What is AI in Digital Marketing?
Artificial intelligence in online marketing applies the strengths of the technology like data gathering, natural language processing, machine learning, and analytics to influence improved business intelligence, and to automate marketing operations and decisions.
The benefit of AI is that it will enable you to derive insights into customer behaviors at velocity by reaping huge volumes of data.
They can be employed to react and customize a customer‘s requirement based on their activities and behavior. AI can also learn and get better over time based on feedback and new information.
There are tremendous opportunities for better and more tailored marketing with artificial intelligence. This implies that customers receive content that is appropriate and can be action-triggered on a website, an advertisement, or a branded message.AI in Digital Marketing.
But AI doesn‘t substitute the jobs and work of humans! It is a tool that augments and supports them but it still needs human expertise to apply them.
“There’s still a tremendous need for human writers for human creativity, for human thinking and strategy and to approach these models with our own goals and our own ideas,” stated Kerry Harrison, AI instructor and copywriter in a DMI podcast.AI in Digital Marketing.
At the senior level, the McKinsey Global Survey on AI identifies that companies are implementing actions that are driving bottom-line effects such as redesigning business processes while leveraging generative AI and assigning senior leaders critical positions, such as managing AI governance. They are also actively taking measures to avoid any gen-AI-related risks.
AI in Digital Marketing Tools
- Whereas ChatGPT is perhaps the most discussed generative AI tool, there are so much more that exist that are assisting marketers on a day-to-day basis.They canassist marketers with a range of tasks ranging from content generation to automation to search engine optimization and design.Some of the top AI tools available include:Writer – Awell-rated content generation tool that can reuse content and comes with an AI writing assistant.
- Midjourney – Generative AI capable of translating natural language prompts into images.
- Optimove – A customer data platform with AI-powered marketing capabilities.
- Zapier – Automates workflows by linking apps and services your business uses.
- Manychat – Offers an interactive customer experience with NLP used to reply to customers on social media including WhatsApp.
- Evolv.ai – Utilizes AI and machine learning algorithms to enhance customer experiences in real-time.
- Surfer SEO – A cloud-based on-page SEO tool that scans and compares your pages to what is currently ranking on the SERPs.
- Mailchimp – Utilizes AI to best optimize email campaigns through sending time prediction and content personalization.
- Perplexity – Like ChatGPT but better suited for research because it utilizes web citations in a more straightforward manner.
- Drift – An AI-powered chatbot that maximizes lead generation and customer engagement.
- Buffer – Manages social media, providing post scheduling, analytics, and content curation.
- Tableau – An artificial intelligence–based data visualization and intelligence software that assists marketers in analyzing data and deriving actionable insights.
Examples of AI in Digital Marketing
AI in Digital Marketing The strength of AI is such that it can be utilized over numerous digital media. Businesses implement it for campaigns on social media, to carry out tasks and processes automatically, and for digital marketing.
Go through our 10 eye-opening AI marketing stats in 2025 article to understand the ways in which the technology is being utilized in order to get results.
It can also be applied to every industry. Its application is utilised by the beauty companies for providing a personal customer experience such as Sephora‘s AI-driven chatbot-supported shopping service and its Virtual Artist App.
- Screenshot of Sephora Virtual Artist App homepage Singapore
- With the use of AI and digital technologies, Sephora‘s online sales increased from $580 million in 2016 to more than $3 billion based on Statista. In 2024, the online beauty retailer is projected to make approximately $3.6 billion in sales.
- One of the most successful and best known at leveraging AI is streaming giant Netflix. Netflix employs the technology to make personalized suggestions based on user behavior and preferences.
- These recommendations are based on thousands of data points (part of the screenshot below) including:
- User profile data (e.g. location, gender, age)
Device type used for streaming
Watch behaviors (whether something was paused, rewound, fast-forwarded)
Whether a whole movie or TV show was finished
Browsing history
Screenshot of data points of Netflix subscribers – Rebuy - Through these data points, Netflix enhances content recommendations, diminishes churn rate, and increases return on investment.Top tip:Take a look at some fantastic examples of AI in marketing and get inspired.
How to Use AI in Digital Marketing
AItechnology has become easier to use and more accessible, businesses have begun applying it in everyday tasks like writing content for pay-per-click (PPC) ads or establishing triggered email workflows.
60% of our membership community within the Digital Marketing Institute said when we asked them about AI that they think they know the tech and how it’s used within marketing but that 37% don‘t actually have an AI strategy within their business at this time.
But what are AI marketers doing with it?
1. Content and image creation
AI in Digital Marketing teams tend to be under time pressure to develop content in a hurry for various purposes and media. Good content, however, requires effort and time, and most marketers are resource– and time–constrained.
AI writing tools like ChatGPT and Claude have blown up because they enable individuals to create content: that‘s the name for them being generative AI tools! This can be email subject lines, advertisement copy, landing pages, blog posts, or whatever else you require for your content marketing.
You can also utilize AI writing prompts to craft attention-grabbing headlines and personalize content for your audience that fuels personalization and leverage AI to amplify your influencer marketing campaigns and maintain your relationships.
These tools save time and money. Just be sure to review any content prior to publishing it live so that it has personality and aligns with your brand voice.
“Others utilize AI as it’s more economical and greatly scalable. However, if you do not possess a quality creative platform and it‘s not a product of creative and data-led insight, then spray and pray in reality,” remarks Mischa McInerney, CMO at the Digital Marketing Institute
2. Customer service and support
Chatbots have been in existence for some time now as a means of communicating with and sharing information with customers. When individuals need immediate answers to basic questions or engage with a brand, they initially approach a chatbot.
3. Customer segmentation
Customer segmentation and targeting enable you to find and shape your most profitable customers. But manually doing this can be time-consuming and expensive.
AI can segment your prospects and customers into groups or segments of people with similar needs, interests, or behaviors using algorithms.
You can then target and communicate with these segments using relevant and personalized messaging that can be modified and tuned in real time.
Recommendation systems may recommend products, services, or promotions that fit the customer preferences and Natural Language Processing (NLP) may study customer reviews and feedback to enhance your products, services, or customer experience.
4. SEO
Artificial intelligence holds enormous potential in the field of search engine optimization (SEO). Search engines like Google have long been employing advanced algorithms that crawl and index web pages to position them.
AI is now getting increasingly integrated into that process in a manner that is revolutionizing the world of search even further, through AI Overviews (previously Search Generative Experience (SGE)).
AI can optimize and streamline keyword research and content optimization through the study of user activity, as well as generating meta tags and titles. It is also used by marketers to make predictions about SEO trends, user behavior, and algorithm updates through predictive SEO.
Voice and visual search are increasingly significant means by which individuals seek information, and AI can be used to maximize both. It can be achieved by emphasizing NLP and long-tail keywords and adding informative metadata to images.
Tip: Learn more about what AI Overviews mean for Search
5. Pay-Per-Click advertising
Pay-per-click (PPC) marketing is a type of advertising whereby you pay each time a person clicks your advert. As a tactic, PPC marketing is significant since it has the potential to bring in new customers using focused campaigns, yield instant results, and be simply adjusted and fine-tuned.
AI can help you boost your PPC campaigns by optimizing:
- Keyword research
- Bidding and targeting
- Ad copywriting
- Ad scheduling and placement
- Predictive analysis
- Fraud detection
While technology keeps progressing, marketers have been able to access new forms of ads, ways of targeting, and measures within PPC. The reason for keeping track and updated is just why it is indispensable.
6. Data analytics
With there being so much data out there from such a diverse array of sources, marketers might sometimes be overwhelmed. But artificial intelligence has the ability to analyze huge amounts of data at pace. This can assist marketers in getting data insights as well as predicting trends and behaviors using historical data.
AI can also be employed to find anomalies in data and reveal patterns. The combination of data analysis and AI has the potential to drive hyper-personalization. The more you understand your customers, the more precise you can be in messaging and strategy. In retail, for instance, it can be utilized to track inventory and improve customer service.
ChatGPT is very good at data analysis, particularly if you utilize its Advanced Data Analysis plugin. This allows you to input a spreadsheet into ChatGPT, and it will assist you in digging up profound insights beyond the data in your spreadsheet.
In the end it’s about leveraging AI technology in data analysis to drive improved business insights in a manner that suits you.
7. Email marketing
Email marketing is a key component of any marketing strategy since it remains a successful means of converting prospects and engaging customers. Implementing AI tools in your email marketing can save you time and enhance performance.
Implementing AI in emails can:
- Analyze email performance to determine how to improve your email strategies (e.g. top-
- performing subject lines)
- Develop triggered workflows based on user actions
- Perform campaign and workflow analysis
- Create copy specific to your audience
- Tailor content to audience segments
- Make dynamic content possible
- Conduct A/B testing
AI can even curate your email lists based on comparing metrics to see how much value an email address or email list contains. You can also gain insights on your email schedule by monitoring the value each email is driving and seeing how often you send them.
Did you know? 63% of users trust AI email-generation tools but double-check their work, while 25% fully rely on AI-generated emails – Selzy
What are the Pros and Cons of AI in Digital Marketing?
With any developing technology, there are both pros and cons to utilizing artificial intelligence. There are also ethical considerations with using it in digital marketing regarding bias, data privacy, and discrimination.
” AI is no longer a niche subject for a few attuned geeks. It‘s a field that all marketers should become educated on; soon.“
– Jim Leckinski, Associate Professor at Kellogg School of Marketing, Northwestern University.
What are the Pros of AI in Digital Marketing?
- Increases productivity – Automate multiple tasks so your effort and time can be shifted to more challenging and strategic work.
- Drives efficiency – Take care of tedious and repetitive tasks like data entry, marketing campaign lead separation, and responding to customer inquiries.
- Unveils insights – Take the guesswork out and give data-driven capabilities to build a better marketing strategy and discover new marketing possibilities.
- Improves ROI – Anticipate buying behavior and decisions by assessing data, enhancing the UX, and giving customers the content they need to finalize their buyer journey.
- Create and refine content – Automate content generation to create quality content at scale across all online touchpoints.
- Personalize at scale – Inspect customer information and create tailored recommendations or content to improve customer experience.
- Predictive analysis – Use past data to forecast consumer trends or market directions in order to facilitate better and more effective planning.
- Automate tasks – Manage day-to-day operations like data analysis, customer segmentation, email filtering, data input or simple reporting.
What are the Cons of AI in Digital Marketing?
- Bias – AI can only ever be as good as the data it takes its information from so it’s never really neutral. That means you have to be mindful of the possibility of racial, gender, cultural, or socioeconomic biases within your AI-powered initiatives.
- Inaccuracy – Errors or inaccuracies in information can cause flawed analyses and possibly expensive business decisions.
- Ethics – Issues around ethics involve the manipulation of user behavior and data, consent, and the ‘creepiness factor’ of hyper-targeted advertisements.
Security and sensitivity of data – AI systems tend to need access to large datasets, which can be sensitive in nature and must be handled securely AI in Digital Marketing. - Transparency – With more content being created through AI, issues regarding transparency, plagiarism, authorship, and IP ownership become a concern.
What are the Most Common Skills Used in AI-Driven Digital Marketing?
The most important thing to do when employing AI technology is to integrate it into your role. Simply learning how to employ artificial intelligence is not sufficient. You must learn why you’re doing it.
For instance, does it fit with your business and career aspirations? Will it assist you in providing organizational goals more effectively? Is it freeing up your time instead of producing more work?
You must know the fundamentals but then also dive really deep into AI in order to utilize it in achieving your objective whether that’s generating and following up on leads or enhancing customer support.
As per an article by The Economist and Think with Google, “marketers need to infuse AI know-how in their teams, becoming proficient in the art of tool choice and blending, ensuring that automation complements human judgment instead of replacing it. The victors will be those who use AI as a disciplined force multiplier — invisibly embedded in strategy, operations, and the larger marketing ecosystem.”.
With that in mind, below are some of the most important technical skills you should brush up on to enhance your overall competency with AI technology:
- Data management
- Data analysis
- Testing
- Content personalization
- Marketing automation
- Process analysis and improvement
Learning these skills through AI might ease some of the fear you have when working with the technology. The more you learn about the models and technology, the less daunting it is!
But it’s not all about hard skills such as coding or content marketing. Businesses look for marketers with outside-the-box mentality and skills that make them solution-oriented.
“I speak to a lot of people in ad agencies and learning and development at big companies and they often talk about hard skills. I want to see people learn how to code.” AI in Digital Marketing” I want to see them apply this and get ROI,” says Clark Boyd on the DMI podcast.
Four areas that are important to focus on for broader or soft skills in the context of AI are:
- Strategic thinking
- Innovation
- Creativity
- Agile thinking
These key professional skills will complement your technical and digital skills ideally as you get ready to face the AI-powered marketing future.AI in Digital Marketing.
Tip: You can even leverage AI at the time of job search to get the right jobs and match your CV and cover letter to any job advertisement.
Conclusion: AI in Digital Marketing
In the fast-paced digital world of today, knowing how AI fits into Digital Marketing is not only useful—it’s crucial. AI in Digital Marketing is no longer science fiction; it’s a reality of today that’s transforming every facet of how brands engage with customers. From content generation to customer segmentation, AI in Digital Marketing makes everything more efficient, creative, and personalized. Companies that use AI in Digital Marketing are already witnessing considerable enhancements in campaign performance, return on investment, and audience engagement.
The real strength of AI in Digital Marketing is that it can analyze and process large amounts of data in real time. With this ability, AI in Digital Marketing equips professionals to comprehend customer behavior much more deeply. With AI in Digital Marketing, marketers are able to find trends, forecast results, and personalize experiences with unprecedented accuracy. What this implies is that AI in Digital Marketing assists not just in reaching the right audience but also in sending the right message at the right moment.
Although its advantage is plain, most practitioners are still reluctant to use AI in Digital Marketing for fear of being replaced or lack of familiarity. But AI in Digital Marketing is not to steal jobs—it’s to change them. Adopting AI in Digital Marketing is to adopt growth, learning, and innovation. It enables marketers to have less time spent on routine tasks and more time to think strategically. And indeed, AI in Digital Marketing supports human creativity by taking care of the analytical aspect of marketing and having space for originality and emotional connection.
Schools and organizations alike are starting to see the significance of AI in Digital Marketing in training programs and curricula. The need for professionals well-versed in AI in Digital Marketing is increasingly on the rise, opening up millions of opportunities for those willing to adjust. As a student, business owner, or even an experienced marketer, investing in your understanding of AI in Digital Marketing will render you more valuable and competitive today.
In addition, AI in Digital Marketing isn’t just about tools and software—it’s about strategy. The effective implementation of AI in Digital Marketing requires clear objectives, ethical use of data, and a customer-centric approach. When implemented intelligently, AI in Digital Marketing creates trust, increases brand loyalty, and drives meaningful outcomes. As more sectors catch on with the potential of AI in Digital Marketing, it is not whether or not you should adopt, but how fast you can include it in your process.
In summary, AI in Digital Marketing is not just a buzzword—it’s a revolutionary force that is here to stay. By understanding how to use AI effectively in Digital Marketing, you unlock the way to smarter campaigns, stronger relationships with customers, and sustained growth. It’s time to stop resisting change and begin getting ready for the future. Welcome AI in Digital Marketing—because the marketing future is already here, and it’s intelligence-powered.
Use AI in Digital Marketing to elevate your digital marketing activities
Artificial intelligence is a marketer’s game changer because it offers to make, optimize, and automate so much of what is core to marketing. Our very advanced AI course will assist you in utilizing AI-powered marketing, leveraging AI for research and content creation, learning about how to leverage the technology on digital channels and how to adopt a digital strategy and receive an Associate Level Certification in AI. Book your place today!
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