What is AI in Digital Marketing?
AI in digital marketing uses artificial intelligence capabilities such as data collection, natural language processing, machine learning, and analytics to drive better business insights, and automate marketing tasks and decisions.
The advantage of AI is that it will help you gain insights into customer behaviors at speed by harvesting vast amounts of data.
These can be used to respond to and tailor a customer’s needs depending on their actions and preferences. AI is also able to adapt and improve over time using feedback and new data.
Artificial intelligence offers great opportunities for marketers to be more effective and personalized. This means customers get relevant content that can be triggered by actions on a site, an ad, or a branded message.
But AI doesn’t replace the roles and efforts of humans! It is a technology that complements and enhances those but it requires human skills to use it effectively.
“There’s still a huge need for human writers for human creativity, for human thought and strategy and to come to these models with our own objectives and our own ideas,” said Kerry Harrison, AI educator and copywriter on a DMI podcast.
AI Digital Marketing Tools
While ChatGPT may be the most talked-about generative AI tool, there are so many more out there that are helping marketers in their daily roles.
They can help marketers in a variety of functions from content generation to automation to SEO and design.
Here are some of the best AI tools out there:
- Writer – A highly-rated content generation tool that can repurpose content and includes an AI writing assistant
- Midjourney – Generative AI that can convert natural language prompts into images
- Optimove – A customer data platform with AI-based marketing functions
- Zapier – Helps automate workflows by connecting apps and services that your company uses
- Manychat – Provides an interactive customer experience using NLP to respond to customers on social platforms including WhatsApp
- Evolv.ai – Uses AI and machine learning algorithms to improve customer experiences in real-time
- Surfer SEO – A cloud-based on-page optimization tool that analyzes and compares your pages against what currently ranks on the SERPs
- Mailchimp – Uses AI to optimize email campaigns by predicting the best send times and personalizing content
- Perplexity – Similar to ChatGPT but more suitable for research as it uses web citations in a clearer way
- Drift – An AI chatbot that enhances lead generation and customer interaction
- Buffer – Responsible for social media management, offering post scheduling, analytics, and content curation
- Tableau – An AI-powered data visualization and intelligence tool that helps marketers analyze data and extract actionable insights
Examples of AI in Digital Marketing
The power of AI means it can be leveraged across many digital channels. Companies use it for social media campaigns, to automate tasks and processes, and for digital advertising.
It can also be used in any industry. Beauty brands use it to deliver a tailored customer experience such as Sephora’s AI chatbot-powered shopping service and its Virtual Artist App.
Using AI and digital innovations, Sephora’s e-commerce sales grew from $580 million in 2016 to over $3 billion according to Statista. In 2024, the online beauty store is forecast to generate around $3.6 billion in sales.
One of the most successful and well-known for using AI effectively is streaming giant Netflix. The streaming service uses the technology to provide personalized recommendations based on user preferences and behavior.
These choices are based on thousands of data points (included in the screenshot below) such as:
- User profile information (e.g age, gender, location)
- Type of device used to stream
- Watch patterns (whether a show was paused, rewound, fast-forwarded)
- Whether an entire movie or TV series was completed
- Browsing history
By using these data points Netflix improves content recommendations, reduces churn rate, and boosts return on investment.
Top tip: Check out some amazing examples of AI in marketing to get inspiration.
How to Use AI in Digital Marketing
use them in daily tasks such as creating content for pay-per-click (PPC) ads or setting up triggered email workflows.
When we asked our membership community at the Digital Marketing Institute about AI, 60% believe they are familiar with the technology and its applications in marketing but 37% don’t currently have an AI strategy in their business.
But what are marketers using AI for?
1. Content and image creation
Marketing teams are often under pressure to create content quickly for many purposes and channels. However, creating good content takes time and effort, and a lot of marketers are time- and resource-poor.
AI copywriting tools such as ChatGPT and Claude have exploded because they help people to generate content: that’s why they’re called generative AI tools! This could be email subject lines, ad copy, landing pages, blogs, or anything else you need for your content marketing.
You can also use AI writing prompts to create catchy headlines and customize content for your audience which drives personalization and use AI to boost your influencer marketing campaigns and manage your relationships.
Using these tools saves time and money. However, make sure to read over any content before publishing it live to ensure it has personality and fits in with your brand voice.
“People use AI because it’s lower cost and highly scalable. But if you don’t have a good creative platform and it doesn’t come from creative and data-driven insights, then it’s just spray and pray really,” says Mischa McInerney, CMO at the Digital Marketing Institute
2. Customer service and support
AI-driven chatbots have been around for a while as a way to communicate with and provide information to customers. When people want to get instant answers to simple queries or interact with a brand, they first go to a chatbot.
However, AI has a bigger role when it comes to customers. It can improve customer experience by personalizing content and messaging, anticipating customer needs, streamlining purchasing, and directing queries or concerns to the right department or agent.
