two factors:

• Effort: what resources and investments you’ll need to achieve a goal
• Impact: how the goal will impact your revenue and profitability 

Let’s say you want to increase customer engagement. You’ve defined several marketing goals to achieve this. 

Here’s how you can create an impact-effort matrix to build an AI marketing roadmap:

3. Determine a Budget for Investing in AI Marketing

Once you realize the true potential of AI marketing tools, you might be tempted to buy every other AI tool in the market. 

And you’re not alone—95% of CMOs are looking to prioritize investments in AI, per Gartner’s research.

That said, setting a budget is a more sustainable and scalable way of investing in AI.

Here are a few tips for building your AI marketing budget:

• Analyze your overall marketing budget to understand how much you’re spending  and where (channels, tools, resources, and so on).
• Work out the ROI for each tool and channel. For example, if you’re spending 40% of your marketing budget on SEO, assess whether this channel is producing results worth the investment.
• Identify low-performing tools or channels to cut costs and reduce your expenses, making room for investments in AI marketing.

Then, think about ways AI can improve your results. 

For example, Gartner’s research indicates that AI tools deliver the best results for improving time efficiency, cost savings, and customer segmentation, etc.

Source

4. Vet and Select the Best tools for Each Use Case

AI marketing tools differ in use cases, functionality, complexity, and pricing. Make sure to test each tool and understand its capabilities before making a decision.

Here’s what to consider when selecting an AI marketing tool:

• Key use cases: Can the tool perform all the tasks you need? 
• Specialization: Some tools are tailored to the needs of large enterprises; others, to small businesses. They can also be focused on industry verticals (e.g., ecommerce).
• Price and scaling: Could you use the tool if your operations grow? And would it stay affordable?
• Quality and protection against AI hallucinations: What features does the tool offer to help you get quality output and avoid AI-generated errors?

5. Assess Risks and Create a Quality Check Workflow

AI is powerful, but it’s not foolproof. 

Building a quality control and review process helps you minimize the impact of errors by AI marketing tools.

As an example, here are Harvard Business School’s guidelines for using AI in marketing. 

This detailed document discusses the benefits and downsides of AI technology and then lists “acceptable uses of AI in marketing.” 

To create such guidelines for your business, consider how AI could go wrong and its impact on your business. 

For example, a chatbot could misinterpret customer queries, or a content creation tool could add false information. 

Once you have a list of these possibilities, create guidelines around these errors. 

You could include action items like fact-checking every article for accuracy and constantly monitoring customer chats to find patterns. 

Top 3 Examples of AI in Marketing 

AI marketing is driving real results for companies across industries. Check out these three standout examples to inspire your strategy. 

Concept Marketing Group: Creating Content 12x Faster

Barbara Ferrigno is the Founder of Concept Marketing Group—a marketing agency that has been serving clients for several decades.

Thanks to ContentShake AI, she started producing high-performing articles 12 times faster. 

She can now focus on improving the quality of her content while ContentShake covers the foundation—including SEO research and generating article drafts.

As a result, Ferrigno managed to increase organic traffic, boost engagement, and grow her business by around 15%.

Doculife: Doubling Down on Video Marketing 

Doculife is a document management platform. Its marketing team used Synthesia to produce  explainer videos for potential customers and generate high-intent leads.

This has enabled Doculife’s team to create engaging, high-quality videos quickly and affordably. The process is simple: 

• Create and fine-tune a great script 
• Select an avatar and upload screen recordings
• Generate the video and check whether the script aligns with the content

With this AI-powered marketing workflow, Doculife slashed their video production time by 95% and cut costs drastically. 

Here’s an example of a video they created:

https://youtu.be/3m2zfoSOv2k?si=864v3NUQ_UueQp8F 

Tidio: Automating 58% of Customer Inquiries

Tidio, an AI customer experience platform, automated more than half of its own customer support operations.

Tidio’s team used Lyro, an AI chatbot, to decrease the support team's first response time by 75% to less than 15 seconds. 

They also achieved an 87% success rate when answering queries.

Such results could have a tremendous impact on conversion rates and customer satisfaction.

Build Your Strategy to Leverage AI in Marketing 

AI marketing opens many doors for businesses of all sizes. It can enhance marketing areas from content creation to data analytics.

Shying away from AI means losing to your competitors—and slowing down innovation.

But does it mean we reached the point where AI can replace marketing teams?

Not at all.

On the contrary: It simply helps those teams work faster and more efficiently.

Remember to always make it clear to your teams. The goal is not to replace human specialists. It’s to help them focus on more strategic tasks and automate low-effort work.

This McKinsey report explains how companies can incorporate AI in marketing over multiple stages:

As you can see, it’s a step-by-step process that combines AI and human efforts.

Ready to give it a try?

Start with automating the most foundational aspects of your marketing. For example, try ContentShake AI to create long-form content and rank in search.