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As a millennial marketer, I can tell you quite a bit about the internet—we practically grew up together!

Nowadays, the internet and marketing go hand in hand, so you need to know what digital marketing is and how to use it if you want to meet your audiences where they’re at—online!

In 2024, there are 2.71 billion online shoppers, a third of the world’s population—underscoring the need for a strong digital presence. With that in mind, I’m here to discuss all things digital marketing. Keep reading to learn more. 

• What is digital marketing?
• Why is digital marketing important?
• Types of Digital Marketing
• What does a digital marketer do?
• Inbound Marketing vs. Digital Marketing: Which is it?
• Does digital marketing work for all businesses?
• How to Do Digital Marketing
• Digital Marketing Examples

How does a business define digital marketing?

Digital marketing is vital for your business and brand awareness. It seems like every other brand has a website, and if they don’t, they at least have a social media presence or digital ad strategy.

Our 2024 State of Marketing Survey found that Social media is the highest-return marketing channel and will see the most growth in 2024. 

Overall, digital marketing is defined as using numerous digital tactics and channels to connect with customers where they spend much of their time: online.

The best digital marketers have a clear picture of how each digital marketing campaign supports their overarching goals.

Depending on the goals of their marketing strategy, marketers can support a larger campaign through the free and paid channels they have available.

A content marketer, for example, could create a series of blog posts that generate leads from an ebook.

A social media marketer might help promote those blogs through paid and organic posts on the business’s social media accounts, and the email marketer could create an email campaign to send those who download the ebook more information on the company.

There are a few major benefits of digital marketing:  

1. You can focus your efforts on only the prospects most likely to purchase your product or service.

Digital marketing allows you to identify and target a highly-specific audience with personalized and high-converting marketing messages.

For instance, you might use social media targeting to show ads to a certain audience based on variables like age, gender, location, interests, networks, or behaviors.

Alternatively, you might use PPC or SEO strategies to serve ads to users who’ve shown interest in or searched for specific keywords related to your product, service, or industry. 

Ultimately, digital marketing helps you conduct the research necessary to identify your buyer personas and refine your strategy to ensure you’re reaching prospects most likely to buy.

2. It’s more cost-effective than outbound marketing methods.

Digital marketing helps you track campaign performance day to day, so you know which channels are performing well and which aren’t. This information helps you optimize your campaign budgets for high ROI.

A digital marketing strategy allows you to pivot continuously, ensuring you never waste money on channels that don’t perform well.

For instance, if you work for a small business with a limited budget, you might try investing in social media, blogging, or SEO – three strategies that can give you high ROI even with minimal spending.

3. Online marketing evens the playing field within your industry and allows you to compete with bigger brands.

If you work for a small business, it’s likely difficult for you to compete with the major brands in your industry, many of which have millions of dollars to invest in campaigns.

Fortunately, there are plenty of opportunities to outrank the big players through strategic digital marketing initiatives.

For instance, you might use long-tail keywords to create high-quality content that ranks on search engines. Search engines don’t care which brand is the biggest, but it does care about prioritizing content that resonates best with target audiences. 

4. Digital marketing is measurable.

One of the biggest benefits of digital marketing is that it gives a start-to-finish view of all the metrics that matter to your company — including impressions, shares, views, clicks, and time on the page.

Unlike most offline marketing efforts, digital marketing allows marketers to see accurate results in real time.

If you’ve ever put an advertisement in a newspaper, you’ll know how difficult it is to estimate how many people flipped to that page and paid attention to it. There’s no surefire way to know if that ad was responsible for any sales at all.

On the other hand, with digital marketing, you can measure the ROI of pretty much any aspect of your marketing efforts.

Here are some examples:

Website Traffic

With digital marketing, you can see the exact number of people who have viewed your website’s homepage in real time by using digital analytics software available in marketing platforms like HubSpot.

You can also see how many pages they visited, what device they were using, and where they came from, amongst other digital analytics data.

This intelligence helps you prioritize which marketing channels to spend more or less time on based on the number of people those channels drive to your website.

With digital marketing, you can identify trends and patterns in people’s behavior before they’ve reached the final stage in their buyer’s journey, meaning you can make more informed decisions about how to attract them to your website right at the top of the marketing funnel.

Content Performance and Lead Generation

Imagine you’ve created a product brochure and posted it through people’s letterboxes — that brochure is a form of offline content. Unfortunately, you have no idea how many people opened your brochure or threw it straight into the trash.

If you have that brochure on your website, you can measure how many people viewed the page it’s on, and you can use a form to collect the contact information of those who downloaded it.

It’s twofold: you measure how many people engage with your content and generate qualified leads when people download it.

Attribution Modeling

An effective digital marketing strategy combined with the right tools and technologies allows you to trace all of your sales back to a customer’s first digital touchpoint with your business.

We call this attribution modeling.

It allows you to identify trends in the way people research and buy your product, helping you to make more informed decisions about which parts of your marketing strategy deserve more attention and which parts of your sales cycle need refining.

5. It’s easier to adapt and change an online marketing strategy.

A great benefit of digital marketing is the ease with which you can change your strategy. Adapting a digital marketing strategy is much easier than other, more traditional forms of marketing, like mailers or billboard advertising.

For instance, if an online ad isn’t delivering as expected, you can quickly adjust it or pause it to yield better results.

6. Online marketing can improve your conversion rate and the quality of your leads.

As digital marketing makes it simpler to measure your marketing efforts, this makes improving your conversion rate simpler as well. Being able to measure the effectiveness of each tactic helps you develop better strategies.

Continuously refining your methods improves your conversion rate. Investing in online marketing ensures that everything is optimized for the highest amount of conversions.

Additionally, not all leads offer the same value for your business. Digital marketing allows you to target a specific audience, which will yield higher-quality leads that are more likely to become customers.

Connecting your business with the most valuable leads will directly improve your conversion rate.

7. You can engage audiences at every stage with digital marketing.

Engaging your audience as early as possible is essential. Making a connection at the first stage of the buyer’s journey helps push the lead through the customer funnel.

Using digital marketing allows you to accomplish that from start to finish and at every point in between.

Online channels allow you to follow the entire buying journey of your customers. Understanding and analyzing how customers are move and operate is important for converting leads.

Digital marketing allows you to track them through that process. And, even if they don’t convert in the early stages, it at least helps ensure they have made a connection with your business.

Here’s a quick rundown of some of the most common digital marketing tactics and the channels involved in each one.

1. Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

This is the process of optimizing your website to “rank” higher in search engine results pages, thereby increasing the amount of organic (or free) traffic your website receives.

The channels that benefit from SEO include websites, blogs, and infographics.

There are a number of ways to approach SEO in order to generate qualified traffic to your website. These include:

• On-page SEO: This type of SEO focuses on all of the content that exists “on the page” when looking at a website. By researching keywords for their search volume and intent (or meaning), you can answer questions for readers and rank higher on the search engine results pages (SERPs) those questions produce.
• Off page SEO: This type of SEO focuses on all of the activity that takes place “off the page” when looking to optimize your website. “What activity not on my own website could affect my ranking?” You might ask. The answer is inbound links, also known as backlinks. The number of publishers that link to you, and the relative “authority” of those publishers, affect how highly you rank for the keywords you care about. By networking with other publishers, writing guest posts on these websites (and linking back to your website), and generating external attention, you can earn the backlinks you need to move your website up on all the right SERPs.
• Technical SEO: This type of SEO focuses on the backend of your website, and how your pages are coded. Image compression, structured data, and CSS file optimization are all forms of technical SEO that can increase your website’s loading speed — an important ranking factor in the eyes of search engines like Google.

For a real-life example on how to successfully implement SEO into your digital marketing strategy, check out our case study on Canva here:

2. Content Marketing

This term denotes the creation and promotion of content assets for the purpose of generating brand awareness, traffic growth, lead generation, and customers.

Want to learn and apply content marketing to your business? Check out HubSpot Academy’s free content marketing training resource page.

The channels that can play a part in your content marketing strategy include:

• Blog posts: Writing and publishing articles on a company blog helps you demonstrate your industry expertise and generates organic search traffic for your business. This ultimately gives you more opportunities to convert website visitors into leads for your sales team.
• Ebooks and whitepapers: Ebooks, whitepapers, and similar long-form content helps further educate website visitors. It also allows you to exchange content for a reader’s contact information, generating leads for your company and moving people through the buyer’s journey.
• Infographics: Sometimes, readers want you to show, not tell. Infographics are a form of visual content that helps website visitors visualize a concept you want to help them learn.
• Audio or visual content: Television and radio are popular channels for digital marketing. Creating content that can be shared online as a video or heard on the radio by listeners can greatly broaden your potential audience.

Stumped? Download 150+ content creation templates by clicking below: 

Download These Templates

3. Social Media Marketing

This practice promotes your brand and your content on social media channels to increase brand awareness, drive traffic, and generate leads for your business.

If you’re new to social platforms, you can use tools like HubSpot to connect channels like LinkedIn and Facebook in one place.

This way, you can easily schedule content for multiple channels at once and monitor analytics from the platform as well.

On top of connecting social accounts for posting purposes, you can also integrate your social media inboxes into HubSpot, so you can get your direct messages in one place.

The channels you can use in social media marketing include:

• Facebook
• X
• LinkedIn
• Instagram
• Snapchat
• Pinterest

Many marketers use these social media platforms to create viral campaigns. Partnering with a popular content creator or participating in a trend that resonates with a wide audience is a viral marketing strategy.

The purpose is to create something shareworthy in the hopes that it will organically spread across a social media channel.

Don’t know how to get started with social media marketing? Download our free social media content calendar to get your social strategy up and running.

 

Download These Templates

4. Pay Per Click (PPC)

PPC drives traffic to your website by paying a publisher every time your ad is clicked.

One of the most common types of PPC is Google Ads, which allows you to pay for top slots on Google’s search engine results pages at a price “per click” of the links you place. Other channels where you can use PPC include:

• Paid ads on Facebook: Here, users can pay to customize a video, image post, or slideshow, which Facebook will publish to the news feeds of people who match your business’s audience.
• X Ads campaigns: Here, users can pay to place a series of posts or profile badges to the news feeds of a specific audience, all dedicated to accomplishing a specific goal for your business. This goal can be website traffic, more X followers, tweet engagement, or even app downloads.
• Sponsored Messages on LinkedIn: Here, users can pay to send messages directly to specific LinkedIn users based on their industry and background.

PPC can be hard to grasp at first, so we’ve created a beginner-friendly guide to get you started. Download it below: 

Download This Guide

5. Affiliate Marketing

This is a type of performance-based advertising where you receive a commission for promoting someone else’s products or services on your website. Affiliate marketing channels include:

• Hosting video ads through the YouTube Partner Program.
• Posting affiliate links from your social media accounts.

This is part of the relatively new wave of influencer marketing. Creating a campaign using influencers can be a highly effective form of affiliate marketing. Finding the right content creators can take your digital campaign to the next level.

6. Native Advertising

Native advertising refers to advertisements that are primarily content-led and featured on a platform alongside other, non-paid content.

BuzzFeed-sponsored posts are a good example, but many people also consider social media advertising to be “native” — Facebook advertising and Instagram advertising, for example.

7. Marketing Automation

Marketing automation refers to the software that automates your basic marketing operations. Many marketing departments can automate repetitive tasks they would otherwise do manually, such as:

• Email newsletters: Email automation doesn’t just allow you to automatically send emails to your subscribers. It can also help you shrink and expand your contact list as needed so your newsletters are only going to the people who want to see them in their inboxes.
• Social media post scheduling: If you want to grow your organization’s presence on a social network, you need to post frequently. This makes manual posting a bit of an unruly process. Social media scheduling tools push your content to your social media channels for you, so you can spend more time focusing on content strategy.
• Lead-nurturing workflows: Generating leads, and converting those leads into customers, can be a long process.You can automate that process by sending leads specific emails and content once they fit certain criteria, such as when they download and open an ebook.
• Campaign tracking and reporting: Marketing campaigns can include a ton of different people, emails, content, webpages, phone calls, and more. Marketing automation can help you sort everything you work on by the campaign it’s serving and then track the performance of that campaign based on the progress all of these components make over time.

8. Email Marketing

Companies use email marketing as a way of communicating with their audiences. Email is often used to promote content, discounts and events, as well as to direct people toward the business’s website.

The types of emails you might send in an email marketing campaign include:

• Blog subscription newsletters.
• Follow-up emails to website visitors who downloaded something.
• Customer welcome emails.
• Holiday promotions to loyalty program members.
• Tips or similar series emails for customer nurturing.

Learn more about email marketing with our free guide: 

Download This Guide

9. Online PR

Online PR is the practice of securing earned online coverage with digital publications, blogs, and other content-based websites. It’s much like traditional PR but in the online space.

The channels you can use to maximize your PR efforts include:

• Reporter outreach via social media: Talking to journalists on X, for example, is a great way to develop a relationship with the press that produces earned media opportunities for your company.
• Engaging online reviews of your company: When someone reviews your company online, whether that review is good or bad, your instinct might be not to touch it. On the contrary, engaging company reviews helps you humanize your brand and deliver powerful messaging that protects your reputation.
• Engaging comments on your personal website or blog: Similar to how you’d respond to reviews of your company, responding to the people reading your content is the best way to generate productive conversation around your industry.

If you don’t have a dedicated PR team, it can be hard to get started. Luckily, we’ve got you covered. Download our free PR kit below: 

Download This Guide

10. Inbound Marketing

Inbound marketing refers to a marketing methodology wherein you attract, engage, and delight customers at every stage of the buyer’s journey.

You can use every digital marketing tactic listed above throughout an inbound marketing strategy to create a customer experience that works with the customer, not against them.

Here are some classic examples of inbound marketing versus traditional marketing:

• Blogging vs. pop-up ads
• Video marketing vs. commercial advertising
• Email contact lists vs. email spam

11. Sponsored Content

With sponsored content, you, as a brand, pay another company or entity to create and promote content that discusses your brand or service in some way.

One popular type of sponsored content is influencer marketing. With this type of sponsored content, a brand sponsors an influencer in its industry to publish posts or videos related to the company on social media.

Another type of sponsored content could be a blog post or article highlighting a topic, service, or brand.

12. Search Engine Marketing (SEM)

When a potential lead is searching for a product or business related to yours, it’s a great opportunity for a promotion. Paid advertising and SEO are two great strategies for promoting your business to capitalize on those future leads.

Search engine marketing is another way to increase website traffic by placing paid ads on search engines. The two most popular SEM services are Bing Ads and Google Ads.

These paid ads fit seamlessly on the top of search engine results pages, giving instant visibility. This is also an example of effective native advertising.

13. Instant Messaging Marketing

Marketing your products through messaging platforms is a fast way to reach potential leads, even for those who haven’t offered up their cell phone number.

For example, you can send messages directly to a mobile phone via text or on platforms like Facebook Messenger or WhatsApp. It’s a simple way to let your audience know about flash sales, new products, or updates about their orders.

If your customers have questions or need more information, it’s also a convenient way for them to connect to customer service. You should also consider implementing live chat on your website here.

This way, first-time website visitors will have a quick and easy way to reach out in case they have any questions about your products or services, while you get to promptly offer the details necessary to solve the visitor’s query — details which may lead to an on-the-spot conversion.  

The digital marketer focuses on each channel’s key performance indicators (KPIs) to properly measure performance. For example, a digital marketer in charge of SEO might measure their website’s organic traffic. 

At small companies, one person might own many digital channels and tactics described above, while larger companies typically have a specialist focused on one or two brand channels.

Here are some examples of these specialists:

SEO Manager

Main KPIs: Organic traffic

SEO managers work to rank a business on Google SERPs.

Using various SEO strategies, this person might work directly with content creators to ensure the content is high-quality and up to Google’s standards, even if the company also posts this content on social media. 

Content Marketing Specialist

Main KPIs: Time on page, overall blog traffic, YouTube channel subscribers

Content marketing specialists are digital content creators. They might keep track of a blogging calendar, or develop a content strategy that includes video.

They often work with people in other departments to ensure products and campaigns are supported by promotional content on all digital channels. 

Social Media Manager

Main KPIs: Follows, Impressions, Shares

A social media manager’s role depends on each company and industry. But above all, social media managers manage social media by establishing a posting schedule for the company’s written and visual content.

They might also work with a content marketing specialist to develop a strategy for which content to share on social media. 

(Note: Per the KPIs above, “impressions” refers to the number of times a business’s posts appear on the newsfeed of a user.)

Marketing Automation Coordinator

Main KPIs: Email open rate, campaign click-through rate, lead-generation (conversion) rate

A marketing automation coordinator helps choose and manage the software a marketing team uses to understand customer behavior and measure business growth.

Many of the marketing operations described above might be executed separately, so it’s important for there to be someone who can group these activities into individual campaigns and track performance. 

Inbound Marketing vs. Digital Marketing: Which Is It?

Inbound marketing is a methodology that uses digital marketing assets to attract, engage, and delight customers online.

Digital marketing, on the other hand, is simply an umbrella term to describe online marketing tactics of any kind, regardless of whether they’re considered inbound or outbound.

Digital marketing is often compared to inbound marketing, but it doesn’t differentiate between ‘inbound’ and ‘outbound’ methods.

It’s more of an umbrella term for all marketing that involves digital communication, while inbound marketing is more of a strategy.

Digital outbound tactics put a marketing message in front of as many people as possible online — regardless of whether it’s relevant or welcomed.

For example, the garish banner ads you see on websites that push a product or promotion to people who aren’t necessarily ready to receive it. 

Marketers who employ digital inbound tactics use online content to attract their target customers by providing assets that are helpful to them.

One of the simplest yet most powerful inbound digital marketing assets is a blog, which allows your website to capitalize on the terms which your ideal customers are searching for.

Does online marketing work for all businesses?

Digital marketing can work for any business in any industry. Regardless of what your company sells, digital marketing still involves building buyer personas to identify your audience’s needs, and creating valuable online content.

However, that’s not to say all businesses should implement a digital marketing strategy in the same way.

B2B Digital Marketing

If your company is business-to-business (B2B), your digital marketing efforts are likely centered around online lead generation, with the end goal being for someone to speak to a salesperson.

The goal of your marketing strategy might be to attract and convert the highest quality leads for your salespeople via your website and to support digital channels. 

Beyond your website, you’ll probably choose to focus your efforts on business-focused channels like LinkedIn, where your demographic is spending their time online.

B2C Digital Marketing

If your company is business-to-consumer (B2C), depending on the price point of your products, it’s likely that the goal of your digital marketing efforts is to attract people to your website and have them become customers without ever needing to speak to a salesperson.

You’re probably less likely to focus on ‘leads’ in their traditional sense and more likely to build an accelerated buyer’s journey from when someone lands on your website to when they make a purchase.

This can mean that your product features are higher up in the marketing funnel than it might be for a B2B business, and you might need to use stronger calls-to-action to inspire purchases. 

For B2C companies, channels like Instagram and Pinterest are often more valuable than business-focused platforms like LinkedIn.

What types of digital content should I create?

The kind of content you create depends on your audience’s needs at different stages in the buyer’s journey.

You should start by creating buyer personas (use these free templates, or try makemypersona.com) to identify what your audience’s goals and challenges are in relation to your business.

On a basic level, your online content should aim to help them meet these goals, and overcome their challenges.

Then, you’ll need to consider when they’re most likely to be ready to consume this content in line with their stage in the buyer’s journey. We call this content mapping.

With content mapping, the goal is to target content according to:

1. The characteristics of the person who will be consuming it (that’s where buyer personas come in).
2. How close that person is to making a purchase (i.e., their lifecycle stage).

In terms of the format of your content, there are a lot of different things to try. Here are some options we’d recommend using at each stage of the buyer’s journey:

Awareness Stage

• Blog posts. Great for increasing your organic traffic when paired with a strong SEO and keyword strategy. (You can plug your search terms into our blog topic generator to get content ideas and generate readily optimized outlines.)
• Infographics. Very shareable, meaning they increase your chances of being found via social media when others share your content. (Check out these free infographic templates to get you started.)
• Short videos. Again, these are very shareable and can help your brand get found by new audiences by hosting them on platforms like YouTube.

Consideration Stage

• Ebooks. Great for lead generation as they’re generally more comprehensive than a blog post or infographic, meaning someone is more likely to exchange their contact information to receive it.
• Research reports. Again, this high-value content type is great for lead generation. Research reports and new data for your industry can also work for the awareness stage, though, as they’re often picked up by the media or industry press.
• Webinars. As they’re a more detailed, interactive form of video content, webinars are an effective consideration stage content format as they offer more comprehensive content than a blog post or short video.

Decision Stage

• Case studies. Having detailed case studies on your website can be an effective form of content for those ready to make a purchasing decision, as it helps you positively influence their decision.
• Testimonials. If case studies aren’t a good fit for your business, having short testimonials around your website is a good alternative. For B2C brands, think of testimonials a little more loosely. If you’re a clothing brand, these might take the form of photos of how other people styled a shirt or dress, pulled from a branded hashtag where people can contribute.

1. Define your goals.

When you get started with digital marketing, it’s critical to identify and define your goals since you’ll craft your strategy with them.

For instance, if your goal is to increase brand awareness, you might want to focus on reaching new audiences via social media.

Or maybe you want to increase sales on a specific product — if that’s the case, it’s more important you focus on SEO and optimizing content to get potential buyers on your website in the first place.

Additionally, if sales are your goal, you might test out PPC campaigns to drive traffic through paid ads.

Whatever the case, it’s easiest to shape a digital marketing strategy after you’ve determined your company’s biggest goals.

2. Identify your target audience.

We’ve mentioned this before, but one of the biggest benefits of digital marketing is the opportunity to target specific audiences – however, you can’t take advantage of that benefit if you haven’t first identified your target audience.

Of course, it’s important to note your target audience might vary depending on the channel or goal(s) you have for a specific product or campaign.

For instance, perhaps you’ve noticed most of your Instagram audience is younger and prefers funny memes and quick videos — but your LinkedIn audience is older professionals looking for more tactical advice. 

In any case, having a thorough understanding of how users react to your content across different marketing channels is a must. You’ll want to vary your content to appeal to each specific audience for maximized results.

This is where data becomes all the more important. You can use platforms like Google Analytics to monitor website visitor behavior or native social media analytics tools to see how your followers engage with your social posts, for example.

However, it’s best to access all this data within the same place — it helps spot any similarities or discrepancies between audiences and see how each strategy contributes to your overall marketing goals.

This is where dedicated marketing analytics platforms, like HubSpot, come in handy. These solutions offer the tools necessary to see what content works best for each channel, examine how users move from one marketing channel to the other, as well as compare your marketing strategies’ results side-by-side.      

If you’re starting from scratch, however, feel free to take a look at How to Find Your Target Audience.

3. Establish a budget for each digital channel.

Your budget will depend on the elements of digital marketing you use. 

If you’re focusing on inbound techniques like SEO, social media, and content creation for a pre-existing website, the good news is you don’t need a big budget at all.

You can aim to create high-quality content your audience will want to consume, where the only investment you’ll need is your time.

You can get started by hosting a website and creating content using HubSpot’s CMS.

For those on a tight budget, you can get started using WordPress hosted on WP Engine, using a simple theme from StudioPress, and building your site without code using the Elementor Website Builder for WordPress.

With outbound techniques like online advertising and purchasing email lists, there is undoubtedly some expense. What it costs comes down to what kind of visibility you want to receive as a result of the advertising.

For example, to implement PPC using Google AdWords, you’ll bid against other companies in your industry to appear at the top of Google’s search results for keywords associated with your business.

Depending on the keyword’s competitiveness, this can be reasonably affordable or extremely expensive, which is why it’s a good idea to focus on building your organic reach too.

4. Strike a good balance between paid and free digital strategies.

A digital marketing strategy likely needs both paid and free aspects to truly be effective.

For instance, spending time building comprehensive buyer personas to identify your audience’s needs and creating high-quality online content that converts them, you’ll likely see strong results despite minimal ad spend. 

However, if paid advertising is part of your digital strategy, then the results might come even quicker.

Ultimately, aim to build your organic (or ‘free’) reach using content, SEO, and social media for more long-term, sustainable success.

When in doubt, try both, and iterate on your process as you learn which channels — paid or free – perform best for your brand.

5. Create engaging content.

Once you know your audience and have a budget, it’s time to start creating content for the various channels you will use.

This content can be social media posts, blog posts, PPC ads, sponsored content, email marketing newsletters, and more.

To create conversion-focused content consider using Content Marketing Software. With this software, you can utilize an AI-powered content writing tool, repurpose blog posts into content for other channels, and improve your content quality by optimizing it with built-in SEO recommendations.

6. Optimize your digital assets for mobile.

Another key component of digital marketing is mobile marketing.

In fact, smartphone usage as a whole accounts for 69% of time spent consuming digital media in the U.S., while desktop-based digital media consumption makes up less than half — and the U.S. still isn’t mobile’s biggest fan compared to other countries.

This means optimize your digital ads, web pages, social media images, and other digital assets for mobile devices is essential.

If your company has a mobile app that enables users to engage with your brand or shop for your products, your app falls under the digital marketing umbrella, too.

Those engaging with your company ovia mobile devices need to have the same positive experience as they would on a desktop. This means implementing a mobile-friendly or responsive website design to make browsing user-friendly on mobile devices.

It might also mean reducing the length of your lead generation forms to create a hassle-free experience for people downloading your content on the go.

As for your social media images, it’s important to always have a mobile user in mind when creating them, as image dimensions are smaller on mobile devices and text can be cut-off.

There are lots of ways you can optimize your digital marketing assets for mobile users, and when implementing any digital marketing strategy, it’s hugely important to consider how the experience will translate on mobile devices.

By ensuring this is always front-of-mind, you’ll be creating digital experiences that work for your audience, and consequently achieve the results you’re hoping for.

7. Conduct keyword research.

Digital marketing is all about reaching targeted audiences through personalized content — all of which can’t happen without effective keyword research.

Conducting keyword research is critical for optimizing your website and content for SEO and ensuring people can find your business through search engines.

Additionally, social media keyword research can also help market your products or services on various social channels.

You’ll still want to conduct keyword research even if you don’t have a full-time SEO strategist. Try creating a list of high-performing keywords related to your products or services, and consider long-tail variations for added opportunities.

8. Iterate based on the analytics you measure.

Finally, to create an effective digital marketing strategy for the long term, it’s vital your team learn how to pivot based on analytics.

For instance, perhaps after a couple of months you find your audience isn’t as interested in your content on Instagram anymore — but they love what you’re creating on X.

Sure, this might be an opportunity to re-examine your Instagram strategy as a whole, but it might also be a sign that your audience prefers a different channel to consume branded content.

Alternatively, perhaps you find an older web page isn’t getting the traffic it used to. You might consider updating the page or getting rid of it entirely to ensure visitors are finding the freshest, most relevant content for their needs.

In any case, having access to all of this data in the same place through platforms like HubSpot analytics can be a godsend. You can track performance across multiple channels within easy-to-digest dashboards, compare their results side-by-side, and get all the data necessary to quickly spot new opportunities and adjust your strategy.

Digital marketing provides businesses with incredibly flexible opportunities for continuous growth — but it’s up to you to take advantage of them.

I’m ready to try online marketing. Now what?

If you’re already doing digital marketing, you’re likely reaching some segments of your audience online. No doubt you can think of some areas of your strategy that could use a little improvement, though.

That’s why we created a step-by-step guide to help you build a digital marketing strategy that’s truly effective, whether you’re a complete beginner or have a little more experience.

Next, let’s look at some examples of digital marketing that will be sure to inspire you.

1. Lego’s Rebuild the World Campaign

Image Source

This is a great example of a digital marketing campaign because it says something about the brand. In this campaign, Lego takes a stance on important global issues as a way to connect with its audience.

Nowadays, it’s becoming increasingly important for companies to discuss global issues and show alignment with their customers in that way. The major play of this campaign is to help share the brand’s story and messaging.

Given that 82% of customers shop from brands that share their values, this was a good move for the toy brand.

Pro-Tip: Consider a cause or concern important to your target audience. Then find a way to incorporate your stance on the matter in your marketing to show viewers that you share in their values. 

2. Dove’s Reverse Selfie Campaign

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As we continue to learn how social media affects children, especially young girls, Dove decided to send a message. The Reverse Selfie campaign shows the reverse of what a teen girl did to prepare for a selfie and photoshop the picture.

The purpose is to increase awareness of how social media can negatively impact self-esteem.

This is an excellent example of what marketing content can look like when you know your audience intimately.

By knowing its audience of real women, many of them parents, Dove was able to bring light to an often overlooked consequence of the growth of social media.

What I Like: Dove’s campaign shows the importance of knowing your audience to create relatable, understandable, and compelling content.  

3. Jennifer Lopez’s #InTheMorningChallenge

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In this social media campaign, Jennifer Lopez created a dance challenge to promote her new song. With this challenge, fans would do the same dance in their pajamas and in dress up clothes.

This was a successful social media campaign as the video had over 16 million views and over 5,000 posts.

Using social media is a great way to engage your audience and get them to participate with your brand one-on-one.

What I Like: The #InTheMorningChallenge is a great example of a challenge that is fun and simple enough for fans to participate in on their own. When creating a challenge or trend to promote your brand, remember K.I.S.S. (Keep It Simple Sweetheart).  

4. Always’ #DayoftheGirl Campaign

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This is another digital campaign focused on emotional marketing. With this campaign, Always asked their own employees what tips they would give to girls. T

he women offer their valuable insight in a way meant to inspire everyone for International Day of the Girl, an international holiday that occurs annually in October.

Again, this isn’t a campaign where the product is mentioned much, but that isn’t the point. The point of this digital campaign was to inspire its audience.

What I Like: With that message, they could reach even more people, increase brand awareness, and show their audience that the brand aligns with their values.

5. Topicals – Email Marketing

Topicals, a skincare company, uses email marketing as part of a digital marketing strategy. The image below displays a marketing email that advertises a subscribe and save deal, where people get 20% off refills if they choose to subscribe.

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Pro-Tip: Notice how Topicals uses bold letters and colors to emphasize their deals and CTA button. Make sure to do the same in your own emails.

6. Ashley White – Affiliate Marketing

Ashley White is an esthetician who uses affiliate marketing. In her X profile, she includes a link to a personal Linktree page where she shares referral codes and discounts for people that shop with her codes and links. 

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What I Like: As she markets herself as an ambassador for these companies, the businesses generate brand awareness as someone visiting her Linktree might be inspired to try a new brand (and an influencer recommendation can make this inspiration even more powerful). 

7. Samsonite – Search Engine Marketing

Search engine marketing is a great example of digital marketing, where brands bid on keywords and showcase ads for their products in SERPs when someone queries a related keyword. 

The image below is an example from Samsonite, where a query for the word “luggage” surfaces various luggage options from known brands that have created ads to feature their products front and center in search results. 

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8. Yes Williamsburg – Sponsored Ad 

Yes Williamsburg uses native advertising within its Instagram feed to share a paid sponsorship with a local Brooklyn business.

The Reel is tagged as a paid partnership, but it appears organically in a users feed like a standard post. The ad is also in line with Yes Williamsbug’s usual content of sharing information about unique local businesses for people to try. 

Pro-Tip: Today’s audiences (especially Gen-Z) do not like to be blatantly advertised to, so creating content that feels organic and natural is more helpful than content that feels like an advertisement. 

9. HubSpot Blog – Content Offers

Content offers are a form of digital marketing where businesses share helpful content with site visitors that it knows will benefit them.

For example, the HubSpot Blog often features content offers and learning material for people to learn more about the blog topic. 

For its blog post 11 Marketing Strategies for Black Owned Businesses, readers that want to know more about developing a marketing strategy can download an ebook for further learning. 

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10. For Keeps Bookstore – Local Business SEO

A search engine optimization strategy for many local businesses is an optimized Google My Business profile to appear in local search results when people look for products or services related to what you offer. 

For Keeps Bookstore, a local bookstore in Atlanta, GA, has optimized its Google My Business profile for local SEO so it appears in queries for “atlanta bookstore.”

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Integrate Digital Marketing Into Your Strategy

Any opportunity where you can connect to your audience is an opportunity to convert a lead or acquire a customer.

Digital marketing creates so many more of those opportunities by allowing you to reach prospective buyers through a wide variety of channels.

Whether it’s social media platforms, websites, text messages, or any online medium, it’s an invaluable way to promote your business, service, or product.

Editor’s Note: This blog post was originally published in September 2019, but was updated for comprehensiveness.

 

I talked to the pros — including an SEO expert at HubSpot and the senior product director of AI Overviews at Google — to answer questions about Google’s AI search you didn’t even know you had.

Like many, I’m skeptical of how fast AI seems to be overtaking every activity or task — like simple Google searches. But I also like tech and was curious to learn how the experts are thinking about the problems and opportunities in the exploding AI search landscape.

Table of Contents

• AI Overviews
• How to Use AI Overviews
• Google AI Search Tips for Marketers
• How to Turn AI Overviews On and Off
• Conclusion

AI Overviews

AI-powered search used to be the realm of tech elites, coders and engineers, maybe early adopters and tech enthusiasts.

Google changed all that in May 2024, when the world’s most-used search engine released AI Overviews in the U.S.

At launch, AI summaries appeared at the top of the search engine results page (SERP) of nearly 75% of all search queries. Suddenly, more than 14.2 million queries included AI-generated responses — whether the user wanted it or not.

As of June 4, 2024, about 15% of all search U.S.-based queries trigger AI Overviews. That still adds up to over 2 million searches a day, but it’s entirely possible you haven’t encountered it yet.

Hema Budaraju, Google’s Senior Director of Product for AI Overviews, told me that it’s more likely to show up in specific, complex searches, like “What courses should I take for a specific major in my second or third semester?”

(If you’re curious about AI Overviews but haven’t seen it in action, I tested out a few search queries that will trigger it if you’re in the U.S.: “standard screw lengths,” “types of search intent,” and “time machine where would you go.” You’re welcome.)

After initial backlash from both media and users, Liz Reid, VP, Head of Google Search, released a statement explaining some of the more bizarre AI results (such as telling people to put glue on pizza) and promised that guardrails were already in place to prevent AI Overviews (AIO) from spreading misinformation.

Even if you haven’t encountered it yet, it will still be important to know how AI Overviews affects Google Search. And if you want to optimize your website for AI search — or are just curious about how AI search engines are talking about your brand — HubSpot’s AI Search Grader is a great resource, if we do say so.

A few more tips from the pros:

1. Use natural language for complex, specific queries.

Hema Budaraju tells me, “When I think about AI Overviews, I think about complex questions. I think about perspectives. I think about ways that I can get a jumping-off point that can lead me to the best content on the web.”

She says that AIO is more efficient than traditional searches, which may have required adjustments to search terms or keywords.

Now, Budaraju says, “you can actually ask more naturally … and then have an easy, clear way to dive in to learn more.”

2. Brush up on your digital literacy.

Victor Pan, HubSpot’s Principal Marketing Manager in Product SEO, cautions, “don’t take those AI summaries at face value.”

I think of it like Wikipedia: It’s a fantastic resource, but it’s not a source. You’ll still want to follow through on your research.

3. Context matters.

AI Overviews cites the sources it uses for its summaries, but you may have to click a “show more” button to see them.

Don’t be the person in the group chat who spreads misinformation by insisting that time travel is merely “very difficult” based on AI search results.

Yes, it’s attributed to the perfectly reputable BBC, but click through before you send that text — the AIO summary includes an excerpt from an article about sci-fi TV show Doctor Who, time travel, and real-world physics.

If you use a screen reader, be extra careful.

I tested a few AIO search results with the Chrome Read Aloud extension, and it read the text in the source boxes — but it didn’t call them out as sources. This could make it tricky to figure out where AIO’s information is coming from.

4. “Don’t be afraid of AI.”

Emily Kosko, CEO and founder of VentureX, says it’s the most important advice she can give users.

She acknowledges that AI search can be intimidating, but says you can start small. “Don’t overcomplicate it. Start out by asking simple things.”

Budaraju told me something similar when I asked for her advice for the everyday user: AI Overviews is built on the decades-old foundation of Google search, and with “similar principles and the same guardrails and the same kind of constructs.”

With that in mind, she says to simply use it the same way you’ve always used Google search.

Google AI Search Tips for Marketers

1. Stay ahead of the curve.

“Marketers: Analyze your search console traffic today! Use regular expressions to filter out question search terms and look for drops that can be explained by AI Overviews.”

Victor Pan says that even though AI Overviews queries are integrated into Google Search Console data, knowing your benchmarks today can help you identify problems tomorrow.

For instance, if you usually get a certain number of search queries for “free AI chatbot builder,” and those queries suddenly plummet, it could be because AI Overviews is entering its zero-clicks era. In other words: If AIO search results give users enough info, they don’t need to click through to your site.

2. Innovate.

Take a deep breath if you just read “zero clicks” and panicked.

Pan uses Google’s featured snippets as an example of how savvy marketers are.

When sites lost traffic because the featured snippets pushed them down in the SERPs, “What did SEOs do? They figured out ways to win that featured snippet so they could gain that traffic back.”

“I think something similar is going to happen with AI overviews,” he says.

3. Don’t put all your SEO eggs in one AI-generated basket.

Remember AMPs? They were a new format that Google introduced to decrease load time on webpages.

I worked in digital media when AMPs were introduced, and I recall the ambient panic about its effects on page views. And now, as Pan says, “it’s a dead project.”

With respect to AI Overviews, Pan says that he “wouldn’t get too nitty-gritty with the tactics and details.” Instead, he says to “focus on fundamentally good optimizations or improvements to your content.”

Budaraju says that ultimately, the qualities that make “the page and the content shine are really consistent.”

“So when you think about what makes for great content, what makes for a site to be inviting and appealing — high credibility, great authoritativeness.”

4. Stay calm.

Pan says, “Everyone’s trying to figure out right now what the inclusion criteria is” to be a cited source in an AI Overviews summary. But don’t make rash decisions based on today’s news.

It’s still up in the air as to “whether the actions you take to optimize for AI Overviews will be an enduring content upgrade or a passing fad.”

When I asked Budaraju if she had any advice for SEOs and marketers who were swallowing their panic about zero clicks, she told me, “We’re seeing that people have been visiting a greater diversity of websites for help with more complex questions.”

She added, “the links included in AI overviews get more clicks than if the page had appeared as a traditional web listing.”

Budaraju also assured me that Google will “remain focused on sending valuable traffic to publishers and creators.”

When people click the links from AI Overviews, she said, “the clicks are likely higher quality” and “people tend to spend more time on the site that they’re visiting.”

5. Focus on people, not algorithms.

Pan makes an excellent point: If you’re in an industry that’s affected by AI-powered search, you probably feel like the AI revolution is well underway.

But the average user may have only encountered AI Overviews once or twice.

Budaraju told me to think about the kinds of complex queries that people make every day — “not as a tech reporter, not as a product manager.”

“Keep grounded on what real users do and position yourself to where you think they might be going,” Pan says.

AI search anticipates what people will need. If you want to stay ahead of AI, Pan suggests “following people versus following these algorithms.”

And finally, to answer the big question: You can’t turn AI Overviews on and off. (But I’ll show you five ways to avoid it — keep reading.)

And although Google hasn’t confirmed it, there’s some evidence that AIO summaries appear more frequently in certain types of searches, like those that are 10 words or longer or queries about technology.

There are a few ways to avoid AIO, according to AIO itself:

1. Sign out of your Google account.

AI Overviews only appear if you’re signed in. To sign out of your Google account, click on your avatar in the top right corner of any Google product (Gmail, Google.com, etc.), and select Sign out.

2. Use incognito mode.

If you don’t want to sign out, use incognito mode to avoid AIO. It’s simple: In Chrome, select the File dropdown menu and then New Incognito Window.

3. Disable Search Labs.

If you’re seeing a lot of AIO summaries on mobile, you may have opted into Search Labs.

HubSpot’s Amanda Sellers, Manager of EN Blog Strategy, says that AIOs “increase significantly on mobile if Search Labs is already installed.”

To check, open Google.com on mobile and look for the beaker icon in the upper left corner. From there, you’ll see a list of experiments you can enable or disable.

Sellers also notes that because AI Overviews in Search Labs is an experimental version, users should be doubly cautious about its summaries.

On the left: Search results for “time machine where would you go,” which triggers an AI Overview. On the right: Same search with Search Labs’ AI Overview feature enabled.

The Search Labs AIO feature is only available in the U.S., South Africa, South Sudan, Tanzania, Togo, Uganda, Western Sahara, Zambia, and Zimbabwe — if you’re outside those countries, you won’t see the beaker icon.

4. Filter your results.

If you tap or click on “Web” (if you don’t see it, tap or click on the vertical ellipsis next to “More”). This doesn’t disable AI Overviews, but it does restore a more familiar interface.

5. Reconfigure your default search options.

This one looks more intimidating, but it only took me about a minute to follow these steps:

• Go to Settings > Search engine > Manage search engines and site search
• Select Add next to the Site search section
• Enter a nickname for your AI-less search in the Name section
• Add a shortcut (this cannot contain spaces)
• Paste this in the URL: {google:baseURL}search?q=%s&udm=14
• Click Save or Add

Anytime you want to search without AI, type your shortcut into the search bar, select it, and then search as usual.

6. Use a third-party solution.

This comes with a few caveats: Any third-party extension might be buggy, it might be abandoned by the developer, and you should always be careful about your online security.

The two I’ve tested are uBlock and Bye Bye, Google AI, though there will likely be more options in the future. A reddit user provided these instructions on using uBlock to avoid AIO:

• Download the uBlock extension for Chrome
• Go to My filters
• Paste this: google.com##.GcKpu
• Select Apply Changes

To use Bye Bye, Google AI:

• Download the Bye Bye, Google AI extension for Chrome
• Select Options
• Select Hide AI Overviews (and anything else you want to hide) and select Save

Finally, although I do not recommend an overseas move to temporarily escape AI search, AI Overviews is currently only available in the U.S. You can use it in seven different languages: English, Hindi, Indonesian, Japanese, Korean, Brazilian Portuguese, and Spanish.

Conclusion

Google’s entry into the AI-powered search scene is a strong indicator that AI, love it or loathe it, will become as unavoidable as the internet is today. Hema Budaraju told me that her optimism about AI Overviews is rooted in the data and evidence that “people are really liking this feature. People are using it more. People are satisfied more.”

And for the staunch skeptics, I’ll reiterate what HubSpotter Victor Pan and others have told me over and over again: AI isn’t going to replace or bury great content on the internet. And people — you, your audience or users, and all the rest of us — are still looking for great content.

Editor’s note: This post was originally published in January 2024 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.

 

In a Mint Mobile commercial, Ryan Reynolds reads from a script written entirely by ChatGPT. His prompt was simple (include a joke, curse word, mention the holiday promo in his voice), but he calls the results “compelling” but also “mildly terrifying.”

I think the ad is a great example of one of the many ways marketers can use generative AI: to streamline the creative process.

Reynolds’ use is just one application of many, though, and I’ll go over more generative AI use cases in marketing in this piece, using data from our 2024 State of AI Survey. Let’s see how marketers already use it and how you can leverage it yourself.

Table of Contents

• Benefits of Gen AI for Marketing
• Generative AI Use Cases in Marketing
• The Pitfalls to Avoid When Implementing Generative AI Into Your Processes

Benefits of Gen AI for Marketing

Generative AI offers very real benefits for marketers, and here’s what I learned from our data:

• Generative AI improves the quality of content they create

Most marketers say that the content they make with generative AI performs somewhat better than content created without it

• Generative AI helps them create content more efficiently

Global marketers say that the most impactful result of using AI is that it makes them more productive. 

• Generative AI helps them make significantly more content

75% of marketers agree that AI can help them spend less time on manual tasks (like data entry, scheduling meetings, etc.), which gives them time to focus on content creation duties. 

Marketers also save a significant amount of time using gen AI: 3+ hours when using gen AI for content creation tasks like writing copy, creating images, getting ideas, etc. With this time back, us marketers can let go of manual tasks and focus on responsibilities that need our human touch.

85% of marketers believe AI is effective at helping marketers create more personalized content, which speaks to consumers’ desire for personalization and experiences directly relevant to them and their interests.

Gen AI can also help marketers feel more satisfied at work, as 73% agree that it helps them spend more time on the parts of their jobs they enjoy the most.

How can you reap these benefits yourself? Let’s dive in.

Generative AI Use Cases in Marketing

Marketers who responded to our State of AI Survey told us that the top three tasks they use generative AI for in their role are content creation, research, and learning how to do new things.

The channels marketers most often use AI to create content for are email marketing and newsletters (48%), social media content for audio and video platforms (45%), and text-based social media content (44%).

Marketers report positive ROI from using gen AI to create content for audio/visual channels (48%) and search/SEO content (45%). Using gen AI for email marketing newsletters and text-based social media content most often yields somewhat positive ROI.

Let’s dive deeper into generative AI marketing use cases, featuring expert advice from Samyutha Reddy, Head of Enterprise Marketing at Jasper.

1. Generative AI for content creation.

As I mentioned, marketers told us they most often use gen AI to create content.

They use it to create images for marketing content (with AI art tools) and write copy for marketing content. This makes sense to me because, on the most basic level, all marketing content includes some sort of visual image, text, or both.

Gen AI can also help with more unique marketing tasks, such as generating the most effective and enticing email subject lines based on your historical open rates or translating your content for global audiences.

I like Reddy‘s example of using Gen AI to repurpose content. She says, “Being able to take super lengthy pieces of content, feed them into Jasper’s Content Synthesizer, and have a summary of different viewpoints and pieces of data can help creators form an opinion or perspective that much quicker.”

For example, if I’m converting a multi-page ebook into a blog post, I can speed up my process by pasting the copy into an AI tool and prompting it to list the biggest takeaways. The tool will identify key themes, topics, and ideas, which I can use as a rough draft for my blog. I add my voice and expert perspective, and I’d have a new piece of content that took a fraction of the time to create.

All in all, 84% of marketers say gen AI helps them create marketing content more efficiently. Despite its benefits, most marketers aren’t handing over the reins. They aren’t asking ChatGPT to write an Instagram caption, copying the output into the caption box, and pushing it live. A majority say and recommend marketers use gen AI in their roles but avoid becoming overly reliant on it.

I like to view it as a trusty sidekick. It will give you ideas and help you create your outputs faster, but you make edits and have the final say.

2. Generative AI for content ideation.

As a writer, there‘s nothing worse than staring at a blank document. But these days, you don’t have to wait for inspiration to strike.

AI can help you get the ball rolling even faster than you usually might: marketers report saving 2-3 hours when using gen AI for brainstorming.

Reddy says, “AI really fits at the beginning of the writing process, particularly for content ideation. If I’m writing a blog, I often use Jasper Chat to test new ideas and try different angles, just like I would with a colleague in a conference room.”

Reddy points out that AI tools are especially beneficial for remote marketers who don’t have the physical space to spitball ideas with others.

“It‘s valuable during a time when people are working remotely and teams are distributed. We can get a lot accomplished in virtual meetings, but they’re not often used to just brainstorm or connect. In that way, AI can be really helpful,” she observes.

Tool Recommendation: I regularly use HubSpot’s AI Content Writer in my writing process. Sometimes I use it to create an entire outline; other times to come up with a section heading. Either way, it helps me kick off my process, whether I’m feeling stuck or not. The tool can also help you write social media copy, fill out your landing pages, and even write your marketing emails.

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3. Generative AI for content research.

A lot of effort goes into writing articles before I even put pen to paper, and 99% of that effort is researching and sifting through information.

Language models have changed the game in this regard. Instead of sifting through search results, tools can help users access information and get answers in record time. For example, prompts like “What’s the difference between [topic] and [topic]?” or “What are the top trends in [industry] in 2024?” can surface specific responses that will help you through your process.

Marketers told us they get back 2-3 hours they’d typically spend conducting their own research using gen AI, so it’s already proven useful.

4. Generative AI for SEO optimization.

As content creators, we want our work to be seen by as many people as possible. One way to get there is by optimizing for SEO.

However, we’re not all experts in technical SEO. For Reddy, this is where AI can really shine.

She says, “I‘m not someone that grew up in the discipline of content marketing, and I never had a tool to help me with the technical aspect of SEO. That’s where Jasper comes into play. It can help content marketers optimize their articles by automating a lot of SEO tasks.”

In action, a generative AI tool could help you conduct keyword research, classify keywords by intent for more focused content, suggest content clusters for your blog, or help you write meta tags and descriptions to improve click-through rates.

But AI doesn’t end at optimization — it can also work as an editor during the final stages of writing. Tools like Grammarly can detect wordiness, offer alternative phrases, and improve readability. The result? SEO-optimized content that people enjoy reading.

Tool Recommendation: As consumers also get more and more usage out of AI search engines, you want to ensure your website is set up to appear in those results. Enter HubSpot’s AI Search Grader, a free app that quickly analyzes your brand based on what your prospects & customers are seeing across AI search engines, then gives you actionable recommendations on how to improve.

5. Generative AI for scaling marketing campaigns.

In an ideal world, there would be a single channel to meet, engage, and convert customers. In reality, marketers need a multi-channel strategy to reach their audience.

Of course, scaling marketing campaigns is no easy feat. As Reddy puts it, “We often burn all our energy on creating one beautiful, optimized piece of content. But then our distribution falls.”

However, marketers can use AI to build entire marketing campaigns from one piece of content, which they can adapt to different formats and lengths.

For example, if I create a YouTube video I want to scale into an entire campaign, I can use AI to convert the video script to different formats, like a LinkedIn Post, Facebook ad, or newsletter copy. I’ll have a multi-channel strategy rather than a single platform or format. It also helps me strategically ramp up my marketing.

Reddy underlines this point, telling me, “It enables me to truly be a project manager and a strategist, versus someone who is waiting on other people to deliver their end of the bargain.”

The Pitfalls to Avoid When Implementing Generative AI Into Your Processes

1. Removing creators from the creation process.

“When incorporating generative AI, the worst thing you can do is remove someone with a strong creative or editorial eye,” cautions Samyutha.

At first glance, AI-written content may look perfect. Yet, many human elements — like humor, empathy, perspective, and cultural context — could be missing. On top of that, generative AI operates with limited data, so the information it collects could be irrelevant, outdated, and even biased.

Most marketers told us they’re only somewhat confident they’d know if the information gen AI provides is accurate, but they have similar thoughts to Reddy. A majority use gen AI to give them an outline/draft to build off of, and a majority also make significant edits to the text that gen AI produces.

Ultimately, I recommend using AI as your first draft — not the last. It can lay the groundwork, but you still need to elevate the content with your unique personality or perspective.

2. Recreating the wheel.

Every marketing team has a different strategy for creating content. As a result, your approach to AI — and how you choose to implement it — is unique to your team.

While AI is exciting and new, Reddy recommends the “less is more” approach when adding it to your workflow.

She tells me, “When it comes to integrating AI, a lot of teams feel pressure to recreate the wheel. However, you don’t have to build all your processes around generative AI. Instead, incorporate AI into your existing processes that already work well.”

For example, a marketing team may have an effective content distribution process, but it could be improved by automating some tasks with AI — like scheduling social media posts and reformatting content for different channels.

With this approach, your marketing strategy isn‘t dependent on AI; it’s improved by it.

3. Raising content demands too quickly.

As AI continues to speed up the creation process, it’s important to have guardrails in place to maintain quality.

Reddy says, “We have multiple processes built to check our work, and that doesn‘t go away because Jasper’s in the picture. If anything, that chain link of feedback is strengthened so we can catch things like inaccuracies or mistakes.”

She continues, “It‘s not about creating content as quickly as you can. It’s about effectively incorporating another piece of technology into your existing workflow.”

Over to You

Us marketers are always looking for ways to stay ahead of the curve and embrace new technology that helps us be more effective. Generative AI is a huge opportunity, but as Reddy puts it, it’s important to always be realistic about this technology.

Ultimately, it’s about knowing when to push this technology into your workflow — and when to pull back. With this approach, marketers can effectively incorporate AI into their strategies for maximum impact.

The goal of marketing is to identify and market to a specific group of people, sharing their business’s solution—with the ultimate goal of converting them into a customer.

Remove all the fancy tools, generative AI, dashboards, and everything else… it really is that simple.

So it’s interesting to see how much we, collectively, struggle to reach our targeted audiences with personalized content. 

Personalized content and account-based marketing (ABM) are revolutionizing how B2B marketers engage with their target audiences. 

Our 2024 Content Consumption and Demand Report highlighted the plethora of data available to enable these tailored approaches. When applied correctly, it can significantly enhance marketing effectiveness. 

In this article, we’ll explore how proper personalization can transform your marketing efforts.

The Power of Personalized Content

Consumers want personalization. 

2021 research from McKinsey showed that 76% of consumers become frustrated when personalization doesn’t occur. The same study states that 71% of consumers expect companies to deliver personalized interactions. 

Personalization isn’t just a trend—it’s a necessity. 

Beyond your organization’s own zero and first-party consumer data, buyer intent data represents some of the most actionable information available to organizations. It’s an entrée into personalizing your marketing.

But how prepared are organizations to execute such an initiative?

In August 2023, Convince & Convert teamed up with ICUC, a social media and online community agency, to get a clear picture of how organizations are navigating data-driven personalization. In total, they surveyed 319 marketers across B2B and B2C industries. 

Here’s what they learned:

• About a quarter of marketers feel their companies are very or somewhat mature in using data to drive personalization. 
• 22.6% consider themselves moderately mature, 18.5% slightly mature, and 9.1% not mature at all. 
• Only 25.2% of marketers strongly agree that their company can effectively analyze owned customer data to generate valuable insights. 
• Another 39.3% somewhat agree, leaving the rest either in disagreement or neutral. This indicates a significant number of brands need to step up their game to remain competitive.

What the 2024 State of Data-Driven Personalization in Marketing underscores is that while consumers are ready for personalization, businesses are not. 

Perhaps this is why we’ve seen such an explosion in ABM in the past decade.

ABM is Now Just “Marketing”

The primary goal of account-based marketing is to generate more sales for your business with less waste. Pretty standard stuff.

While the practice (under the ABM moniker) has been around for more than 20 years, account-based marketing has become one of the hottest marketing practices within the last decade, especially the last five. 

So why did interest rise so significantly in the 2010s?

My theory is that technology-enabled personalized messages at scale, providing marketers with a wealth of new data from the explosion of social networks and mobile devices. Traditional marketers, still viewing the market as demographics, wanted to work in volume. However, consumers began basing decisions more on detailed online reviews and social media, seeking to belong to niche groups.

As a result, ABM became the ideal solution, targeting specific accounts and aspirations, driving much higher engagement and conversion rates—exposing the flaws of old marketing methods and highlighting the essential role of ABM. While many savvy data and media teams capitalized on individual signals, the majority of teams were content targeting the masses within a single account.

And, hey, it worked! Why bother rocking the boat?

However, ABM has evolved significantly over the past year.

ABM Has Competition

The allure, and even impact, of ABM have waned since the COVID pandemic. Google Trends appears to support this anecdotally. 

The sense I’ve gotten across LinkedIn is that despite its popularity, ABM no longer delivers like it once did. Recent discussions on the platform highlight how ABM is now seen as a holistic marketing approach that emphasizes personalization and strategic targeting rather than just a sales-focused tactic. 

A conversation with NetLine’s General Manager, David Fortino, revealed his thinking on the practice in 2024. “Account-based marketing is, effectively, just…marketing now,” Fortino said. “It has evolved to the point where ABM is no longer a separate entity from the rest of your marketing programs or tactics. Teams now begin with their ABM plans and everything else falls in line.”

Insights from Brett Kahnke, Principal Analyst of Revenue Operations at Forrester, might be the most salient on the matter.

“Forrester has written a lot over recent years, five or six years now on the convergence of account-based marketing with broader demand techniques. And it’s something that the leaders are able to accelerate on in a way that others can’t because the rise in available technology and data that things we’re talking about today has allowed marketers to take some of the individualized messaging and kind of tailored journeys that used to be reserved for just a few key accounts and account-based marketing motion and do them at scale across hundreds of accounts or more.”

There it is: individualized messaging and tailored journeys can now be achieved at scale.

This is why ABM can no longer be king.

The Convergence of Personalization and Buyer-Level Intent 

Building on our earlier discussion about the evolution and impact of ABM, let’s delve deeper into how personalization and intent data are transforming marketing strategies today. 

Insights from Forrester’s B2B Summit 2024 revealed that personalized interactions are highly valued, with attendees appreciating content that made them feel understood and catered to. Personalized content resonates more deeply with prospects, leading to higher engagement rates. 

For instance, personalized emails receive 29% higher open rates and 41% higher click-through rates compared to generic emails according to Salesforce (p. 30). Additionally, personalized interactions help build trust and rapport, positioning your brand as a trusted advisor rather than just another vendor.

Brett Kahnke emphasizes the role of intent data in enhancing these personalized interactions. 

“With the rise of intent data and tools and platforms putting that at people’s fingertips, it is allowing companies to start to mimic some of that behavior at least get some of those benefits because we’re using those insights and, you know, near real-time to tailor both what marketing is saying and what sales is saying using the same source of information.”

With tools and platforms making this data accessible in near real-time, companies can tailor both marketing and sales messages more effectively, leveraging the same source of information.

Measuring Success and Continuous Improvement

While data is integral to marketing strategies, there’s ample room for growth. Most marketers acknowledge the need for more data and recognize opportunities to enhance its utilization within their organizations.

Continuous measurement and improvement are crucial to benefiting from personalization and ABM. Track key metrics such as engagement rates and conversion rates, and refine your strategies based on data insights.

How Account-Based Marketing and Personalization Co-Exist

ABM still holds a prominent seat at the marketing table, with personalization already existing within the practice. The difference lies in the focus.

Tania Saez, an ABM expert, underscores the importance of balancing demand generation with demand capture, leading to better conversion rates and less competition. Use intent data to identify high-value accounts and develop tailored campaigns addressing their specific needs and challenges.

Note: NetLine did sponsor this post.

Enhancing Customer Experience

Tailoring customer touchpoints to individual needs enhances the overall experience, making interactions more relevant and engaging. Author and keynote speaker Zontee Hou shares in her book Data-Driven Personalization that a personalized approach ensures customers find learning, shopping, and engaging with your brand easier and more meaningful. 

Our own data supports this, showing that users willingly share information for high-quality, gated content, providing invaluable first-party intent signals.

Gaining Deeper Customer Insights

Understanding specific customer segments, especially loyal ones, boosts customer lifetime value (CLV). Hou emphasizes the need for deeper insights, and McKinsey notes that leaders use data analytics to build detailed views of customer life cycles, driving strategic and effective personalization.

Achieving a Competitive Advantage

Knowing your customers well allows you to deliver better content and products, giving you a competitive edge. Hou suggests this advantage, and the rise in AI-related content demand indicates that incorporating AI into personalization strategies provides a significant edge.

Improving Customer Retention and Boosting Conversion Rates

Providing relevant experiences ensures customer loyalty, as meeting customer expectations improves retention. Tailored offers and messages significantly boost conversion rates. 

Our report confirms that content formats like playbooks, case studies, and trend reports are associated with immediate buying decisions, making them effective for conversions.

Enhancing Relevance and Identifying Opportunities

Better customer understanding improves content marketing and merchandising. Leaders use predictive analytics and AI to deliver the right content at the right times, revealing cross-selling and upselling opportunities. 

NetLine’s intent data provides real-time insights into buyer behaviors, making it easier to act on these opportunities.

Enhancing Marketing Performance and Efficiency

Focusing on high-converting channels and addressing specific customer needs enhances marketing performance. Investing in rapid activation capabilities and agile models optimizes marketing efforts, resulting in stronger performance and higher ROI.

Leveraging Intent Data for Personalization

Intent data is crucial for effective personalization. NetLine’s INTENTIVE platform provides real-time insights into buyer actions and preferences, enabling tailored content and marketing efforts that improve engagement and conversion rates.

Conclusion

Incorporating these insights into your personalization strategy helps B2B marketers create meaningful and effective customer interactions, driving better business outcomes. Personalization is about knowing what your customers want and delivering it at the right moment, leading to sustained success in the B2B landscape.

Personalized content and ABM are not just buzzwords; they are critical strategies for effectively reaching and engaging target audiences in the B2B space. 

By leveraging the insights from NetLine’s 2024 Content Consumption and Demand Report, marketers can develop highly targeted and personalized campaigns that drive higher engagement and conversion rates.

Olympic ads don’t make as big a splash as Super Bowl spots, but the Games are still a reliable display of marketing creativity every two years. 

As the Paris Olympics come to a close, I’ve collected four ads (plus three honorable mentions) that stood out from the fray in 2024. I also talked to a few marketers at HubSpot to get their perspectives on why these ads work and how you can apply the same tactics to your own marketing campaigns.

And it wouldn’t be the Olympics without some GOATs, so I’ve included a couple favorites from previous Games.

2024’s Olympic Marketing Campaigns

1. LVMH: The Rooftops

If you watched the fever dream that was the 2024 Opening Ceremony, you may recall the masked marauder scampering across the rooftops of Paris and bellhops dancing with oversized Louis Vuitton luggage along the banks of the Seine.

The Louis Vuitton trunks appeared by way of its parent company, LVMH, sponsoring the Paris Olympics. Thankfully (or not, depending on your threshold for absurdity) Louis Vuitton took a different tone for its official Olympics ads.

Completely voiceless and scored only by a crescendoing bassline, the deep shadows and rich colors evoke “luxury” from the first second. The camera skims over well-oiled athletes’ bodies, drawing focus to form over function. Shot entirely at night, the shadows create mystery and build intrigue.

Try This At Home

• Whether you’re going for luxury or beach vibes, make a list or a mood board of everything that evokes your desired tone: colors, shapes, textures, sounds, fonts, you name it. Every single element of your ad should serve the singular purpose of eliciting your defined voice.
• You can also use HubSpot’s advertising plan kit, which includes free planning templates and a guide.

2. Corona: For Every Golden Moment

I particularly like this ad because it breaks from the self-serious tone so many other campaigns use. Kyle Denhoff, Senior Director of HubSpot Media, is also a fan, so I asked if he would break it down:

• Product focus. The Corona ad successfully positions the beer as the hero of the story. Through subtle yet effective visuals, the ad integrates the product into the narrative, and a group clinks beer bottles with a “cheers,” highlighting the product as the ad ends.
• Brand message: The tagline “For every golden moment” cleverly aligns Corona with the prestige of Olympic gold, suggesting that its beer is the top choice for life’s special moments. It’s a message that encourages consumers to associate Corona with vacations, adventures, and friendships, reinforcing the idea that it’s the go-to beer for memorable experiences.
• Cultural relevance: The ad effectively taps into the cultural significance of the Olympics. It uses seamless visual transitions to link personal golden moments with the triumphs of world-class athletes. This elevates the brand by associating it with excellence and achievement — from an event that everyone is watching.

Denhoff also pointed to Corona’s clear understanding of its demographic — adventurous travelers in their 20s and 30s — and noted how Corona skillfully invited potential customers to see themselves in the ad.

Try This At Home

• Keep your product central to the ad without overwhelming your potential customers.
• Elevate your brand by associating it with excellence.
• Know your demographic.

3. Hyundai: It’s OK

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Hyundai taps into familiar Olympic tropes like perseverance and hard work, but from a less familiar point of view. At first, it looks like an ad about Olympians practicing hundreds of hours beginning as very young children.

And then a series of parents tell their respective kids, all frustrated by sports practice, that maybe it’s time to take a break. “Like a break break.”

Instead of pushing through, each of the aspiring Olympians switches sports, accompanied by the tagline, “Never give up on finding what you love.”

Try This At Home

• Subvert tropes: This will require a clear narrative, so don’t skimp on the storytelling.
• Do some good: Simone Biles’ 2024 Olympic comeback has once again put mental health in the spotlight. After drawing criticism from some corners of the internet in 2021, when she pulled out of the Tokyo Olympics to focus on her mental health, Biles delivered a clear message to the haters this year that she made the right call. Hyundai subtly taps into the importance of mental health without being too on the nose.

4. Parmigiano Reggiano Sponsorship

This is technically a 2021 ad, but we’re counting it since it went viral during the 2024 Olympic Games.

Italian gymnast Giorgia Villa was sponsored by Parmigiano Reggiano during the Tokyo Games in 2021, where she pulled out of competition because of an injury. And even though the sponsorship reportedly ended in 2022, I like to think that the Italian team’s group silver medal this year was powered by a barrel-sized wheel of piquant cheese.

Since medaling, ads from her 2021 sponsorship have gone viral. The photos of Villa have the sharp light and deep shadows of a Caravaggio, as she happily holds a wheel of cheese bigger than her torso. She’s been quoted saying that she’s loved the cheese since she was a little girl, and the smile on her face dares you to challenge that.

Try This At Home

• Tap into your audience’s cultural heritage. By paying homage to Italian Renaissance painters, these photos demonstrate a deep appreciation for Italian identity and heritage.
• Don’t be afraid of some unusual juxtapositions if it’s based on truth.

Honorable Mentions: Personalities and Influencers

I’m creating an honorable mentions category because these are neither traditional ads nor easily replicable for your own marketing. But I would be remiss not to include some of the personalities and influencers who have become walking ads for the 2024 Paris Olympics:

Snoop Dogg

The unexpected gold medalist of our hearts, Snoop joined NBC as an official Olympic correspondent in Paris. In my extremely unscientific survey of a few fellow HubSpotters, 100% agree that he’s the best advertisement for the Olympics, hands down.

Dréa Hudson, HubSpot’s Head of Audience Development, Distribution, says, “There is no one — and I mean NO ONE — who I would trust to carry the torch more than him.”

She also sums up his authenticity and appeal: “The ease in which he traverses Paris during the Games is said best by Uncle Snoop himself: ‘It’s me, being me.’”

Snoop’s curiosity is palpable (although he did require the emotional support of bestie Martha Stewart for the equestrian events, as he harbors a slight fear of horses). His joy is real. (As is his paycheck — a reported $500K per day.)

Colin Jost

Most of us don’t have access to professional comedians, but Olympic surfers are probably grateful that NBC does. Their sport got a huge boost in visibility when SNL Weekend Update anchor Colin Jost assumed his position as NBC’s surfing correspondent.

Jost took one for the team and headed to Tahiti, where his reports have largely poked fun at his own ineptitude. After a minor accident involving shallow waters, coral reef, and ants, he claims that he’s visited the medical tent more than any of the athletes (I’ll refrain from further description for the faint-hearted among you).

But as a surfer himself, Jost isn’t just peddling jokes — he has a deep appreciation and understanding of the sport, and he’s making Olympic surfing appointment viewing.

Greyhound Olympics

Instagram and TikTok have been an endless, and endlessly entertaining, source of unofficial Olympic ads and commentary, but I’ll mention just one that’s representative of the style and humor in these homespun Olympic tie-ins.

A greyhound’s ears flop in unison during a walk, and text over the video reads, “My dog could have competed at the Olympics but they cancelled the synchronised ear event.” It hits all the right beats: Shouting out synchronized athletic events, adorable ears, and of course comparing Olympic greatness to a very pointy dog.

Try These At Home:

• It’s a cliche, but it’s true: Be like Snoop and just be yourself.
• Comedy can be an effective marketing tool — but it’ll be even more effective if it’s undergirded by knowledge and appreciation for the product you’re marking.
• Apply Olympic tropes to everyday life.
• Embrace absurdity. Synchronized ear events would undoubtedly draw a huge fandom.
• If everything else fails, put your dogs in an ad. (Kidding. Mostly.)

Best Olympic Campaigns of All Times

When I asked friends and HubSpotters what ads they loved from the 2024 Paris Games, there was a clear consensus: They’re just not as good as they used to be. (According to Vox, there’s a reason for that, and it rhymes with shmartificial shmintelligence.)

So just for fun, here’s two gold medalists from the past decade:

Canadian Institute of Diversity and Inclusion: The Luge (2014)

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The Canadian Institute of Diversity and Inclusion ran this ad in support of gay athletes at the 2014 Olympics in Sochi, Russia. It’s a good reminder that serious topics can still be approached with humor.

Visa: Carpool to Rio (2016)

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Visa’s 2016 Carpool to Rio ad is full of clever details, like the synchronized divers nodding off in unison. This ad stands a little higher on the podium because of its joyous tone — many (most?) slick corporate Olympic ads take a serious view of the athletes’ hard work and the obstacles they’ve overcome.

Marketing Takeaways

Even if you don’t have access to celebrity spokespeople or a corporate budget, there’s still plenty to learn from these ads. The most successful Olympic ads tap into the cultural significance of the Games and find authentic ways to link their product with the best athletes in the world, all without being too overbearing with their product placement. 

“I’m excited but exhausted by so many changes,” Victor Pan wrote in a HubSpot Slack channel just before dropping half a dozen links to the latest AI news. He’s a product SEO here, and he sounds like he needs a hug. 

And no wonder. Even in tech, an industry that thrives on rapid change, AI is accelerating everything it touches by orders of magnitude. AI-powered search engines like Perplexity are gaining mainstream momentum, SearchGPT is securing deals with publishers to sidestep copyright issues, and your friendly neighborhood SEO is pinching the bridge of their nose.

For the scoop on search trends you should know about as a marketer, AI-powered and otherwise, I talked to SEOs here at HubSpot and around the world.

But before we look ahead, let’s go back to the 1990s and take a quick look at how search has changed in the last three decades.

How the Search Landscape Has Changed

An entire generation has grown up never knowing a time before Google.

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To get a broader perspective on the evolution of search, I turned to Mikkel deMib, a Denmark-based SEO who has been doing SEO since before it was called SEO.

“The first few years, we called it ‘search engine positioning,’” he tells me. I was alive and using the internet then, and I still feel like a kid listening to a bedtime story about the land before time.

I ask deMib about some of the major turning points in the last 25 years that might provide some context for understanding the future of search. The switch to mobile, he recalls, was first prophesied around Y2K, shortly after the introduction of wireless application protocol (WAP) that allowed mobile devices to connect to the internet.

“And of course it totally failed,” deMib says, because “from a usability point of view, it was terrible.”

It was another decade before Google adopted a mobile-first philosophy and content publishers adopted mobile-friendly UX. Now, deMib sees upwards of 90% mobile traffic in certain verticals, like women’s fashion — a number that’s not likely to surprise HubSpot readers.

The Evolution of Search in 2024

Rory Hope, Head of EN Growth at HubSpot, echoes Pan’s exhausted excitement.

“There’s a lot of chatter in the industry,” he says, “about Google essentially thrashing between different priorities.” And that’s “causing a great deal of stress for the SEO community.”

Pan takes a long view of all this AI-activated change, cautioning marketers to focus more on the grounding principles of good content rather than trying to optimize for every single update.

When I asked him how SEOs were figuring out how to optimize for Google’s AI Overviews, he reminded me that “there was a time” — October 2015 — “that Google really pushed forward a new format called AMP.” Accelerated mobile pages were designed for faster mobile loading, and — see if this sounds familiar — it let users read content without clicking through to the website.

“And now AMP is a dead project,” Pan says. In other words: We can’t see the future, so let’s not panic just yet about a zero-click world.

Go deeper: We’ve got even more pro tips and actionable advice on adapting to the new search era.

Trends

I use the word “trends” advisedly here. Every SEO I talked to emphasized the interconnectedness of the changes they’re observing, exercising caution about using the word “trend” (See above for Victor Pan calling time of death on Google AMPs).

And many of the SEO trends we saw in 2023 are still playing out.

That said, here’s five things SEOs are keeping an eye on in 2024 and 2025.

1. AI

DeMib, who has seen more than his fair share of false starts and dead-ends in the SEO world, calls AI a “fundamental shift in technology that is maybe as big — maybe even bigger — than the internet.”

Artificial intelligence isn’t so much an SEO trend as what it’s powering: chatbots, search engines, Google’s AI Overviews, and more. AI Overviews (AIO) has especially piqued concern, with everybody racing to understand what will happen if AIO keeps users on Google’s search engine results page (SERP) instead of clicking through to websites.

The vast majority of SEOs are making sure that AI is central to their overall strategies.

In a HubSpot survey of over a hundred U.S.-based SEO professionals, 73% either strongly or somewhat agreed with the statement, “AI tools, features, or solutions are becoming an important part of my company’s SEO strategy.”

Many of those SEOs use AI for tasks like optimizing websites for technical SEO and improving SERP rankings. AI is also a means to efficiency; nearly three-quarters of respondents said they use AI simply to save time.

Not sure where to start? Here’s a pro tip: HubSpot has a free AI search grader app that quickly analyzes your brand based on what your prospects and customers are seeing across AI search engines — then gives you actionable recommendations on how to improve.

2. Zero-Click Search

With the fitful launch of Google’s AI Overviews in May 2024, “zero-click search” shifted from theoretical concern to waking nightmare, depending on who you ask.

We’ll likely see the term used exponentially more in 2024 and beyond, but whether we’ll actually see a zero-click world remains to be seen.

In a HubSpot survey of U.S.-based SEO professionals, only 6% specifically named Google’s AI Overviews as a threat to search traffic. And the biggest concern, generative AI chatbots, was selected by only 13% of respondents.

A tiny percentage, just 2%, believe that Google algorithm updates will result in search traffic losses.

Readers of a certain age may remember when AOL was effectively synonymous with “internet.” DeMib says that pre-2000, “[the internet] was a lot of big sites like Yahoo! and AOL that defined themselves more like a portal. They were trying to give users everything they wanted to keep people on their site.”

It failed for Yahoo! and AOL and it will fail for Google, deMib believes.

“Nobody can give users everything, in my opinion. It’s not going to work. People are still going to want to buy products that are only found on a certain web shop. People want different perspectives. They’re not going to read all the news in one news outlet.”

DeMib also points me to a study that SparkToro CEO Rand Fishkin did on zero-click. Among the findings, Fishkin found that although there’s been an increase in zero-click searches, there’s been a parallel increase in the number of searches.

“It’s evening out,” deMib says. “The number of people who click away from Google is actually about the same, even though the percentage has dropped.” (You can read Fishkin’s full study on the SparkToro website.)

And not everybody thinks zero-click is the start of the SEO apocalypse. Amanda Natividad, SparkToro’s VP of Marketing, asked on LinkedIn, “Do you want people to see your [content] or not?”

She explains: “When I‘m telling you to create zero-click content it’s because you need to optimize for impressions. To optimize your social media content so that people see it.”

3. Follow-up Search Intent

Even with the increase in zero-click queries, Amanda Sellers says “that doesn’t mean that’s the only search users will make.”

Sellers is HubSpot’s Manager of EN Blog Strategy, and she tells me how important it is to consider follow-up searches.

“Let’s say a user searches for something extremely basic and the AI Overview provides an answer. Some people are going to be satisfied with that answer — and some are not. So for the people who are not satisfied, what follow-up searches will they do to further refine their journey?”

Sellers says that anticipating follow-up search intent is key to content strategy in 2024 and 2025. Ultimately, we should be writing content for our audience — not Google. (Ironically, this is also what Google says.)

4. Ranch-style SEO

Clearscope CEO Bernard Huang made ripples in the SEO world with an April 2024 blog post called “Why Ranch-Style SEO is Your Future-Proof Content Strategy.” It begins with an exhortation to “unlearn what you know about SEO.”

That sounds scarier than it is. Huang says that rather than focusing on long, in-depth articles, publishers should “[disaggregate] content into precise, digestible pieces that strategically align with the user’s search journey.” That is, switch from skyscraper SEO strategy to ranch-style.

Huang lists three reasons why ranch-style is the future of search:

• It’s responsive to the shift from keyword-centric to topic-centric SEO.

• It mitigates the negative impacts of generative AI on the web.

• It “partners” with firsthand experience as a ranking factor.

This goes hand-in-hand with Sellers’ advice about follow-up search intent: Good content strategy is about anticipating your readers’ questions at each stage of their journey.

5. Video SEO

Video SEO is already a specialization, but expect more growth in this area. Pan says “consumers want to watch videos on their favorite platforms” — not necessarily your website — and that requires an understanding of both YouTube optimizations and how social media platforms give visibility to native versus externally hosted videos.

Sellers adds, “When you’re creating content in this challenging search landscape, it’s more important than ever to keep in mind how your audience searches for and consumes information.”

Consumers have the tools and ability to research quite literally anything, and an increasing number of prospective customers are turning to YouTube. Rory Hope, HubSpot’s Head of EN Growth, says it’s because they’re “seeking human perspectives in relation to their pain points.”

Plus, Hope points out, more and more video carousels are popping up in Google search results “as part of its goal to serve more human-led perspectives for users.”

All of this adds up to an important focus area for SEOs, Hope says.

“SEOs should be monitoring the search results pages for target keywords and topics to see which ones have video carousels, and then coordinate with media teams to create relevant video content.”

The Future of Search: How Marketers Are Shifting Gears

Search is dead; long live search!

HubSpot original research shows that SEOs are generally optimistic about Google’s AI Overviews and other generative AI search engines, with 48% of respondents saying that AIO would improve search traffic over the next six months.

If there’s one braided through line in these trends, it’s that AI is driving a lot of change in the search landscape, SEO is very much alive and well, and the human element is still vital to search.

More than three-quarters of SEOs agree that they will use AI in 2025.

Google’s addition of a second “E” to E-A-T in late 2022 was a clear signal that publishers should be writing for their readers — not Google. “Content creation isn’t about keywords. It’s about topics and editorial angles,” says Sellers.

“Expertise,” the original “E,” could theoretically be faked by AI. But “experience” — not so much.

To recap, here’s how our experts recommend that marketers and SEOs shift gears to accommodate new trends in the search landscape:

• Write for your audience.
• “Use AI for the things AI is good for, and use human-led content for the things that human-led content is good for.”—Amanda Sellers
• “Everybody should embrace and spend some time with all the new AI-based tools that are becoming available now.”—Mikkel deMib
• “Monitor SERPs for target keywords and topics to see which ones have video carousels, and create relevant video content.”—Rory Hope
• Deepen your topical coverage and sharpen your editorial angles.

Last quarter, newsletter giant The Hustle ran a test that earned 43,876 additional clicks in their emails.

Not 44,000 total. 44,000 more.

If you’re like me, you’d do terrible things for that kind of engagement.

So I banged on their managing editor’s door and demanded to know his secrets.

Thankfully, the process is simple and repeatable — no terrible things required. So put down that crowbar, because I’m going to share a process that you can start today.

The How-To That They Do

Ben Berkley, the managing editor of The Hustle, perpetually sports an impish grin. Which is fitting, because behind that grin is a deceptively simple method — with some twists coming up.

Here’s how it works:

Every weekday morning, Ben cooks up two separate subject lines for each newsletter. At 5:30 am ET, each subject line is sent to only 30% of The Hustle’s audience.

After an hour, the variant with the most engagement is automatically sent to the remaining 40% of recipients.

“That’s it?” you’re thinking. “It’s just a stinkin’ A/B test?!”

Not so fast. I promised you twists:

1.  The variations are sent to four predefined subscriber segments.
2.  The winner is based on the click-through rate (CTR) — not the open rate.
3.  Ben’s secret sauce: The WTF factor.

Let’s dig in.

Twist 1: Segmenting Readers

The Hustle splits the original two test emails among four segments.

To help me understand this, Ben refers me to Kaylee Jenzen, The Hustle’s resident MarTech wizard.

(“If the Nobel Foundation ever adds a prize for newslettering, I’m nominating Kaylee so fast,” he says.)

“The Hustle uses HubSpot workflows to segment contacts with values ranging from 1 through 4,” Jenzen explains. “Email 1 is targeted at segments 1 and 2, while Email 2 is directed towards segments 3 and 4.”

In other words: One email, two variations, four sends. The reason?

“By distributing email sends over time, The Hustle avoids triggering spam filters and ensures more consistent delivery rates,” Kaylee says.

The takeaway: High send volumes are a signal that email service providers use to identify spammers. By reducing your recipient list and increasing send times, you make your emails safer in the eyes of email servers.

Twist 2: Targeting CTR, Not Open Rate

If you’ve tried A/B testing your subject lines before, I’ll bet you based the test on open rate, right?

That’s what nearly every tutorial will tell you, and it’s not a bad choice. But it’s not the only choice.

While open rate measures the number of readers who access the email, it can’t separate out those readers who delete it immediately. Click-through rate, on the other hand, measures the number of readers who actually engage with the email.

“By emphasizing CTR, The Hustle aims to not only capture the reader’s attention, but it also encourages them to take action and interact further with the content,” Jenzen says. “This approach reflects a strategic effort to drive meaningful engagement beyond just opens.”

See, The Hustle’s open rate is already above industry average, so tweaking the subject line only results in around a 1% difference in that metric. (#HumbleBrag?) So instead, its team makes the strategic choice to focus that time and effort on cultivating even deeper engagement.

The takeaway: Open rate might be the metric you want to focus on. But think about your ultimate goal. Optimize to achieve that, not what a YouTube tutorial told you to do.

Twist 3: The WTF Factor

“When people are looking through their inboxes, they’re often just looking to clear all the new stuff out,” Ben says. “And they get in a rhythm.”

That rhythm is the sound of your email being deleted.

“So the goal is to gently jostle someone out of their rhythm,” he says.

That’s where Ben’s secret sauce comes in.

“To do that, you need a little ‘WTF?’ factor sprinkled in.”

As the former executive editor of The Onion, Ben’s no stranger to the WTF factor. But that doesn‘t mean that he’s trying to recreate Onion headlines for The Hustle.

“I never go for shock value or try too hard to throw people off,” he cautions. “But you ultimately want them to see something unexpected and give them a quick pause. You just want them to glitch for a split second.”

Some of my favorite examples:

• 🎨 Believe in yourself, but not like this
• 🕹 Buried under cement in a landfill
• 🔓 Breaking out of toothpaste jail

The takeaway: Your subject line should be surprising enough to shake them out of autopilot and spare a few minutes for your email.

But what does that actually mean?

How to Write Subject Lines Like The Hustle

Ben shares with me what he calls his “Subject Line Manifesto.” These are actual guiding principles for The Hustle’s editorial voice.

1. Be unexpected.

You’re not likely to jostle someone out of their rhythm with a subject line that confirms something they already know.

“Having worked in comedy, I know the power of subverting expectations,” Ben says. “It’s at the core of getting laughs and creating something memorable.”

“Excluding all of the other actual unforgivable crimes, there’s just one unforgivable crime at The Hustle,” he adds. “Being boring.”

That doesn’t mean you have to try to be funny. In fact, that may be inappropriate for your brand. You can subvert expectations with new data, surprising ideas, or a thoughtful question.

What part of your email is adding something new to the conversation? That’s your subject line.

And speaking of which…

2. Strong subject lines come from strong stories.

“The subject line has to match the newsletter’s overall vibe, and also the specific content within each day,” Ben explains. “So really, the work of writing a strong subject line starts with the work of writing strong stories.”

So if your email doesn’t add anything new to the conversation, maybe pause the subject lines for now and revisit your content strategy.

3. Don’t go for cheap laughs.

If you do decide to use humor, don’t use the same pun that 10 of your competitors also used. Chances are, an example just popped into your head. Skip that one.

“Low-hanging fruit in comedy is low for a reason; it’s there because it’s what people expect,” Ben adds. “If you give it to them, maybe you get light laughs, or a pity laugh or two, but you’re probably not getting a belly laugh because they weren’t surprised. Valuable content comes from jolts.”

And while we’re on the subject…

4. Never stoop to clickbait.

“It’s so easy to have a subject line feel like clickbait, and that’s the last feeling we want our audience to have,” Ben warns. “In this hypercompetitive attention economy, if you sour that relationship, you’re never getting it back.”

5. Keep it brief.

The Hustle sees a noticeable lift in performance from subject lines that are only 11-15 characters long.

Their shortest subject lines enjoy an engagement rate almost 75% higher than emails with the longest.

“As I approach subject lines, I always remind myself: Those words are there to whet the palate, not overwhelm it,” Ben says. “You need to give them just enough context to pique their interest, but not so much that they feel like they already have the whole story.”

Now that you’re a subject line expert, let’s talk process.

How to Do the Test at Home

Sending multiple emails every day sounds like a ton of work, and it would be if you did it manually. Thankfully, most email marketing tools have some kind of automated A/B testing feature.

The Hustle happens to use Marketing Hub, so we’ll show you how to do it within HubSpot, but the process should be nearly the same no matter what tool you use.

1. Create your email as usual.

In HubSpot, as with most tools, this will automatically be version A of the A/B test. (So name it accordingly, and give it your first subject-line variation.)

2. Click on “Create A/B test” in the top left corner.

3. Enter a name for version B, then click “OK.”
Don’t overthink this. Naming conventions are one place where it’s safe to let your boring side show.

Even Ben forgives it in this screenshot below.

4. Edit the subject line for version B.

Remember that a best practice for A/B testing is to only change one element per test. Otherwise, you’ll risk skewing the results.

5. Under the version dropdown menu, click “Manage test.”

 

6. Set the A/B distribution to your desired mix.

 

The Hustle uses 30% of their recipients for each variation, with 40% reserved for the winner. But with over two million subscribers (#HumbleBrag confirmed), it can spare a few readers to get more accurate results.

If you have a smaller send volume, you may wish to stick with 20-25% for each test version. While your test will be based on a smaller sample size, the proven winner will be seen by more recipients.

7. Set the winning metric to “
Click
Through Rate.”

 

To replicate The Hustle’s method, you’ll want to choose CTR. That said, consider the goals of your campaign.

The tool will also allow you to choose “open rate” or “click rate.”

8. Set “Test duration” to 1 hour.

 

You’ll see a warning to set a duration of “at least 4 hours” in order to help reach conclusive results.

That’s good advice for most marketing emails, but it can be a problem for newsletters. HubSpot research shows that the best send times are between 9am to noon Eastern time.

You can see why a four-hour test might complicate that. But what you’ll lose in statistical significance, you’ll make up for in eyeballs.

9. Click “Save changes.”

 

10. Review your email settings and recipients as usual, and then send.

 

Get Your Hustle On

To assuage our legal department and prevent you from banging on my door: I can’t promise you 43,876 additional clicks.

But by following a data-driven approach, you’re almost guaranteed to see improvement. Pair that with Ben’s advice, and you’ll be jostling your readers out of their rhythm regularly.

At the very least, you’ll never be boring.

This week’s Masters in Marketing is near and dear to my heart, if not my taste buds.

As a naturalized Chicagoan, it is my duty and honor to introduce you to one of the city’s most disgusting — and most beloved — substances.

The herbaceous flavor of Jeppson’s Malört (Swedish for “wormwood,” the drink’s only flavoring) was (in)famously described by comedian John Hodgman as “pencil shavings and heartbreak.”

To find out how CH Distillery markets a liqueur that’s only reliably available to 2.7 million people and tastes like burning rubber, I talked to Anna Sokratov, brand manager at Jeppson’s Malört at CH Distillery in Chicago.

Sokratov has the enviable job of getting people excited to drink what has been called “the worst beverage in the world.” In 2023, Sokratov co-created an ad campaign featuring photos of people tasting Malört for the first time, with the tagline, “Do not drink. Responsibly.”

Lest you think any of this is an exaggeration, please know that Malört was legal during Prohibition because it was convincingly sold as a medicine … for stomach worms.

Lesson 1: Build community around shared experiences.

At first sip, Malört does not seem like an exercise in community-building, unless that community is your enemies.

But Sokratov describes a scene familiar to any Chicagoan who’s seen the inside of a bar: One person takes their first shot of Malört (this is not a sipping alcohol, trust), and everybody around them cheers. Soon, everybody wants to try it. Most regret it.

“Whenever you talk about Malört, people always share a crazy story or [give you] the most obscene way to describe the flavor,” she says. “And in a weird way, it creates community.”

Sokratov also points out that most Chicagoans aren’t enjoying a shot of Malört by themselves after a long day at the office. It’s more of a rite of passage, a “way to connect with people through stories of what you think it tastes like.”

“We thrive off of people talking about us and sharing the good and the bad of Malört,” Sokratov says.

Take the recent campaign “I Malörted,” which compares a shot of Malört to voting for a candidate you dislike (not mentioned: that you have to hold your nose for both).

It’s not just a funny ad, it’s supporting local businesses — Malört drinkers can get an “I Voted”-style sticker from more than a hundred bars and liquor stores around Chicago.

Lesson 2: Break the fourth wall.

The first Malört ad I ever saw was in 2022, in season one of the Chicago-set TV show The Bear, of all places. Sokratov says it was one of the first ads they ever ran — for nearly a century prior, Malört relied on word of mouth and Chicagoans pranking out-of-town guests.

Since marketing Malört is such a new phenomenon, Sokratov feels a lot of freedom to be funny, to be outlandish, to be experimental. (In fact, one of the people she looks to for inspiration is previous marketing master Greg Fass of Liquid Death.)

It’s an old saw at this point that authenticity drives consumer loyalty. But less is said about what authenticity looks like. “People are really looking for brands that break that fourth wall,” Sokratov says. “They want to see the people behind the brand.”

Past and present employees appear in a series of ads featuring Malört faces (Google it), which are underscored by the tagline, “Do not enjoy. Responsibly.” Malört may be a lot of things, but it’s neither dishonest nor indirect.

Lesson 3: One size does not fit all.

Sokratov raises an eyebrow at the adage that marketing is about storytelling. Tell stories — plural.

She says that it’s a mistake to think that Malört’s taste means that there’s not a lot of nuance in marketing it. “One size does not fit all when it comes to something like this.”

“It‘s easy to try and fit this brand into one single category of ‘everybody thinks it just tastes bad,’” Sokratov tells me. “But it’s a lot more complex than that.” Though Malört employees have joked about just putting a photo of a toilet on an ad, they’d rather explore the multiplicity of taste experiences.

Part of the fun of trying Malört for the first time is trying to describe the taste. Sokratov has heard “gasoline” and “used Band-Aid,” which do sound like quite disparate flavors, though I’m not willing to confirm.

Redditors have described the taste as “turpentine,” “old tire and bug spray,” and “all your hopes and dreams being snuffed out at once.” In 2018, Chicago Magazine quoted such poetry as “the liquid equivalent of a Chicago winter” and “a punch in the face.”

For the record, I like Malört, but I think it tastes like grapefruit and rubbing alcohol with a violent aftertaste of burnt tire.

If the taste is experienced so differently, “then the story we tell should be different to a lot of other people,” Sokratov says. Throughout its history, Malört has not been shy about using different descriptions of its product, which include such gems as “Malört: Kick your mouth in the balls.”

Not every ad campaign will be a viral success, but “we still learn about the people who drink it.”

Lingering Questions

This edition of Masters in Marketing introduces a feature we’re calling Lingering Questions. The rules of play are simple: Each person we interview gives us a question we’ll ask of the next master of marketing. They don’t know who it will be (and sometimes neither do we).

Since Anna Sokratov of Malört is the first in this series, a fellow Chicagoan and I came up with a question to kick things off:

Malört is one of Chicago’s mascots. What would Malört’s mascot be, and why?

Sokratov: A 31-gallon galvanized steel trash can with a lid. Both are perceived as being unappealing or gross, and the cans last a long time — similar to the long-lasting flavor of Malört.

Sokratov gave us a question that our next master of marketing will answer in next week’s newsletter, and I promise that you will not want to miss their answer: What unconventional marketing approach would you like to take, and how would you go about doing something you haven’t done before?

Subscribe below to see next week’s answer and the next lingering question.

One of the most underrated skills you can have as a marketer is marketing research — which is great news for this unapologetic cyber sleuth.

From brand design and product development to buyer personas and competitive analysis, I’ve researched a number of initiatives in my decade-long marketing career.

And let me tell you: having the right marketing research methods in your toolbox is a must.

Market research is the secret to crafting a strategy that will truly help you accomplish your goals. The good news is there is no shortage of options.

How to Choose a Marketing Research Method

Thanks to the Internet, we have more marketing research (or market research) methods at our fingertips than ever, but they’re not all created equal. Let’s quickly go over how to choose the right one.

1. Identify your objective.

What are you researching? Do you need to understand your audience better? How about your competition? Or maybe you want to know more about your customer’s feelings about a specific product.

Before starting your research, take some time to identify precisely what you’re looking for. This could be a goal you want to reach, a problem you need to solve, or a question you need to answer.

For example, an objective may be as foundational as understanding your ideal customer better to create new buyer personas for your marketing agency (pause for flashbacks to my former life).

Or if you’re an organic sode company, it could be trying to learn what flavors people are craving.

2. Determine what type of data and research you need.

Next, determine what data type will best answer the problems or questions you identified. There are primarily two types: qualitative and quantitative. (Sound familiar, right?)

• Qualitative Data is non-numerical information, like subjective characteristics, opinions, and feelings. It’s pretty open to interpretation and descriptive, but it’s also harder to measure. This type of data can be collected through interviews, observations, and open-ended questions.
• Quantitative Data, on the other hand, is numerical information, such as quantities, sizes, amounts, or percentages. It’s measurable and usually pretty hard to argue with, coming from a reputable source. It can be derived through surveys, experiments, or statistical analysis.

Understanding the differences between qualitative and quantitative data will help you pinpoint which research methods will yield the desired results.

For instance, thinking of our earlier examples, qualitative data would usually be best suited for buyer personas, while quantitative data is more useful for the soda flavors.

However, truth be told, the two really work together.

Qualitative conclusions are usually drawn from quantitative, numerical data. So, you’ll likely need both to get the complete picture of your subject.

For example, if your quantitative data says 70% of people are Team Black and only 30% are Team Green — Shout out to my fellow House of the Dragon fans — your qualitative data will say people support Black more than Green.

(As they should.)

Primary Research vs Secondary Research

You’ll also want to understand the difference between primary and secondary research.

Primary research involves collecting new, original data directly from the source (say, your target market). In other words, it’s information gathered first-hand that wasn’t found elsewhere.

Some examples include conducting experiments, surveys, interviews, observations, or focus groups.

Meanwhile, secondary research is the analysis and interpretation of existing data collected from others. Think of this like what we used to do for school projects: We would read a book, scour the internet, or pull insights from others to work from.

So, which is better?

Personally, I say any research is good research, but if you have the time and resources, primary research is hard to top. With it, you don’t have to worry about your source’s credibility or how relevant it is to your specific objective.

You are in full control and best equipped to get the reliable information you need.

3. Put it all together.

Once you know your objective and what kind of data you want, you’re ready to select your marketing research method.

For instance, let’s say you’re a restaurant trying to see how attendees felt about the Speed Dating event you hosted last week.

You shouldn’t run a field experiment or download a third-party report on speed dating events; those would be useless to you. You need to conduct a survey that allows you to ask pointed questions about the event.

This would yield both qualitative and quantitative data you can use to improve and bring together more love birds next time around.

Best Market Research Methods for 2024

Now that you know what you’re looking for in a marketing research method, let’s dive into the best options.

Note: According to HubSpot’s 2024 State of Marketing report, understanding customers and their needs is one of the biggest challenges facing marketers today. The options we discuss are great consumer research methodologies, but they can also be used for other areas.

Primary Research

1. Interviews

Interviews are a form of primary research where you ask people specific questions about a topic or theme. They typically deliver qualitative information.

I’ve conducted many interviews for marketing purposes, but I’ve also done many for journalistic purposes, like this profile on comedian Zarna Garg. There’s no better way to gather candid, open-ended insights in my book, but that doesn’t mean they’re a cure-all.

What I like: Real-time conversations allow you to ask different questions if you’re not getting the information you need. They also push interviewees to respond quickly, which can result in more authentic answers.

What I dislike: They can be time-consuming and harder to measure (read: get quantitative data) unless you ask pointed yes or no questions.

Best for: Creating buyer personas or getting feedback on customer experience, a product, or content.

2. Focus Groups

Focus groups are similar to conducting interviews but on a larger scale.

In marketing and business, this typically means getting a small group together in a room (or Zoom), asking them questions about various topics you are researching. You record and/or observe their responses to then take action.

They are ideal for collecting long-form, open-ended feedback, and subjective opinions.

One well-known focus group you may remember was run by Domino’s Pizza in 2009.

After poor ratings and dropping over $100 million in revenue, the brand conducted focus groups with real customers to learn where they could have done better.

It was met with comments like “worst excuse for pizza I’ve ever had” and “the crust tastes like cardboard.” But rather than running from the tough love, it took the hit and completely overhauled its recipes.

The team admitted their missteps and returned to the market with better food and a campaign detailing their “Pizza Turn Around.”

The result? The brand won a ton of praise for its willingness to take feedback, efforts to do right by its consumers, and clever campaign. But, most importantly, revenue for Domino’s rose by 14.3% over the previous year.

The brand continues to conduct focus groups and share real footage from them in its promotion:

What I like: Similar to interviewing, you can dig deeper and pivot as needed due to the real-time nature. They’re personal and detailed.

What I dislike: Once again, they can be time-consuming and make it difficult to get quantitative data. There is also a chance some participants may overshadow others.

Best for: Product research or development

Pro tip: Need help planning your focus group? Our free Market Research Kit includes a handy template to start organizing your thoughts in addition to a SWOT Analysis Template, Survey Template, Focus Group Template, Presentation Template, Five Forces Industry Analysis Template, and an instructional guide for all of them. Download yours here now.

3. Surveys or Polls

Surveys are a form of primary research where individuals are asked a collection of questions. It can take many different forms.

They could be in person, over the phone or video call, by email, via an online form, or even on social media. Questions can be also open-ended or closed to deliver qualitative or quantitative information.

A great example of a close-ended survey is HubSpot’s annual State of Marketing.

In the State of Marketing, HubSpot asks marketing professionals from around the world a series of multiple-choice questions to gather data on the state of the marketing industry and to identify trends.

The survey covers various topics related to marketing strategies, tactics, tools, and challenges that marketers face. It aims to provide benchmarks to help you make informed decisions about your marketing.

It also helps us understand where our customers’ heads are so we can better evolve our products to meet their needs.

Apple is no stranger to surveys, either.

In 2011, the tech giant launched Apple Customer Pulse, which it described as “an online community of Apple product users who provide input on a variety of subjects and issues concerning Apple.”

Image Source

Apple invited a select group of individuals to participate. It reportedly shared two monthly surveys that included open-ended questions about customers’ experiences. Then, Apple used the feedback to iterate on its products.

But you don’t have to be HubSpot or Apple to run a successful survey. Tools like SurveyMonkey, TypeForm, and Google Forms (my usual go-to) make creating digital surveys easy and affordable.

You can also run smaller-scale surveys in your Instagram Stories via the Poll and Questions Stickers.

What I like: They are fairly easy to create and distribute, and can gather both quantitative and qualitative data.

What I dislike: It can be challenging to garner participation as it puts most of the work on the participant.

Best for: Evaluating experiences with a product or service

Pro tip: To boost survey participation, consider offering an incentive or gift. Many loyal customers and fans will want to participate. However, offering something small in exchange for the time and thought will undoubtedly win over others.

Independent makeup brand LiveTinted did a commendable job with this recently. They offered all survey responders 10 reward points in their loyalty program and a chance to win one of three $100 gift certificates.

You may also want to consider using running a “tracker.”

HubSpot Senior Product Marketing Manager Max Iskiev shares, “A tracker is a survey you run repeatedly over a certain time period. For example, we run the Consumer Trend Tracker twice a year, which captures data on the latest trends. I love being able to see key trends change over time and analyze them to make predictions about the future.”

4. Social Media Listening

In between the sea of travel photos, food, and current events chatter, people are talking about your brand. They may be journalists, competitors, or customers, happy and disgruntled — you just don’t always know it.

According to Mention, 31% of company mentions on X (formerly Twitter) don’t include a handle or tag. But social media listening can help you stay in the loop there and on other platforms.

In a nutshell, social media listening is the process of monitoring and analyzing social posts that mention:

• Relevant topics of interest (like your industry or type of product)
• Your brand name, tagline, or product name
• Your competitors
• Your branded hashtags

This gives you insight into conversations you may have never noticed otherwise.

You can see what the public thinks about your product or business, how they feel about their experiences with them, and get an overall pulse on your competitive landscape.

But how do you get started with social listening?

Many platforms have built-in tools like the ability to “follow” hashtags on Instagram or LinkedIn. But Swetha Amaresan, ​​a Sr. Marketing Coordinator at Paramount, shares a more all-encompassing approach in this article: What Is Social Media Listening & Why Is It Important? [+Expert Tips].

HubSpot Academy also offers a free social media monitoring and listening course you can check out.

What I like: Social listening is a pretty low-maintenance form of market research. Of course, you need to dedicate time to reviewing and analyzing any activity, but it should be a fairly quick, routine task if you’re doing your due diligence.

What I dislike: There’s no guarantee of valuable insights here. It’s more of a “just in case.”

Best for: General market and competitive analysis

Pro tip: If you’re a Marketing Hub Professional or Enterprise User, use HubSpot Social Inbox. It’s our native social listening tool that allows you to create streams dedicated to your different channels and hashtags.

5. Observation

You can learn a lot when you just sit back and pay attention. That’s where the power observation lies.

Observational market research is a form of primary research where you monitor subjects in a natural or controlled environment and take note of their behaviors. But here’s what makes it special — there are both digital and real life approaches.

A real-life example of observational research is “secret shopping.” This is where people are hired to shop at particular retailers so they can evaluate their staff and customer service. Secret shopping can be done totally organically, or with controlled scenarios the teams must be put in (i.e., completing a return).

Digital observation can look like user testing of your website (controlled) or the review of website heatmap data (natural). And it’s much more common these days.

Image Source

What I like: Conditions of the experiment typically allow subjects to act as naturally as possible, so results are pure and valuable. There are also both in-person and online alternatives.

What I dislike: This is another method that can be very time-consuming. Also, if your subjects know they are being observed, they could alter their behavior.

Best for: Evaluating and optimizing performance for a website or in-person service

Pro tip: UserTesting, HotJar, and LuckyOrange are three tools I’ve used in the past to learn about my clients website performance. They are all extremely helpful digital observation options that also offer quantitative data.

6. Internal Data Analysis

Analyzing internal data is one of the most effective ways to conduct market research because it’s not hypothetical.

This form of primary research is based on insights from your real life customers, and past performance and can be qualitative or quantitative.

What kind of data should you be analyzing, though? That will depend on the objective at hand, but some common areas include:

• Sales Numbers
• Website Statistics (i.e., page views, conversion rates, clicks)
• Customer Lifetime Value
• Product Ratings/Reviews
• Product Specific Statistics (i.e., usage rates)

Netflix is extremely vocal about its use of this marketing research method, publishing public reports like “What We Watched: A Netflix Engagement Report.”

They regularly look at data like this to personalize and curate content on the platform, improve its service, and even develop new original content.

Gathering data isn’t easy, but start where you can. Tools like Google Analytics are easy to set up and great for tracking website traffic performance, while Hotjar and LuckyOrange can capture and analyze user behavior.

HubSpot users can take advantage of our platform’s free marketing analytics and reporting. The tools unite all of these elements we mentioned as well as the performance of ads, social media engagement, and email. This gives you the most complete picture of your state.

What I like: This method is less time-consuming than others. It must be completed on a consistent schedule, but doesn’t require regular action. It can also produce qualitative or quantitative data.

What I dislike: You need a healthy sample size to draw accurate results.

Best for: Conversion rate optimization and website optimization

7. Experiments and Field Trials

Field trials, similar to observation, occur in the subject’s natural environment. But like traditional experiments, they are controlled. In other words, you have a specific hypothesis you’re testing (your variable), and everything else is the same.

Sometimes, experiments and field trials can uncover preferences that individuals aren’t consciously aware of.

As my HubSpot teammate Pamela Bump explains, “ Sure, you can look at the data that already exists or survey your persona for baselines…But you won’t truly know how they’ll act until you test them in the moment on your own platform or channel.”

“For example, we did a large voluntary survey of email subscribers and top readers a few years back.”

While these readers gave us a long list of topics, formats, or content types they wanted to see, they sometimes engaged more with content types they didn’t select or favor as much on the surveys when we ran follow-up ‘in the wild’ tests, like A/B testing.” 

Pepsi saw similar results when it ran its iconic field experiment, “The Pepsi Challenge” for the first time in 1975.

The beverage brand set up tables at malls, beaches, and other public locations and ran a blindfolded taste test. Shoppers were given two cups of soda, one containing Pepsi, the other Coca-Cola (Pepsi’s biggest competitor). They were then asked to taste both and report which they preferred.

People overwhelmingly preferred Pepsi, and the brand has repeated the experiment multiple times over the years to the same results.

What I like: It yields qualitative and quantitative data and can make for engaging marketing content, especially in the digital age.

What I dislike: It can be very time-consuming. And, if you’re not careful, there is a high risk for scientific error.

Best for: Product testing and competitive analysis

Pro tip: “Don’t make critical business decisions off of just one data set,” advises Pamela Bump. “Use the survey, competitive intelligence, external data, or even a focus group to give you one layer of ideas or a short-list for improvements or solutions to test. Then gather your own fresh data to test in an experiment or trial and better refine your data-backed strategy.”

Secondary Research

8. Public Domain or Third-Party Research

While original data is always a plus, there are plenty of external resources you can access online and even at a library when you’re limited on time or resources.

Some reputable resources you can use include:

• Pew Research Center
• McKinley Global Institute
• Nielsen
• Forrester
• Relevant Global or Government Organizations (i.e United Nations or NASA)

It’s also smart to turn to reputable organizations that are specific to your industry or field. For instance, if you’re a gardening or landscaping company, you may want to pull statistics from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

If you’re a digital marketing agency, you could look to Google Research or HubSpot Research. (Hey, I know them!)

What I like: You can save time on gathering data and spend more time on analyzing. You can also rest assured the data is from a source you trust.

What I dislike: You may not find data specific to your needs.

Best for: Companies under a time or resource crunch, adding factual support to content

Pro tip: Fellow HubSpotter Iskiev suggests using third-party data to inspire your original research. “Sometimes, I use public third-party data for ideas and inspiration. Once I have written my survey and gotten all my ideas out, I read similar reports from other sources and usually end up with useful additions for my own research.”

9. Buy Research

If the data you need isn’t available publicly and you can’t do your own market research, you can also buy some. There are many reputable analytics companies that offer subscriptions to access their data. Statista is one of my favorites, but there’s also Euromonitor, Mintel, and BCC Research.

What I like: Same as public domain research

What I dislike: You may not find data specific to your needs. It also adds to your expenses.

Best for: Companies under a time or resource crunch or adding factual support to content

Which marketing research method should you use?

You’re not going to like my answer, but “it depends.” The best marketing research method for you will depend on your objective and data needs, but also your budget and timeline.

My advice? Aim for a mix of quantitative and qualitative data. If you can do your own original research, awesome. But if not, don’t beat yourself up. Lean into free or low-cost tools. You could do primary research for qualitative data, then tap public sources for quantitative data. Or perhaps the reverse is best for you.

Whatever your marketing research method mix, take the time to think it through and ensure you’re left with information that will truly help you achieve your goals.

When I first considered different AI SEO tools to try, I was overwhelmed by the options available.

A weekend of testing revealed that popular tools weren’t always the best fit for my SEO workflows and processes. I learned that there is no one-size-fits-all solution when you’re looking for the ideal AI SEO tool.

The right choice depends on your unique objectives, processes, and budget.

This guide will help you make an informed decision by exploring AI in SEO and how to use these tools effectively.

I’ll uncover the essential features to look for in each tool you consider and share valuable insights gained from testing top solutions.

Whether you’re a freelancer, in-house marketer, or consultant, this guide will help you identify the AI SEO tools that align with your goals.

Table of Contents

• How Marketers Use AI
• What Is AI SEO?
• How to Use AI for SEO
• How I Tested the Top AI-Powered Tools for SEO
• AI SEO Tools: Top Features in 2024
• 17 Best AI SEO Tools
• Free AI SEO Tools

How Marketers Use AI

As a content marketer, I use AI tools to help with a range of tasks, from research and brainstorming to project management and analytics.

Digital marketers also use AI to support content creation, most commonly writing copy for social posts, blogs, and websites.

A huge caveat is that AI-generated content usually isn’t ready to publish right away. It’s best to put AI drafts through human review to ensure accuracy and quality.

In short, instead of marketing coming down to AI vs. humans, the two should work together.

AI in SEO involves using advanced algorithms, including machine learning and natural language processing, to process and analyze large volumes of data.

This allows SEO professionals to optimize their SEO strategies and automate specific tasks.

The impact of AI on SEO is significant — with 84% of bloggers and SEO specialists reporting that AI and automation influenced their SEO strategy in 2023.

AI doesn’t just replace human effort but enhances it through intelligent automation. This unveils insights and optimization opportunities that would be challenging for SEO professionals to identify manually.

According to our recent State of AI report, data shows that marketers who use AI save an average of 12.5 hours per week, which equates to 25-26 additional working days per year. Here are some effective ways to use AI for SEO.

Building a Smarter Content Strategy

AI’s data processing capabilities can help you develop a smarter content strategy that prioritizes and aligns with your target audience’s needs.

For instance, use an AI-powered toolkit to analyze survey data, customer reviews, interviews, and sales call records to uncover valuable insights for your messaging.

These insights will help you identify high-value keywords and topic clusters to target. Additionally, you can uncover gaps, opportunities, and trends.

From there, you can map out a focused content calendar that targets high-opportunity terms and create content formats that resonate with your audience.

Automating Repetitive Tasks

While you should focus on implementing your SEO strategy, use AI to automate repetitive tasks that are challenging to manage at scale, such as:

• Site crawls and technical audits across millions of URLs.
• Continuous rank tracking across devices and locations.
• Backlink monitoring and opportunity identification.

For example, an AI content optimization tool can suggest improvements, but changes must always be reviewed and approved manually.

Before publishing your content, use an AI SEO tool to suggest and automatically create internal links within your website.

This can improve ‌site structure and user experience and help distribute link equity more effectively.

How I Tested the Top AI-Powered Tools for SEO

As an SEO professional, I was eager to see how the latest AI SEO tools could help me improve my SEO workflows and drive better results.

However, I know not all AI SEO tools are created equal. Throughout my testing process, I used the following criteria:

• True AI and machine learning capabilities: When choosing tools to include in this list, I prioritized those that use advanced technologies like natural language processing and neural networks over simplistic rules-based systems or rebranded legacy software.
• Intelligent optimization, not full automation: Despite AI’s potential for automating specific SEO tasks, I looked for tools that complimented my effort and strategic decision-making. The most beneficial AI SEO tools helped improve my expertise by providing intelligent automation and data-driven recommendations instead of dictating my entire process.
• Specialization for SEO use Ccses: Since SEO is an intricate, multidisciplinary practice, I expanded my testing to include platforms purpose-built for core SEO needs like keyword research, content optimization, technical audits, and rank tracking, in addition to AI writing tools and content assistants.
• Seamless integration: Any AI SEO tool must integrate with CMS tools, analytics stacks, and other essential marketing technologies you’re using. I prioritized solutions with robust integration capabilities through APIs, native connectors, or third-party partnerships. Ease of setup and installation was also a key factor.

AI SEO Tools: Top Features in 2024

While your specific needs and preferences will determine the AI SEO tool you pick, there are essential features that every dependable AI SEO tool should have.

To help you select the most effective solution, consider these features and capabilities:

A Robust AI Core

Look for tools that incorporate advanced natural language processing (NLP) and deep learning algorithms.

As you do this, don‘t just take the vendor’s word for it. Dig into ‌ documentation, examine case studies, and seek out user feedback on platforms like G2 and TrustRadius.

A robust AI core will have a track record of success and continuous improvement.

Tailored for SEO-Specialized Features

The tool you choose should cover crucial aspects of SEO, from conducting in-depth keyword research to optimizing on-page content, from performing technical site audits to tracking rankings in real time.

It should also provide insights into your competitors‘ strategies, giving you a comprehensive view of your SEO landscape.

These specialized features ensure that you’re getting generic AI assistance and targeted support for your SEO efforts.

Seamless integration

No tool exists in isolation. The most effective AI SEO tools offer seamless integration capabilities through APIs and connectors, allowing them to work well with your existing tech stack.

The integration process should also be straightforward and cause minimal disruption to your workflow.

Look for tools that have established partnerships with leading platforms, which often indicates better integration possibilities.

Responsive Support and Active Development

Even the most advanced AI SEO tools can’t replace good old-fashioned customer support. Seek out vendors known for their reliability and commitment to product development.

They should offer quick, accessible technical assistance through multiple channels.

Scalable Performance and Pricing

Finally, consider the tool’s ability to handle increasing amounts of data and usage without compromising speed or accuracy.

Your AI SEO tool’s pricing should be flexible, offering options that fit various budgets and needs.

Remember, the most expensive option isn’t always the best, so look for a balance between cost-effectiveness and reliable performance.

By considering these factors, you can identify an AI SEO tool that meets your current needs and can evolve alongside your business, providing long-term value in your SEO efforts. Let’s look at the 17 best AI SEO tools.

I have included both free and paid tools to help with all parts of the SEO process, including strategy planning, content optimization, and technical SEO.

17 Best AI SEO Tools

1. HubSpot AI Tools

Price: Create a bundle to get a quote.

I use HubSpot’s suite of AI tools to work more efficiently, develop my SEO strategy, and create optimized content that ranks higher in SERPs.

What I love about these tools is that they are designed to allow for easy transitions between manual and AI-assisted creation, giving me the best of both worlds.

The most impressive thing about HubSpot’s AI-driven content generation tools is that they’re adept at generating copy for a wide range of needs, from blog posts to landing pages to marketing emails and beyond.

Here’s how I use HubSpot in my day to day:

• I scan my website using the SEO suggestions tool to identify optimization opportunities automatically. This tool ranks recommendations by priority, so it’s easy to see which actionable insights will be the most impactful.
• I leverage the AI content writer, which helps me brainstorm topics and fill out my editorial calendar. It’s also useful for drafting email copy and pitching guest posts to chase high-quality backlinks.
• Once I have ideas, I turn to the AI blog writer to transform them into comprehensive, engaging blog posts. All I have to do is feed the tool an outline or a set of bullet points, and it creates well-structured content that follows SEO best practices. From there, I can review each post and add the final touches — this tool is invaluable for maintaining a consistent blog output without sacrificing quality.
• The AI paragraph rewriter is my go-to tool for updating existing content and maximizing its reach, effectiveness, and longevity. It rephrases and revitalizes the copy, ensuring my posts remain relevant, engaging, and SEO-friendly.

What I like: HubSpot’s AI-powered tools are designed to complement your creative process, offering the flexibility to toggle between manual and AI-assisted content creation. It facilitates enough efficiency to produce high-quality content at scale.

Bonus: HubSpot’s Blog Ideas Generator uses AI and Semrush keyword data to craft optimized blog post titles, outlines, and content.

2. AlliAI

Price: Starts at $299 per month.

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AlliAI helps you easily optimize your website experience for SERPs. One feature I particularly enjoy is its bulk on-page optimization; I use it to set up SEO rules for my entire website. The program also handles code changes on individual pages.

I’ve also used AlliAI’s automated SEO A/B testing, which uses user behavior data to optimize search page titles and boost organic traffic.

What I like: This AI SEO tool works with all CMS platforms and doesn’t require coding experience, which makes it an excellent choice for anyone new to the technical side of SEO.

3. RankIQ

Price: $99 per month.

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RankIQ is an SEO toolset that I recommend to fellow SEO professionals who focus heavily on blogging for marketing.

The platform includes several features that make it easier to create SEO blog posts, including the SEO content brief creator, which I use to identify relevant keywords and generate a blog outline in minutes.

I also like using the content-optimizing writing assistant to see which supporting keywords I can add to my posts so they’re more likely to rank at the top of SERPs.

If you want to refresh older or underperforming posts, RankIQ’s tools can help you do that in less than 30 minutes.

What I like: RankIQ has an extensive keyword library of low-competition, high-traffic search terms that make it easy to find high-ROI opportunities.

4. INK

Price: Starts at $39 per month.

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INK is an AI writing tool designed to enhance your content’s search engine performance.

It analyzes top-ranked content to help you create outperformant posts. As an SEO assistant, INK identifies keywords to improve your content’s visibility, making it particularly useful for optimizing posts targeting high-competition keywords.

Beyond content generation, INK offers versatile features, including keyword research and clustering.

The keyword clustering feature allows you to input a list of keywords or import data from popular SEO tools like Ahrefs, Semrush, or Google Keyword Planner.

INK then analyzes these keywords, strategically grouping related terms and building topical clusters for improved SEO results. This level of granular keyword optimization sets INK apart from many other platforms.

What I like: Ink AI offers keyword clustering features, which aren’t offered on many other platforms.

5. Jasper

Price: Starts at $49 per month (per user).

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Jasper is an AI writing assistant that transforms a single brief into a comprehensive set of marketing assets, including SEO blog posts, emails, and social media copy.

Its standout feature is the intuitive campaign dashboard, which significantly simplifies team collaboration by providing a centralized hub for all marketing initiatives.

Jasper truly excels in AI-powered content creation. The tool consistently generates high-quality, engaging, relevant suggestions, proving invaluable when struggling with writer’s block.

Jasper ensures consistent branding by maintaining a brand’s unique voice and tone across various content types. It allows users to customize their tone and ensures consistent branding regardless of which team member uses the tool.

This unified, on-brand messaging is crucial for building strong recognition and loyalty with your audience.

What I like: Jasper allows for tone-of-voice customization that helps keep your brand consistent across content.

6. Paraphrasingtool.ai (All-In-One Bundle)

Price: $20 per month.

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Paraphrasingtool.ai is a writing assistant I use to paraphrase content while ensuring it’s grammatically correct, human-written, and highly clear.

The AI tool also includes detailed definitions of the words used in paraphrasing, which makes it useful for speeding up research on topics that require more technical knowledge.

What I like: You can paraphrase recorded audio, which is helpful for video-based research and repurposing content like webinars and interviews.

7. NeuronWriter

Price: Starts at $23 per month.

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NeuronWriter is a comprehensive tool that combines AI content creation, internal linking, and competitor analysis.

It leverages natural language processing (NLP), Google SERP data, and competitor insights to help create high-ranking blog posts tailored to search intent.

The tool’s strength lies in its AI content generation, powered by NLP and analysis of top-ranking Google pages.

By understanding true search intent, NeuronWriter provides highly relevant and engaging content suggestions, ensuring the produced content meets both ranking and engagement criteria.

NeuronWriter is more than just an AI writing tool. It offers critical SEO analysis, providing insights into on-page optimization opportunities and competitive gaps.

The integrated competitor research feature reveals tangible data on successful strategies within your niche, helping your posts outperform the competition.

What I like: NeuronWriter simplifies content management by combining SEO features with an editorial calendar.

8. OutRanking (SEO Writer Plan)

Price: $79 per month.

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OutRanking is an AI-powered SEO software that enhances your entire SEO content strategy. It goes beyond improving individual pieces of content by providing in-depth keyword research tools that focus on building topical authority.

A standout feature of OutRanking is its ability to transform keyword research into a comprehensive content calendar prioritized around your SEO goals.

This functionality simplifies the process of systematically establishing topical authority, turning what would typically be a daunting, labor-intensive task into a streamlined workflow.

This calendar feature is a game-changer for those struggling with developing a cohesive content roadmap.

While OutRanking offers a starter plan, it’s limited to five SEO documents. The SEO Writer Plan is recommended for more robust capabilities.

This plan includes 15 documents, automated optimization, and internal linking features, providing a more comprehensive toolkit for SEO content creation and strategy.

What I like: OutRanking helps you create a prioritized content calendar tailored to your SEO goals. It builds topical authority, an otherwise daunting task.

9. Surfer SEO (Scale AI Plan)

Price: $219 per month.

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Surfer SEO is a comprehensive AI-powered tool that accelerates content creation while optimizing for search engine rankings.

Its standout feature is the ability to generate high-quality content briefs and outlines tailored for top search performance.

By analyzing top-performing content, Surfer identifies crucial elements such as topics, word count, and semantically related terms needed to outrank competitors.

This data-driven approach provides a solid strategic foundation for content creation.

Surfer’s AI capabilities extend to full content generation in ten languages, a valuable feature for managing multi-lingual content demands and streamlining global content workflows.

The tool employs a two-step process: first, it generates an outline for review, then proceeds to a full draft. This approach allows for quality control and course correction before investing significant effort.

Surfer AI can automatically determine the best tone of voice for each article based on SERP analysis or match your brand’s unique tone.

Additionally, the tool provides automated optimization and the ability to scan SERPs to find the optimal tone of voice for each article.

What I like: SurferSEO generates an outline first, which you can review and change before it creates a full blog post.

10. Scalenut

Price: Starts at $39 per month.

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Scalenut offers a comprehensive suite of SEO marketing tools, including a keyword planner, SERP analyzer, article writer, and content optimizer.

This feature-rich software leverages AI to analyze potential keywords’ search volume and relevance.

A standout feature is the article writer tool, which uses real-time SERP data to generate thorough content outlines and briefs tailored for maximum visibility and rankings.

Simply inputting a focus keyword provides a solid framework for creating SEO-optimized content from scratch.

The built-in editor enhances this process by providing real-time feedback and recommendations as you write, ensuring your content meets all necessary SEO criteria.

Scalenut’s keyword research capabilities are equally impressive. The tool surfaces high-value, relevant keywords and metrics like search volumes and competition levels.

This data-driven approach helps you identify areas to focus on and create content topics that build genuine topical authority.

The combination of the article writer‘s SERP-based outlines and the post editor’s real-time optimization feedback provides an efficient workflow for increasing the visibility of your content.

This integrated approach makes Scalenut a powerful tool for comprehensive SEO content strategy and execution.

What I like: Scalenut’s customer support is exceptionally fast and friendly. The company often releases new features to keep up with the latest AI SEO trends.

11. Pictory

Price: Starts at $29 per month.

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Pictory is an AI video generator that creates high-quality videos in a matter of minutes. All you have to do is upload a video script to the platform.

Pictory uses it as the foundation for the video’s content. You can make final tweaks before saving or publishing it.

I increase website dwell time and engagement on blogs and socials by adding videos that complement my written content.

Honestly, I don’t have much experience creating videos manually, so I use Pictory’s AI tools as an efficient shortcut.

Pictory is handy when repurposing webinars, podcasts, and even Zoom meetings.

What I like: Pictory is remarkably user-friendly, and its short learning curve makes for a faster ROI.

12. NitroPack

Price: Starts at $21 per month.

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A slow, unoptimized website can significantly harm your search rankings and user engagement.

NitroPack, an AI-driven SEO tool, addresses this issue by streamlining website performance optimization, making it a game-changer for SEO professionals, especially those more versed in content creation than coding.

NitroPack automatically handles crucial technical tasks such as compressing and resizing images, caching, and optimizing for code.

These features work together to ensure pages load quickly across all devices, improving search rankings and user experience.

One of NitroPack’s standout qualities is its seamless integration with existing web hosting platforms and content management tools.

The installation process is straightforward, with clear documentation that allows users to optimize their website’s performance.

By automating these technical SEO tasks, NitroPack enables content creators to focus on their core competencies while achieving superior website performance.

What I like: This AI SEO tool offers a test mode to try out new features without affecting your website’s user experience.

13. NeuralText

Price: Starts at $19 per month.

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NeuralText is a comprehensive SEO and content tool for keyword research, AI copywriting, and content optimization. It uses data from top-ranked pages on SERPs to generate high-quality, well-researched content.

I like that the AI copywriting features include over 50 content templates spanning blog posts, social media ads, and brand slogan ideas.

I also use NeuralText’s content optimization editor to improve both new and existing blog posts based on its tailored recommendations.

What I like: The keyword research tool makes it easy to identify long-tail keywords and uncover search intent.

14. MarketMuse

Price: Starts at $149 per month

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MarketMuse is an AI-powered content intelligence platform designed to optimize content creation and improve SEO performance.

At its core, MarketMuse employs advanced topic modeling, using AI to analyze large datasets and identify relevant topics, subtopics, and related terms.

This ensures comprehensive content coverage and helps creators address user intent more effectively.

The platform excels in content evaluation, assessing existing material to identify gaps, redundancies, and opportunities for improvement. This feature is particularly valuable for content audits and strategic planning.

MarketMuse also generates detailed briefs with key topics, questions, and keywords, guiding writers to structure content that aligns with user intent and SEO best practices.

Real-time feedback is another standout feature of MarketMuse. As you create content, the platform provides instant suggestions to improve structure, readability, and keyword usage, enhancing overall SEO performance.

Additionally, MarketMuse conducts thorough SERP analysis, examining search engine results pages to understand high-performing content for specific queries.

This allows users to benchmark their content against competitors and create more competitive material.

What I like: By combining AI and machine learning, MarketMuse delivers a comprehensive suite of tools for content research, creation, optimization, and performance tracking. This all-in-one approach makes it an invaluable resource for content marketers and SEO professionals, streamlining the content creation process while ensuring SEO effectiveness.

15. Content Harmony

Price: starts at $99 per month

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Using AI, Content Harmony analyzes search trends, user intent, and competitive landscapes to create comprehensive briefs.

These briefs include target keywords, related topics, questions to address, and insights from top-performing content in the same niche.

This initial step ensures that you have a solid foundation from which to work by including key SEO elements from the outset.

Content Harmony’s AI also conducts thorough competitive analysis. It examines top-performing pages in search engine results for targeted keywords, providing users with insights into what type of content ranks well.

Furthermore, it performs content gap analysis, identifying areas where a user’s content may be lacking compared to competitors.

This feature enables content creators to fill these gaps and potentially outperform their competition strategically.

What I like: Beyond individual content pieces, Content Harmony ‌also includes workflow management tools, supporting content teams from ideation to publication with features for task assignment, progress tracking, and collaboration.

16. Link Whisper

Price: starts at $77 per month

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Link Whisper is a powerful WordPress plugin designed to simplify and enhance website internal linking.

This tool is particularly beneficial for content-heavy blogs and sites with extensive archives, as it helps maintain a robust internal linking structure, which is crucial for SEO and user navigation.

The tool significantly reduces the time required for internal linking, transforming what used to be a time-consuming task into a quick, efficient process.

The setup process for Link Whisper is straightforward and user-friendly. Once activated, it integrates seamlessly into the WordPress dashboard, offering a clean and intuitive interface. This ease of integration makes it accessible even for those who may not be highly technical.

Link Whisper excels at providing intelligent internal linking suggestions. When editing a post, a dedicated “Link Whisper” section displays contextually appropriate internal links based on a thorough scan of the entire site.

This feature ensures that relevant content is interconnected, enhancing the site’s SEO and helping users discover related articles.

The plugin’s AI-driven suggestions are generally accurate, identifying the best places to add internal links. While most recommendations are spot-on, users may occasionally encounter less relevant suggestions, which can be easily adjusted.

What I like: One of LinkWhisper’s standout features is its bulk-adding capability. This feature is handy for updating older content, allowing users to add multiple internal links across various posts in a fraction of the time it normally takes.

17. Frase

Price: Starts at $15 per month

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Frase is a comprehensive AI-powered content creation and optimization tool designed to streamline your content creation process.

It is particularly valuable for content marketers, SEO professionals, and writers who aim to efficiently produce high-quality, SEO-friendly content.

Frase offers a wide range of powerful features to enhance content quality and SEO performance.

Its AI-driven content research capabilities allow you to quickly gather information on any topic and summarize key points from top-ranking pages.

Frase assists writers in crafting comprehensive and competitive content.

Additionally, it provides content optimization tools that analyze your drafts against top-ranking content. This analysis provides actionable suggestions for improving SEO elements like keywords, headers, and readability.

A standout feature of Frase is its ability to generate detailed content briefs. These briefs include outlines, keyword suggestions, and competitive analysis, helping writers structure their content effectively.

This feature ensures that content is well-planned and aligned with SEO best practices.

What I like: Frase’s answer engine helps users identify and address common questions about their topic. By integrating this feature, content creators can enhance the relevance and value of their articles, improving user engagement and satisfaction.

Free AI SEO Tools

If you want to get started without breaking the bank, check out my favorite free AI SEO tools. They’ll still save you time and boost SERP rankings.

Note: all of these tools have premium paid versions — but still offer some helpful features at the free level.

ChatGPT

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ChatGPT is one of the most popular AI-powered chatbots, partly because it has many uses, including some SEO tasks.

While I don’t recommend ChatGPT for long-form content generation, I do use it as a quick escape from writer’s block. Specifically, it’s helpful for ideation, keyword brainstorming, and quickly generating ideas for titles and meta descriptions.

It’s worth noting that with generative AI, the output quality depends on the input quality. To up your ChatGPT prowess, browse our 70 AI prompts for marketers.

What I like: You can save conversations by topic or project, which keeps ideas organized.

Perplexity AI

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Perplexity is one of my favorite research tools because you can upload PDF files to receive a summary of key insights. The free version allows you to upload three files daily, and you can ask multiple questions related to the files you upload.

What I like: The focus feature lets you specify which types of sources you want the tool to use when generating an answer.

QuillBot AI

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When you need a quick paraphrasing tool, use QuillBot — it lets you paraphrase up to 125 words at a time for free. The free plan also provides basic summaries and text generation with a limit of 50 AI prompts per day.

It’s a handy little refining tool I like to use when I have writer’s block or when I want to summarize an article for a social post or email marketing copy.

What I like: It offers a Chrome extension, so you don’t need to switch back and forth between tabs.

Level Up Your Marketing With AI SEO Tools

While testing the tools in the list above, I was surprised by the sheer range of capabilities AI SEO tools now offer, from AI writing assistance to comprehensive content optimization.

My favorite tool among those I tested was HubSpot’s AI Tools. I was impressed by its seamless integration of AI across various SEO functions, from content creation to optimization.

I found its ability to toggle between manual and AI-assisted creation particularly valuable, as it allowed me to maintain my creative input while benefiting from AI’s efficiency.

I was also pleasantly surprised by how some tools, like LinkWhisper, addressed specific SEO challenges I‘ve long struggled with, such as efficient internal linking.

The time savings these tools offer are substantial—a factor I hadn’t fully appreciated before this deep dive.

Ultimately, I‘ve learned that while AI SEO tools are powerful, they’re most effective when used to complement your own expertise rather than replace it.

The key is finding the right balance between using AI’s capabilities and applying your own strategic thinking and creativity.

Editor’s Note: This post was originally published in May 2023 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.