AI Marketing: How to use AI in marketing

If you’re not already considering using AI in your marketing, then take this article as your sign to do it. Just look at a handful of stats that sing the praises of AI.

• Amazon uses AI to predict customer needs and powers what products to present, resulting in 35% of total sales.
• Warby Parker uses AI to build highly curated customer journeys and drive users towards specific outcomes.
• Netflix leverages AI to personalize recommendations, driving 80% of the total watch time on the platform.

These stats show that AI in marketing has an enormous impact on driving marketing outcomes, but figuring out where you should start for your business is difficult. Luckily, that’s what we’re here to help with.

This article will cover:

• What is AI marketing?
• Why is AI marketing so important?
• How to create an AI marketing strategy?
• AI in email marketing
• AI in content marketing
• AI in paid media
• AI in personalization
• AI in video marketing
• AI in marketing automation

What is AI marketing?

AI marketing uses a combination of machine learning and reinforcement learning powered by customer data to help businesses achieve their marketing goals.

Beyond improving outcomes, AI also automates manual tasks and scales operations, enabling teams to grow without adding headcount.

At the heart of every marketing team is three goals: acquiring, retaining, and educating their customers. Achieving these goals is far from simple. Most companies know the steps they should take to achieve their goal, but taking those steps is often resource-intensive and difficult to scale. AI marketing helps you with the steps in between, tackling these time-consuming tasks, and freeing you to focus on high-impact decisions—such as designing new campaigns or uncovering untapped opportunities—that produce meaningful results.

AI's impact on businesses is undeniable. The BBC reports it could replace up to 300 million jobs. But for marketers, it's not about replacement, but rather the results. The best marketing teams are laser-focused on moving the needle on their north star metric, whether that's a streaming company wanting to increase engagement or a retailer driving adoption to their mobile app. For most companies, this means increasing customer lifetime value.

By incorporating AI into their marketing efforts, teams can lower costs, boost revenue, and gain a competitive edge. More importantly, AI empowers marketers to speed up results—achieving measurable improvements, preserving service quality, and passing savings directly to customers.

How to create an AI marketing strategy

Your AI marketing strategy should combine generative AI and AI Decisioning. The rise of generative AI in 2022, led by tools like ChatGPT, revolutionized creativity. Marketers turned to large language models (LLMs) to craft ad copy, images, and video scripts. But AI can do more than generate text, images, or video—it can help deliver tangible results. This is where AI Decisioning harnesses the power of AI agents to make intelligent decisions and is why marketing teams should use both types of AI. Every effective AI marketing strategy is built on data. The more data you collect, the faster and more accurately you can build and train AI models.

Next, you need to identify your north star metric so you can effectively set up AI to optimize for this outcome. For example, Netflix’s north star metric might be watch time, whereas Amazon’s could be customer lifetime value. Your north star may shift as your business evolves, but it’s vital to know what it is so you can optimize accordingly.

Because AI handles most of the decision-making, you'll have more time to focus on campaign strategy—writing copy, selecting images, and choosing channels. AI can also run more experiments at a scale not possible by humans, take that learning back, and share it with your marketing team. Meanwhile, the AI continuously tests and refines these creative elements in response to customer behaviors, uncovering which combinations resonate best. Over time, you can introduce new variables—like different messages or imagery—while AI learns from your audience's actions, ensuring each touchpoint is optimized for creative impact and customer behavior.

To give you further insights into how to use AI for your marketing, we will explain specific use cases and tools you can leverage below.

AI in email marketing

Every marketer knows that email has the potential to be an extremely powerful and cost-effective marketing channel. Small incremental changes can have huge upsides as it relates to open and clickthrough rates. The challenge is that testing and optimizing thousands of different emails, subject lines, creatives, and CTAs is too time-consuming and simply not scalable.

With AI, you can continuously experiment with the combination of subject line, body copy, CTA, and time of day of your emails for each customer to drive towards your desired outcomes, such as increased open rate or clickthrough rate. You can also create and enroll users into journeys based on the actions they take or engagement levels, so they are always on the right journey to drive your desired outcomes.

Here’s how AI can transform your email marketing:

• Boost open rates: AI can help identify subject lines likely to engage your customers by analyzing historical data and trends from similar audiences. For instance, AI might discover that including emojis in subject lines can boost open rates among younger audiences, while more formal language could resonate better with older demographics. For a specific user, it could suggest a subject line like “🎉 Don’t miss out on your exclusive offer!” instead of “Exclusive Offer Inside.
• Increase click-through rates: AI can tailor email content—such as tone, copy, and offers—to align with individual customer preferences, potentially increasing the likelihood of engagement. For example, AI might notice that customers in colder regions tend to respond more to promotions for winter gear. In that scenario, the email could highlight a special deal on coats, while for customers in warmer climates, it might emphasize sunscreen or summer apparel.

Here are some tools that can help you implement AI in your email marketing.

• Hightouch AI Decisioning acts as an AI agent for your campaigns. You define your goals and provide various content (e.g., subject lines, offers) and customer data. Hightouch's AI identifies the combinations and timings that are most effective for reaching customers and leading them to achieve your desired outcomes. AI Decisioning can always help pick the right channel, not limited to email.
• ActiveCampaign offers generative AI features to craft subject lines, email copy, and calls to action. The platform also enables AI-driven static email journeys for enhanced engagement.
• MailChimp includes AI features to optimize email design, predict audience segmentation, and generate alt text for images, ensuring accessibility and improved customer targeting.
• Klaviyo Email AI helps refine email content by generating copy, suggesting layouts, and recommending images, products, and button designs to create more effective campaigns.

AI in content marketing

Content marketing helps you build authority and credibility, brand awareness, and organic traffic to your website. For content marketers, improving traffic and conversions will lead to more sales opportunities. Most content teams have a good idea of what content works or doesn't. The problem is that most content teams are under-resourced and can get bogged down in tasks that don’t move the needle.

Fortunately, AI can streamline many aspects of your content marketing workflow—such as SEO keyword research, programmatic SEO initiatives, and customer research—ensuring that each piece remains relevant and accurately presented to the reader.

AI can transform content marketing by:

• Boost content appeal: You can use AI to generate media such as images and videos to complement your content and keep readers engaged for longer. For example, a software company might use AI to generate a video showcasing its latest feature updates, making complex technical concepts easier to understand.
• Ensure consistent distribution: You can automate content scheduling and maintain distribution over a set timeframe so content is distributed at the optimal time on each channel and re-distributed to increase engagement. For example, a marketing team can create blog articles and social media posts, let AI post them at the optimal time, and resurface them to increase engagement.
• Streamline research efforts: You can simplify research by identifying trending topics and gathering relevant data for content creation. For example, a fashion brand could use AI to uncover seasonal trends, such as "eco-friendly winter wear," to guide blog and campaign content.

Here are some tools that leverage AI to optimize content marketing efforts:

• Jasper helps generate content ideas and turn them into long-form articles, complete with images. It also helps develop content strategies by identifying high-value keywords. Jasper also automates tasks like crafting meta descriptions and writing headlines, saving time on repetitive work.
• Grammarly is an AI-powered editor that integrates seamlessly into workflows. They offer advanced spelling and grammar checks and enhance content quality by suggesting rewrites for clarity and providing tone adjustments to better match your audience.
• Copy.ai excels in creating diverse content, from articles and social media posts to ad copy. Its AI agents can perform repetitive tasks, such as compiling top search results from Google, to support your content research and production.
• WriteSonic offers an AI writing assistant capable of generating articles up to 1,500 words, crafting ad copy, and writing product descriptions. Additional features include AI image generation, text-to-voice conversion, and an SEO checker to optimize content for search engines.

AI in paid media

Paid media is important because it can help you reach a whole new audience and target specific people with a certain message. If the advertiser can impact return on ad spend (ROAS) and cost per acquisition (CPA) it will help increase revenue generation and overall profitability. However, many businesses only attempt superficial personalization by grouping customers into broad segments based on generic factors like behavior or persona. The result is often impersonal and ineffective, failing to resonate and ultimately hindering conversions.

AI helps you experiment with ad creative and target audiences to help you find a winning campaign without tons of manual work.

AI tools can transform your paid media strategy in several ways:

• More efficient ad placements: AI can enable real-time ad buying and placement, which may help your ads reach the right audience at the right time. For instance, an e-commerce business might use AI to target users who recently browsed similar products on competitor websites, bidding for ad placements instantly to capture their interest and potentially boost conversions.
• Drive better conversions: AI can segment audiences more effectively and match them with ad creatives tailored to their preferences, which may lead to higher engagement and conversion rates. For example, a fitness brand might use AI to group audiences based on their activity level—promoting high-performance gear to athletes while featuring comfortable activewear for casual exercisers.
• Save time and improve results: AI can automate repetitive tasks like campaign creation, ad copy generation, and performance monitoring, potentially giving you more time to focus on strategy. For instance, a SaaS company might use an AI tool to write ad headlines, select relevant visuals, and launch a campaign promoting a new feature update. The AI could then analyze click-through rates and suggest adjustments for better engagement.

Here are some tools that will help you implement AI in paid media:

• Adcreative.ai helps you generate compelling ad copy and visuals, provides insights into why certain ads succeed, and analyzes competitors' campaigns for actionable strategies.
• The Trade Desk's AI platform, Kokai, automates media buying by optimizing bids and refining targeting strategies based on demographic patterns, purchase history, and customer behavior.

AI in personalization

Personalizing your customer experience is essential for business success. According to McKinsey, effective personalization can reduce customer acquisition costs by 50% and boost revenues by 5 to 15%. It also enhances the user’s journey by presenting content or products they genuinely find interesting.

However, many businesses only attempt a superficial form of personalization by grouping customers into broad segments based on generic factors like behavior or persona. The result is often impersonal and ineffective, failing to resonate and ultimately hindering conversions.

AI can transform this process by enabling true one-to-one personalization. It helps you move away from generic personalization, where what is best for everyone is, in fact, best for no one. Instead, AI uses an adaptive approach that continually learns and adjusts, delivering content optimized for each individual and through the right channel.

Here are the key ways AI can enhance personalization:

• Cross-sell and upselling: Analyzing current and historical customer data enables businesses to identify opportunities for increasing average order value (AOV) by recommending complementary products. For example, D2C companies often use checkout flows to present special offers, such as discounted accessories or bundling options for related products. These tailored recommendations, delivered via email, on the website, or within the app, can drive additional revenue and enhance the customer experience.
• Win-back: Re-engaging lapsed customers often involves analyzing behavioral data to craft targeted messages and offers. In the travel industry, for instance, if a user frequently booked flights but hasn’t done so recently, a win-back strategy could include personalized promotions, such as discounts on their most-searched destinations or upgrades for their next trip. By addressing the reasons for disengagement with tailored offers, you can reignite customer interest and boost reactivation rates.
• Personalized content: Dynamic content personalization ensures that users see the most relevant materials, whether on websites, apps, or email campaigns. This strategy applies across industries to foster engagement and loyalty. For instance, a streaming platform like Netflix might recommend new shows or movies based on a user’s viewing history and preferences, creating a more tailored and enjoyable experience.
• Product recommendations: Leveraging purchase histories and behavioral data to surface relevant suggestions is a cornerstone of e-commerce success. Amazon, for example, excels at recommending products based on a customer’s previous purchases or browsing habits, as well as trends among similar users. By integrating these recommendations into website interactions, email marketing, and ad targeting, businesses can drive sales while improving customer satisfaction and retention.

To implement AI-driven personalization effectively, consider these tools:

• Hightouch AI Decisioning leverages connections to your data warehouse, providing access to comprehensive customer data to fuel personalized experiences across all touchpoints, from in-app content to email campaigns. Its AI Decisioning agent continuously learns and adapts, experimenting with customer-specific strategies to optimize marketing outcomes.
• Mutiny uses AI to create websites that dynamically adapt to individual visitors. Analyzing visitor data personalizes website components in real time, tailoring the experience to each unique user.

AI in video marketing

Video marketing relies on numerous metrics, but key indicators like engagement (watch time) and click-through rate (CTR) hinge on high-quality content and strategic execution. Yet, marketers often overlook these due to the demands of manual, time-consuming tasks like editing. With AI, you can streamline video editing, freeing time to create more content and refine successful strategies.

AI in video marketing can assist with:

• Editing Content: AI can streamline the video editing process, enabling tasks like removing filler words, assembling video clips based on specific criteria such as pacing or storytelling, enhancing video quality through color grading adjustments, and reducing video noise. For example, a business could use AI tools to quickly edit customer testimonials by removing pauses or stutters, ensuring a polished final product for social media or ad campaigns.
• Automating transcripts and captions: AI can analyze the audio content of your video and generate accurate transcripts or captions, improving accessibility and engagement. For instance, a company producing tutorial videos can auto-generate captions to make their content accessible to a broader audience, including viewers with hearing impairments or non-native speakers.
• Creating stock footage: Generative AI software can produce stock or B-roll footage, making your video content more dynamic and visually appealing. For example, a marketing team could generate relevant background footage for a product launch video, such as animated cityscapes or abstract visuals, without needing to source expensive stock libraries.
• Creating AI avatars: By providing a script, AI can generate realistic “talking head” avatars that deliver the script and perform in multiple languages. A business could use AI avatars to create multilingual customer service videos or personalized greetings for international clients, saving time and resources compared to traditional production methods.

Here are some tools to help you integrate AI into your video marketing:

• Synthesia transforms text into video using AI avatars. With support for over 120 languages and accents, it enables personalized content creation tailored to your audience’s native language.
• Runway generates unique video content that can seamlessly integrate into your projects by simply providing a prompt.
• Veed.io offers a comprehensive video editing suite powered by AI. Features include audio enhancement, automatic removal of filler words, eye contact correction, and more.

AI in marketing automation

Many processes across the marketing landscape are repetitive and manual. These might include moving data, crafting and sending messages, conducting research, or scheduling social media posts. Such tasks consume valuable time that could be spent on higher-level initiatives, which is why they’re better suited for automation than human effort.

AI can seamlessly handle tasks like sending outreach emails or setting up customer journeys and email flows. Beyond mere automation, AI continuously learns and refines these processes, further enhancing efficiency over time.

AI in marketing automation can help you with:

• Customer onboarding: AI can help to create highly personalized customer onboarding, tailoring flows to each individual based on their interactions. For example, an AI system might analyze a customer’s recent product searches and recommend an onboarding sequence highlighting those features. AI increases the likelihood of activation and engagement by delivering content that aligns with customers’ specific wants and needs.
• Journey orchestration: Marketers can use AI to help design tailored customer journeys, delivering unique experiences that boost engagement and drive marketing goals. This journey orchestration can be across multiple channels and with multiple content. For instance, an AI tool might monitor a user’s in-app behavior to adjust the sequence of notifications or suggest relevant tutorials, ensuring the customer remains engaged.
• Sales outbound: Effective sales outbound requires extensive research and personalization—tasks perfectly suited for AI. For example, an AI agent might identify a company frequently visiting your pricing page. Analyzing their industry trends and potential pain points, such as scaling challenges or customer retention issues, crafts a personalized email showing how your solution addresses these needs. The agent then ensures delivery at the perfect moment to maximize engagement.

Here are some tools that will help you implement AI in marketing automation:

• Hightouch AI Decisioning leverages machine learning and reinforcement learning to automate personalized customer experiences, boosting engagement, revenue, and lifetime value.
• UnifyGTM automates repetitive outbound sales tasks, identifies ideal buyers, and runs outreach on autopilot using AI agents.

Closing Thoughts

Technology is undergoing a Cambrian explosion as the big tech giants race to win the AI market, and companies are looking to implement it. The truth is that AI will not replace marketers. Marketers using AI will.

Many marketers are still apprehensive about AI because many platforms today act as black boxes with no visibility about how the underlying decisions are being made. This is an important factor to consider as you implement AI to solve your use cases.

Frameworks and original ideas will be the biggest differentiators in the age of AI. Don't fall in love with technology because today's technology won't be the technology of tomorrow. If you fall in love with problems, problems will always remain the same. Case in point: people used to stare at newspapers to avoid boredom, and now they stare at smartphones.

If you want to implement AI into your organization, which will help you scale your desired outcomes and clearly understand what decisions are being made, check out Hightouch AI Decisioning by booking a demo with one of our solutions engineers.