Dec 4, 2023

What Are the Best AI and Marketing Automation Tools?

Written by Dan Hughes

Artificial intelligence (AI) helps marketers automate activities and campaigns at scale in a way we've never seen before. But there are a lot of AI tools out there and they're coming at us fast!

This can make it overwhelming for marketers to know where to start with AI and see that there are many tools out there (not just ChatGPT) that can help gain customer insights, drive personalization, and boost efficiency.

To help you get started and pick the right AI tool for your goal, we've compiled a list of the best AI marketing tools available for a number of digital marketing activities:

Audience research
Customer journey mapping
Idea generation and content research
Keyword research
Trend analysis and forecasting
Competitor monitoring
Sales automation
Social media management and advertising
Writing and content generation

But first, a quick introduction to AI and its use in marketing...

What is AI in marketing?

Marketing automation is a system that automates repetitive tasks like curating subscriber lists, emailing customers about abandoned shopping carts, and providing automated customer assistance (among many others).

AI marketing tools facilitate the automation of these tasks and usually integrate into your existing applications or platforms.

Did you know? 28% of the top companies across industries actively use marketing automation and AI marketing tools.

The best marketing automation—or AI marketing—tools are powerful and many brands use them to find valuable leads, create campaigns, and track the sales funnel with pinpoint accuracy.

AI marketing tools are designed to automate key tasks while augmenting the creativity, insight, and performance of the people that use them.

For a deep dive into the concept, check out our 'Ultimate Guide to Marketing Automation'.

A Guide to ChatGPT Prompting

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AI Tools for Audience Research

Answer the Public is a social listening tool that provides insights into potential audiences.

Answer Socrates provides insights into the types of questions that people are searching about.

SparkToro is a powerful audience research tool that gathers data about potential customers.

Google Trends helps you discover content that is currently resonating with audiences.

AI Tools for Customer Journey Mapping

Kissmetrics analyzes customer data to gain insights on customer behavior and brand interactions.

Mixpanel enables you to better understand your customers by analyzing their behavior and interactions.

Amplitude analyzes the customer journey to unearth friction on the path to conversions and identify what works well in the campaign.

Semrush Persona enables you to build buyer personas using AI-powered persona templates.

AI Tools for Idea Generation and Content Research

ChatGPT can help you do initial content research, based on highly detailed prompts.

Reddit enables you to do content research via its subreddits, which can then be fed into AI tools.

Consensus is an AI-powered search engine particularly suited for searching research papers.

Bard is a powerful text-based AI tool backed by Googles search engine.

Milled is an AI tool that helps you research content in email newsletters.

Clearscope analyzes high-ranking pages to give you ideas on how to create optimized content based on your keyword research.

MarketMuse can help with content planning, optimization, and performance monitoring, as well as competitor analysis.

Perplexity AI is an AI-powered search engine particularly useful for generating ideas, based on cited sources.

AI Tools for Keyword Research

ChatGPT can help you identify keywords based on topic or audience research.

UberSuggest is an AI-powered tool for keyword research and integration.

Clearscope uses AI to suggest the best keywords to integrate into your content.

AI Tools for Trend Analysis and Forecasting

Talkwalker uses AI-powered tools to help alert you to upcoming trends.

TrendKite is an AI tool for forecasting and analyzing likely trends.

Zoho Social helps you visualize key data and develop insights to predict trends.

Seismic uses AI algorithms to predict trends so you can then adjust your marketing strategies to optimize ROI..

Bloomreach offers a suite of AI tools enable trend analysis and forecasting.

AI Tools for Competitor Monitoring

Rival IQ is an AI tool that helps brands conduct competitor monitoring.

Brandwatch uses AI to monitor the online presence of competitor brands and offer real-time insights.

Sprout Social is an AI tool that helps you understand how rival brands are performing on social media..

AI Tools for Influencer Research

Working with influencers can greatly increase the reach of your content. However, you need to ensure that the influencer aligns with your brand values and business goals.

Here are some AI tools you can use for influencer research:

Upfluence uses AI algorithms to identify potential influencer partnerships based on social metrics and fit with brand identity.
Influencity uses AI to develop an Audience Quality Score to help you identify the best-suits influencers for your campaign.
AspireIQ uses AI algorithms to connect you with the most appropriate influencers, based on their previous campaign performance.

AI for sales automation

Sales automation software is a convenient and cost-effective way for markers to generate highly personalized email campaigns that build loyalty and communications with ease (and at scale).

In addition to email campaigns, sales automation software is also effective for scheduling prospect appointments, prioritizing leads, and gathering valuable data.

Let’s take a look at some of the best tools for AI marketing sales right now.

Outreach

Outreach is a versatile sales execution platform that helps marketers transform sales data into actionable insights. This seamless AI marketing tool helps you automate your workflows while testing engagement activities and key messaging across channels including SMS, email, and social media. The likes of Siemens, OKTA, and Zoom use it for their sales automation activities, so it must be good.

Gong

Gong is a sales marketing automation tool that exists to shorten sales cycles while significantly boosting team-wide communication and productivity. One of Gong’s most striking features is its ability to guide sales reps through their day with automated activity recommendations and strategic suggestions. A smart tool with a great deal of scope.

Drift

Drift is an incredibly smart conversation tool that helps marketers and sales reps work in harmony to reach out to customers with exactly the right messaging at the times as well as channels where they’re most likely to engage. With razor-sharp insights designed to get under the skin of key customer segments, Drift will help you meet your consumers needs while boosting overall output.

AI marketing tools for social media management & advertising

A cutting-edge social media management and advertising tool, Cortex uses razor-sharp technology to deliver critical marketing data sourced from a variety of channels. With Cortex, you can see exactly what is driving engagement and sparking interest with your target audience, giving you the insights to understand when, as well as what, to post. Its content posting suggestions are usually pretty spot on, too.

For social listening and monitoring brand sentiment, consider using the following AI-powered tools:

Brandwatch uses AI-powered tools to conduct social listening and analyze social media sentiment.
MonkeyLearn uses AI-powered tools to make predictions about customer emotions and sentiment.
Sprout Social uses AI to help you unearth actionable customer insights and trends that can drive your social campaigns.
Social Mention uses AI to monitor your social performance and analyze how customers are reaction to it.

AI writing & content generation tools

Last but not least, we arrive at AI writing tools. As you no doubt know, content is one of the most vital components of any successful digital marketing strategy. Without rock-solid content, you’ll never establish a strong brand voice or establish authority in your niche.

Now AI writing tools exist to help create valuable content with minimal human intervention. Let’s take a look at some of them.

Content generation

Trained by a mix of top direct response copywriters and digital marketing experts, Jasper AI is a smart writing assistant that produces content in a natural voice based on the key features of your brand’s tone. It also has a clever SEO optimization function and it can create imagery to support or complement your copy. A reliable and well-rounded AI writing assistant.

Copy.ai can generate compelling advertising and marketing copy, and adapt to different brand voices and messaging strategies.

Of course, you can use ChatGPT to help automates content creation across various platforms, including articles, blog posts, and social media. It is also invaluable for content ideation, research, and optimization.

Articoolo is an AI content generator that creates articles and blog posts based on topics or keywords.

And Claude is a powerful AI tool adept at generating creative writing.

If you need help with structuring your content, you might consider using Yoast, TextOptimizer, or Frase.

And specifically for email content, try out Automizy or Mailchimp.

Note: Always consider these AI tool as content assistants. You should carefully check any content generated by AI to ensure it aligns with your content objectives and brand tone.

Content optimization

Having created your content, you'll want to optimize it to maximize its impact.

You can choose from several AI-driven tools for enhance you content SEO and ensure it ranks highly on SERPs:

SurferSEO can optimize web content for better search engine rankings, analyzing top-ranking pages and making suggestions.
RankSense uses AI tools examine historical data and current trends to see how SEO algorithms are most likely to evolve.
CognitiveSEO uses its AI-powered Content Optimization Tool to help you optimize your content for greater organic reach.
RankRanger uses AI to generate optimized content that’s likely to rank highly in SERPs.
GrowthBar uses AI tools to identify search engine ranking patterns, perform competitive analysis, and suggest keyword optimization strategies.

Specifically for local SEO, you could use tools such as BrightLocal, Whitespark, or Advice Local.

You might also want to carry out A/B testing on your content:

HubSpot offers AI-powered analytics to determine which email versions perform best in terms of different metrics.
Google Optimize enables you to run effective A/B tests.
Optimizely enables you to run A/B tests and dynamically adjust your campaigns as necessary, based on real-time performance.
Crazy Egg can automate the testing process, gather real-time data, analyze the results, and optimize the campaigns in real time.

For email content, the following tools are avialable:

NeverBounce helps keep your emails out of the spam folder and enables you to maintain a cleaner, more compliant email list.
ZeroBounce helps reduce the chances of your email being relegated to the spam folder or bouncing back to you unread.

For translation and localization of content, Google Translate uses AI to translate and localize marketing content. Be aware of the limitations of machine-only translation, however!

For ad optimzation, ForePlay can use AI-powered insighted to optimize your ad content and campaigns.

And finally, if you want to optimize your content based on search intent, BrightEdge helps you to better discern the intent behind search queries. You can then optimize your content in a highly targeted manner.

Content scheduling

Now that you have honed your content, you'll want to ensure that you post it at the optimum time to maximize its impact. Both Hootsuite and Buffer use AI-driven tools to suggest the best times for you to post your content.

Content performance

Of course, the hard work doesn't end when you post your content. You then need to monitor its performance. How can AI tools help you with this?

Google Analytics 4 provides real-time content analytics, enabling effective decision-making and informing strategy decisions.

ChatGPT can generate insights based on the data you feed it, and present insights in a clear, user-friendly format.

FanPage Karma helps you to analyze the performance of your social media content.

Budget Management

Managing the budet is a key task for an digital marketer.

For ad bidding, you could consider the following tools:

Google Ads Smart Bidding enables you to manage your budget allocation through smart bidding.
AdRoll uses its AI-drive BidIQ to optimize your price-bidding strategy.
WordStream’s Smart Ads analyzes your bidding strategy and adjusts it accordingly in real time.

When if comes to dynamic pricing, the following tools are available:

Feedvisor enables you to manage your budget allocation through dynamic pricing.
RepricerExpress uses AI to optimize your dynamic pricing strategies.
Prisync enables you to monitor competitor pricing and adjust your pricing dynamically as needed.

And for PPC optimization, you could use these AI-powered tools:

Google Ads uses sophisticated AI algorithms to maximize PPC ad performance through automated bidding, targeting, and ad placement decisions.
Optmyzr uses AI-driven data analysis to help you to audit, optimize, and grow your PPC strategy.
WordStream can analyze your campaign performance and use AI to suggest how it could be optimized.

Workflow Enhancement

Digital marketers can use AI tools to help them communicate with customers more efficiently.

For example, you could use chatbots to streamline communications with customers:

ManyChat is a popular AI-driven social media chatbot.
Zendesk uses AI to help automate and streamline customer support.
Drift is social media chatbot that can engage with customers by analyzing trends in billions of conversations.
Botsify enables brands to build their own customized chatbots.

You can also use AI tools to help retain customers:

Retention Science uses AI algorithms to help build and improve customer retention.
Braze uses AI algorithms to personalize the customer experience and increase retention.
ChurnZero helps to reduce customer churn by using AI to create engaging customer experiences.

Workflow Enhancement

AI tools can also help digital marketers to enhance their workflows, leading to greater efficiencies and reduced costs.

Among the tools available are the following:

Pardot uses AI tools to improve workflow efficiencies in digital marketing campaigns.
Marketo enables you to optimize your workflows using AI-driven insights.
Sprinklr uses AI tools to optimize decision-making and improve productivity.
Brevo uses AI to automate email workflows to maximize engagement and conversion rates.
Drip helps you to improve workflow efficiency by using AI to automate repetitive tasks and streamline processes.

You may also want to use simulatio scenario planning to look at ways of improving your workflows. AI can help here too:

Wolfram Alpha uses AI to enable scenario planning using simulations.
Simul8 enables you to test various stimulations using AI-generated scenarios.
AnyLogic uses AI to develop simulations so you can see how different scenarios are likely to play out.

How do you use AI digital marketing tools?

“The playing field is poised to become a lot more competitive, and businesses that don't deploy AI and data to help them innovate in everything they do will be at a disadvantage.” —Paul Daugherty, Accenture

There are many inspiring uses of AI in digital marketing. As autonomous technologies become increasingly accessible (and powerful), an increasing number of renowned brands are joining the party.

Big-hitting publications like Bloomberg, the Washington Post, and Forbes, for example, are currently using AI tools to create content—which you can find out all about by listening to our recent ‘Art of Copywriting’ podcast.

To help you get the most from your AI marketing efforts, here are a few quick dos and don’ts for your reading pleasure.

Work with a small selection of AI marketing tools that align with your specific goals and business needs.
Train your staff on how to use your new AI-powered tools to enhance their work and creative efforts.
Use your best judgment to automate tasks you feel need streamlining and cherry-pick the best elements of your tools.

Don’t

Integrate a bunch of different tools and bounce between them. It will cause confusion and create chaos rather than achieve harmony and boost productivity.
Forget to include your team in the decision process when it comes to choosing the right AI tools.
Lean solely on AI marketing tools to carry out your various tasks and processes. As we said, AI marketing tools are best when used with human leadership and nothing beats the human editorial eye!

Use AI to elevate your digital marketing activities

Artificial intelligence is a game changer for marketers as it helps personalize, optimize and automate many key marketing activities. Our new short interactive AI course (with practical walkthroughs) will help you understand the fundamentals of AI and use key AI tools for research, content development, data-driven decision-making, and creative design. Reserve your spot today!

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What Are the Best AI and Marketing Automation Tools?