Using artificial intelligence (AI) in marketing can improve, automate, and optimize your marketing activities. And it’s key for a modern growth strategy.
For instance, a social media marketer may use AI to generate a social media post:
In this guide, you’ll learn how marketers can apply AI to hit their goals. We’ll also highlight top AI tools for common marketing tasks.
Benefits of Using AI for Marketing
Marketers who use AI enjoy benefits like:
- Greater efficiency: AI can automate repetitive tasks so your team can focus on higher-level strategy and creative work
- Rapid data analysis: AI can analyze massive datasets to reveal insights that guide better marketing strategies
- Better customer experiences: AI-powered chatbots deliver instant support while freeing human agents for complex issues
9 Ways to Use AI in Marketing
Below, we list nine common ways you can use AI.
1. Write Optimized Blog Posts
AI can help you create content that’s both helpful and optimized for SEO. And good news—many of the techniques that prime content for search engine visibility also help it to appear prominently in large language model tools (LLMs).
Free tools like ChatGPT can help you produce first drafts. But you shouldn’t just paste your article outline into ChatGPT and instruct it to produce content.
Instead, first upload your product details, target persona, and optimization guidelines into a chat. And instruct ChatGPT to take these assets into account for your writing project.
Then, paste individual sections from your outline into ChatGPT one at a time—AI works better in smaller batches. You can also work in Canvas, which is a Google Doc-like functionality in ChatGPT that lets you refine your text collaboratively with AI.
Nigel Stevens, CEO at Organic Growth Marketing, uses a more advanced approach to AI-powered content creation that involves integrating various tools using automation tool AirOps:
“We have workflows that can do fact-checking, editing, and more. And different AI models are being deployed in different steps of each workflow. For example, we’ve found Gemini models to be great for research tasks, but Anthropic and OpenAI models excel at outlining and drafting.”
And Nigel’s team is thoughtful about providing the right inputs:
“It’s critical to ensure that each workflow is given relevant brand context, such as a writing guideline, good content examples, product description, target personas, and so on.”
But LLMs don’t have access to keyword data. You have to do that kind of research before you start drafting content.
Semrush’ Content Toolkit combines AI’s content capabilities with real-time SEO data to help you:
- Find relevant blog topics with proven search demand
- Build structured SEO briefs
- Generate full-length, optimized drafts
- Refine posts with actionable improvement tips
To get started, open the Topic Finder tool. Enter a broad keyword or phrase relevant to your business, and the tool will surface blog post ideas backed by Semrush data and explanations of why those topics are worth covering.
Click “Start writing” next to an idea you want to cover and select “Create SEO content brief” to use the SEO Brief Generator to get an outline based on top-ranking competitors.
Make any needed changes to the outline you get from the SEO Brief Generator. Then, click “Generate SEO article” in the last step to turn the outline into an SEO-friendly article using the AI Article Generator.
You’ll get a full draft with recommendations on how you can improve your visibility in search engines and AI tools. For example, you may see a suggestion to provide a summary first and then expand later in the section.
Once you’re done making finishing touches, you can publish the article to WordPress or export it to Google Docs to share it with your team.
Further reading: AI in Content Marketing
2. Generate a Marketing Strategy
You can use AI to create marketing strategies that span the full funnel or focus on specific stages.
For instance, say your site drives lots of traffic, but few visitors convert.
AI tools like ChatGPT or Claude might offer you a few ideas on how to solve this problem. Just prompt the tool to break down your audience into segments, and then have it produce messaging for each segment that’s mapped out a content funnel.
You could test the marketing strategy you developed with an AI tool and iterate based on conversion data you collect.
The AI Marketing Strategy app can also provide funnel stage-specific marketing tactics. Once you’ve entered your business details to set up a funnel, click the “+” button to get more tactics for a particular stage or click a tactic for more details.
Each tactic has a checklist to complete. So you don’t skip any important steps. And some even use AI prompts to streamline your work.
3. Solve Customer Issues
Customer support teams can use AI chatbots to offer immediate assistance for simple questions, so human agents can handle complicated inquiries.
Here’s how the Semrush chatbot guides users on choosing the relevant tools for tracking AI visibility:
You can use tools like Sendbird to deploy AI-powered support chatbots on your site.
Another option is to give your team a central hub like Guru that allows them to solve customer problems faster. This tool combines data from various sources like the knowledge base, CRM, chats, and docs.
4. Repurpose Content
AI can adapt content for other platforms to help you reach more people with each piece.
For instance, you can repurpose a YouTube video into a blog post, a LinkedIn post, and an email newsletter.
ChatGPT can assist with simpler repurposing tasks. For instance, it can summarize long-form articles for short LinkedIn updates, reframe ebook insights as an X thread, or turn a step-by-step guide into an Instagram carousel script.
Provide ChatGPT with examples of social content you like and ask it to match the tone and format. Use a simple prompt like this:
“Summarize the below 1,200-word blog post into an X thread with five posts that highlight the key takeaways in a conversational tone, similar to the uploaded social content samples below.”
Repurposing text into videos can be more complicated. That’s where the AI Video Marketing Automator app can be of help. To start, open the app and click “URL to Video.”
Fill out the form by adding an existing URL and adjusting the settings. Then, click “Create Video.”
Once your video is ready, you can adjust elements like voice, media, text, etc.
5. Create Ad Copy and Creative
You can use AI to produce new variations of ad text and visuals in minutes. Then run tests to find winning ad angles.
AI chat tools like Claude make this easy. You can prompt it to generate multiple headline options, craft persuasive body copy, or brainstorm different calls to action based on your target audience.
Here’s a simple workflow you can follow:
- Generate headlines: Ask Claude to create 10 headline variations for your ad, each highlighting a different benefit
- Refine the best options: Narrow down the list to the three most compelling and adjust the tone to match your brand voice
- Write supporting copy: Prompt Claude to write short, persuasive body text that builds on each headline
- Test and iterate: Launch multiple variations in your ad platform, monitor performance, and feed the results back into your AI prompts to get optimization ideas
When it comes to creating visuals, there are several AI tools worth looking into:
- ChatGPT
- Midjourney
- Stable Diffusion (via Dream Studio)
- Adobe Firefly
Provide these tools with your ad copy and brand guidelines, and ask them to create visuals for your campaign.
Further reading: AI in Advertising
6. Write Social Media Content
AI tools can make it easier to ideate and create engaging social media content.
You can use AI tools like ChatGPT, Claude, or Gemini to create social media content.
For example, you can brainstorm caption ideas, draft post variations tailored for different platforms, or even repurpose long-form content into bite-sized social updates. These tools can also suggest hashtags, refine tone and style, and help you maintain consistency across channels.
Here’s an example prompt that can help with writing LinkedIn posts for a specific brand:
"I’m launching a new AI-powered analytics tool for small businesses. Write five LinkedIn post captions that are professional, engaging, and focused on time savings. Each caption should be under 200 words, include a clear call to action, and have three suggested hashtags."
Or, use the AI Social Content Generator app to produce on-brand content based on details you enter about your brand. You only have to provide context once, so you can focus on content generation.
Adjust the auto-populated fields in the “Business Details” and “Brand Details” pages. Then, click the “+ Create New” button, select “Social Media,” specify the post type, configure the settings, and then generate posts.
A content library will then be filled out with AI-generated social posts.
You can publish or schedule posts. And keep everything organized in the “Content Calendar” tab.
Further reading: AI in Social Media
7. Analyze Competitor Strategies
You can also use AI to monitor competitor marketing activities. This allows you to understand what kinds of tactics work, so you can double down on them.
One way to do this is to use Semrush’s AI SEO Toolkit, which includes competitor research functionality.
Head to Competitor Research, add yourself and your competitors, and click “Run competitor analysis.”
You’ll reach a dashboard with helpful information about how visible both you and your competitors are in AI tools. You can even identify which topics and prompts competitors are cited for but you aren’t.
And the Brand Performance dashboard shows data on your brand’s share of voice and sentiment versus your competitors’.
8. Perform Market Research
AI tools can help you quickly research your target market, so you can more effectively sell to your ideal buyers.
Some steps (like customer interviews) still require you to talk to people directly. But for research tasks like identifying competitors or sizing markets, you can speed things up with ChatGPT’s Deep Research functionality.
Select “Deep Research” and ask for structured information on your industry and audience. A good starter prompt looks like this:
“Provide a market research analysis for [specific product/service] in [specific niche and region]. Include:
1.) Key competitors and their positioning
2.) Audience demographics and psychographics
3.) Common customer pain points and motivations
4.) Market size and recent trends (with sources if available)”
Depending on how much detail you provide, ChatGPT may ask some clarifying questions. Then, you’ll get a report that contains competitor breakdowns, customer profiles, and more.
Then, analyze the output and ask follow-up questions you can use to find opportunities. For example, you could use a prompt like this:
“Based on this research, highlight gaps in the market that competitors aren’t addressing. Suggest five product or marketing angles that would address those gaps. Lastly, summarize the audience data into two to three customer personas, including demographics, goals, pain points, and buying triggers.”
You’ll get useful insights that enable you to make informed decisions on how to position and market your brand.
9. Write Marketing Emails
AI tools make it possible to scale your email marketing efforts by generating newsletters, promotional emails, and even nurture campaigns that are aligned with your brand
Emails are great for building and maintaining relationships. For instance, say you run a freemium language learning app. If you send welcome emails to new trial users, you can help them get more value out of your product. And make it more likely they end up as paying users.
AI tools like Claude can help you quickly craft effective emails.
Say you want to generate the copy for a three-part drip campaign for your language app. Here are prompts for each part:
Welcome email: “Write a warm, encouraging welcome email for new users of the free version of a language app. Highlight the top three things they can do today to get started (e.g., complete their first lesson, visit their progress dashboard, and visit the community forum). End with a motivating call to action.”
Progress nudge: “Write an email congratulating a user on completing their first five lessons in the free version of a language app. Use a motivational tone. Show them how close they are to their next milestone and invite them to schedule their next lesson.”
Upgrade prompt: “Write an upgrade email for a language app. The user has hit the free trial limit. Explain what they’re missing out on that’s in the paid plan (live classes, unlimited lessons, and offline capabilities). Use urgency but stay friendly. End with a clear call to action to upgrade today.”
You can revise Claude’s output. Once you’re happy with the copy, create the campaign in your email platform.
How to Build an AI-Assisted Marketing Strategy
With an array of AI tools and tactics at your disposal, it’s time to build a marketing strategy. Here’s how:
Choose Your Focus Areas
AI delivers time savings in nearly every application. The real decision is where to apply those gains for the most impact, so start with one of these focus areas:
- Content creation at scale: Use AI to generate first drafts of blog posts, ad copy variations, or email subject lines. So your team can focus on editing and strategy.
- Customer insight extraction: Apply AI to analyze survey data, reviews, or support tickets. You’ll uncover customer insights faster and be able to make smarter decisions.
- Operations automation: Free your team from repetitive manual tasks, such as logging notes into a CRM, classifying support tickets, or extracting details from invoices. So that initiatives can move faster without draining team bandwidth.
Choose one clear area of focus and test how well AI handles it. Once you see results, expand into other areas.
Pick the Right AI Marketing Tools
Select AI tools that accelerate executing your marketing strategy. Specifically, keep these factors in mind when deciding which tools to use:
- Alignment with your goals: Choose tools that are likely to directly contribute to your goals
- Ease of integration: Use AI tools that work smoothly with your existing tech stack
- Ease of use: Aim to select tools that are easy for your team to use
- Cost: Ensure the price of a tool that handles your most important use cases is within budget
If you’re just starting out, you probably need one tool for a single use case.
But as you grow, you might be looking to use more tools for different tasks. Semrush’s App Center lets you try out different options in the AI app collection for free.
Set KPIs and Measure Performance
Set key performance indicators (KPIs), so you can monitor the success of your AI marketing efforts.
For example, if you’re relying on AI tools to generate blog posts, look at organic traffic, organic conversions, AI citations, and AI mentions as KPIs.
Keep the process simple:
- Define your goal: Decide what you want AI marketing to achieve (e.g., more product demos.)
- Pick matching KPIs: Choose metrics tied to that goal, like conversion rate or traffic
- Track your results: Record your performance over the coming weeks and months to see how your AI efforts are paying off.
Monitor KPIs at least monthly and make any necessary adjustments.
Test and Iterate
Regularly gather feedback from your team on how well AI marketing tactics and tools work.
Also, AI tools have strengths you can discover through testing. Maybe you’ll discover that ChatGPT is good for writing, but that Gemini is much better at researching.
And review AI-assisted tasks that aren’t reaching your goal KPIs. Maybe humans should do them instead.
FAQs About How AI Is Affecting Marketing
What Are Zero-Click Searches in AI-Powered Search?
Zero-click results in AI-powered search occur when users get answers directly from an AI-generated response on the search results page. Meaning users get exactly what they want in the AI summary and don’t visit any external site.
Being cited as a reference in these results can help you grow brand awareness, though. And that may result in more branded searches and site visits later on.
How Does AI Affect Website Traffic from Search Engines?
AI-driven search reduces the number of visits to external websites. Because AI platforms keep users within their interfaces, fewer clicks go to publishers and businesses.
That said, when users eventually do visit websites of brands they’ve learned about, they may be more likely to convert.
Will AI Replace Marketing Jobs?
AI won’t replace marketing jobs entirely, but it will reshape them. Because professional skills can become outdated quickly, teams should focus on learning AI tools and workflows, building creative strengths AI can’t replicate, and fostering human-AI collaboration.
Semrush’s Content Toolkit is a great way to start incorporating AI into your processes.