Category Archives: B2B

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.

 

Welcome to Creator Columns, where we bring expert HubSpot Creator voices to the Blogs that inspire and help you grow better.

I started my marketing career as a junior community marketer. I should have been pretty prepared for the job. I’d spent £50,000 on my marketing degree and four years studying.

Yet, just a few hours into my first day, I realized I wasn’t well-prepared. I was woefully inept.

Right after lunch, my manager asked me to create one-pagers, blogs, email subject lines, and case studies. “This,” he described, “is marketing bread and butter.” And yet, I had no idea where to start.

My degree claimed I could ‘do marketing,’ but I had no clue how to write persuasively, convince customers, or use words to catch the eye.

Yet, all of these new tasks involved persuasive copywriting, something I knew nothing about.

Fortunately, I quickly discovered behavioral science. I learned how psychology could reveal the secret to persuasive copywriting. Later, I interviewed experts like Richard Shotton, Rory Sutherland, and Jonah Berger, quizzing them on how they write better copy.

Over a decade, I’ve discovered dozens of copywriting tips that work. A treasure trove of tactics that I wish I’d known all those years ago. So, just in case you’re in the same position as me, here are the eight copywriting tips I wish I’d known when I started in marketing.

Copywriting Insights I Wish I Had From Day One

1. Write Concrete Copy

In his book (2023), Richard Shotton shared arguably the most important copywriting study.

In 2021, Richard and his colleagues Mike Treharne and Leo Burnett showed participants vague phrases and concrete phrases and asked them to remember both.

Concrete phrases, like “fast car,” were recalled with 6.7% accuracy, while abstract phrases like “innovative quality” were forgotten, with only 0.7% recalled.

There’s a concrete takeaway here. Don’t use vague or abstract terms in your copywriting. Instead, use concrete phrases that readers can visualize.

This copywriting tactic will not only help with memorability but also boost sales. A 2022 study (cited in Magic Words) suggested that changing an Oreo product description from “150 grams per pack” to “15 cookies per pack” increased sales.

The concrete descriptions made Oreo’s benefits more salient and made customers more likely to buy.

2. Anchor Your Claims

Huel, the rapidly growing protein shake company, knows how to use concrete phrases in their ads.

Rather than using technical descriptions (left of the image), they use easy-to-visualize examples like eggs, oranges, salmon filets, and bananas (right of the image).

But can you spot the other tactic they use?

Each of their concrete examples acts as an anchor. Readers know salmon filets contain plenty of omega-3, so the anchor makes Huel’s drink seem even more nutritious.

One study on San Francisco residents (cited in Blindsight) found that the average political donator sent $64 to their candidate over the election campaign.

But simply telling a donor “someone else offered $400” increases the average to $143. Like Huel’s “salmon filet, ” this anchor changed the donor’s perception and behavior.

Read more:

• Anchor Text: What It Is, Why It’s Important, & How to Optimize It

3. Don’t Hide Effort

In 2003, researchers Chinander and Schweitzer showed students two different presentations: one on electronic ink and the other on optical switches (both were as dull as they sound).

Half the students were told that the presentation on electronic ink took eight hours to prepare, while the optical switch presentation took just 30 minutes. The other half were told the opposite: that the optical switch presentation took eight hours to prepare, while the electronic ink pitch was whipped together in 30 minutes.

In both scenarios, the presentation was the same.

Hearing that a presentation took longer to prepare made the presentation more engaging. Simply learning that effort went into it made students rate it higher.

This finding can easily be applied to your copywriting. Simply highlight the work you’ve put in, like I did with this Reddit ad. Tweaking my copy to say, “I’ve spent 480 minutes listening to marketing experts … Here are the six best marketing lessons I’ve heard,” boosted my click-through rate by 45%.

4. Be Very Specific

Take a closer look at that last ad. You’ll notice I said “480 minutes,” not eight hours or one working day. I was very specific on purpose.

A 2006 study compared ads with non-specific numbers versus ads with specific numbers.

The researchers Schindler and Yalch found that ads for a law firm performed better when stating it served customers for “10 years” rather than “a decade.”

Ads suggesting that a fictitious deodorant lasted precisely 47% or 53% longer were deemed more accurate by 199 participants, compared to a non-specific “50% longer” claim.

Perhaps that’s why Heinz reminds customers of its 57 varieties, while KFC raves about its 11 secret herbs and spices.

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5. Present Tense Persuades

In 2023, best-selling author Jonah Berger ran a study analyzing 500,000 product reviews.

Jonah and his team compared reviews written in the present tense (“the soup is delicious”) with reviews written in the past tense (“the soup was delicious”).

They discovered that reviews written in the present tense received 26% more helpful upvotes, making readers 12% more likely to buy.

It’s a vital finding that many forget. This Tesla post (reposted by Elon Musk) would have been more persuasive if it mentioned how the company was growing, rather than how it grew.

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6. Almost Always Alliterate

Participants in one 2022 study (cited in The Illusion of Choice) were shown one of two proverbs. Half were alliterating proverbs, the others were non-alliterating proverbs with the same meaning.

Some participants read that “a break will help you flourish.” Others read that “a break will help you blossom.” Some read how “barking dogs seldom wound,” while others read that “barking dogs seldom bite.”

Later, the participants were asked to recall the proverbs. The alliterating versions were 22% more memorable.

Maybe that’s why so many companies opt for alliterating slogans. Nestle claims “Good food, good life.” KitKat says, “Have a break, have a KitKat.” While Jaguar tells customers “Don’t dream it. Drive it.”

But this tip isn’t just for swanky slogans. Expert copywriter Harry Dry shares how to apply this tip on a typical website call to action.

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Read more:

• 27 Copywriting Examples From Businesses With Incredible Copywriters

7. Don’t Fear Negations

Negative words like nobody, none, no, nothing, and nowhere attract attention.

Two researchers in 2022 analyzed 15,608 posts on Facebook and X and found that posts with negation words gained more engagement.

A tweet promoting a newsletter was 17.8% more effective if a negation was used, while a negation-packed Facebook post received 17.6% more engagement.

Perhaps that’s why this famous IBM line has stuck around for decades.

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8. Second Person Pronouns

In 2022, a group of three researchers studied thousands of brand posts on Facebook, comparing their engagement and impressions.

They discovered that posts containing second-person pronouns (you, your, you’ll) increased the performance of the posts.

It wasn’t just Facebook posts. Blog titles that include “you” and “you’ll” made readers feel more engaged and made the brand behind the post appear more favorably in the reader’s eye.

Next time you write a post, consider adding a “you.”

These 8 tips are what you need to craft compelling copy. Now don’t forget it took me 10 years to find these tips but just 8 ½ minutes for you to read this post. So bookmark this blog, you might want to save it for a rainy day.

This blog is part of Phill Agnew’s Marketing Cheat Sheet series where he reveals scientifically proven tips to help you improve your marketing. To learn more, listen to his podcast, Nudge, which is a proud member of the HubSpot Podcast Network.

 

Today, data wrangling is an essential skill in almost every role, making Excel an essential skill. But, the days of lying about your Excel proficiency are over; instead, you can use the best AI tools on the market for Excel.

While analysts and data scientists need serious expertise, I’m just someone who regularly has to export data from multiple tools and leverage Excel to report on marketing performance across different channels.

Since I use the program so much, I’ve become pretty adept at more complicated Excel features, but there’s no doubt it can still be time-consuming and tricky.

So, I wanted to see how all the recent advances in AI could make those hours spent in spreadsheets easier and how much time I could save.

I went and found some of the best AI tools for Excel, tested them, and compiled my findings below.

How I Tested the Best AI Tools and Plugins for Excel

There’s a lot you can do in Excel. I use everything from simple formulas to more advanced macros. I tested the tools and plugins for:

• Accuracy: Often, I’m dealing with really big data sets, as I’m sure many of you are. These can make calculations and formulas complex, so an Excel tool needs to be capable of handling tasks with accuracy.
• Ease of Use: There’s nothing worse than a confusing tool. Excel itself can be confusing enough, so a clear interface and good UX should be a given here.
• Speed and Reliability: We turn to AI to be more efficient. A tool needs to be quick and reliable if I’m going to invest time and money in it.
• Range of Features: There’s a lot AI can do in Excel. The more features a single tool has, the better.

For testing purposes, I downloaded a sample spreadsheet containing office supplies sales data to be used in every tool, eliminating possible variables.

The Best AI Tools and Plugins for Excel

1. Ajelix

Pricing: Free plans are available. Standard plans cost $9 per month. Business plans cost $40 per month, and business plus plans cost $200 per month.

Even though I work in Excel and Google Sheets a lot, I’ve never been great at remembering complicated formulas and functions. With Ajelix, I don’t have to.

Within two minutes of jumping into Ajelix, I was able to type out what I was trying to do with my data, and the tool spat out multiple formula options for me to try.

When I first opened the tool, I got a really nice, user-friendly dashboard. Since I tend to struggle with formula mistakes, I clicked on the “Generate Formula” option.

In my sample sheet, I wanted a quick way to find out how many pencils were sold. So I gave the Ajelix tool the gist of what I wanted with the prompt, “Sum the number of units in Column E when the value of Column D is in pencils:”

Ajelix instantly returned a formula with a handy “copy” button. It also gave me an alternative to try if the first one didn’t work.

Then, I spotted the “Chat with AI” button and decided to try it out.

The button took me to a chat with all the information about my formula already loaded. I asked the AI assistant to expand my formula to include the number of desks sold as well, and instantly received the formula.

The formula worked perfectly. But to test the AI assistant a little more, I told the tool that the formula didn’t work. I instantly received another way to try to achieve what I needed.

What I liked: Ajelix is a user-friendly tool that seems to be geared toward the average business user rather than a data expert. In addition to AI assistance, you can also use the business intelligence (BI) functionality for advanced data visualization.

It’s worth noting you’ll need to pay to use Ajelix long term to AI functionality. But pricing is pretty reasonable at $6 per month for the Standard plan or $20 per month for a business plan.

2. GPTExcel

Pricing: Free plans are available. Paid plans cost $6 per month.

GPTExcel is another handy and cost-efficient tool that uses AI to help users streamline how they use Excel.

It has a formula generator, but I also wanted to try out the Scripts feature. With the Script tool, you can explain what you want your script to do, or you can reverse the process by providing GPTExcel with a script and having the tool to explain it to you.

In my sample spreadsheet, I decided I wanted to generate automation where any row where the Sales value in Column G exceeds $200, the row would be highlighted.

Here’s what I gave GPTExcel and what it provided for me:

I went back to my Excel sheet with the script and put it to the test.

After opening the VBA (Visual Basic for Applications — a Microsoft programming language) editor in Excel and running the macro, here were the results:

The first time I ran the macro, I got an error, but that was on my part.

I failed to give GPTExcel the correct name of the sheet, and it assumed the sheet was named the default Sheet 1. But my sheet was called SalesOrders, so I had to adjust the script to get it to run.

Once it did, I found the script was not very sophisticated and had highlighted the column headers in the sheet as well.

If you know Excel, any issues with the output will be quite obvious for you to fix, but someone unfamiliar with the software might struggle. Also, like many generative AI tools, you need to be extremely specific with your request to get the right output the first time.

What I like: GPTExcel is extremely easy to use, and provides a handy pop-up guide with do’s and don’ts to avoid common errors. Pricing is very low at $6.99 per month, but this still limits you to 100 queries per day (as opposed to four on the free plan).

Overall, this is a great tool for quickly generating macros, and SQL experts might find that feature useful, too.

3. Formularizer

Pricing: Free plans are available, offering 100 usage credits per month.

At one point in my career, I had an entire document filled with template formulas to quickly copy and paste into Excel. But I still had to go through them each time and change out cell ranges, values, etc. to match my needs.

With Formularizer, I wanted to see if a text prompt would be quicker and easier.

(Plus, to be honest, sometimes I come across a formula in one of my own sheets and forget what it does and why I put it there.)

Formularizer lets you paste in a formula and get a written explanation of what it does.

I used a prompt to generate the formula I needed and used terms like “Column E” because I could not upload a spreadsheet for the tool to analyze. This feature is currently in Beta.

Here’s what I provided:

“Create a formula that calculates the total for Column E as it corresponds to the values in Column B.”

My goal was to calculate units sold in the “East” region from my sample data. Here’s what Formularizer gave me:

This is what I pasted into Excel, which worked perfectly: =SUMIF(B:B, “East”, E:E).

Now, I wanted to see if Formularizer could explain a formula to me. I gave it this formula:

“=INDEX(C:C, MATCH(MAX(SUMIF(C:C, C:C, G:G)), SUMIF(C:C, C:C, G:G), 0)).” The formula shows me the rep with the highest number of sales and returns that person’s name. I pasted it into the explainer tool in Formularizer.

It did a great job, considering it had no context to work with. I was impressed by the summary.

What I like: Formularizer is fast and really easy to use, thanks to its intuitive chat interface. The free version is very useful for quickly generating complicated formulas if you know your data well. However, only the paid version will allow you to upload a sheet to be analyzed.

4. Promptloop

Pricing: Free plans are available. Individual plans cost $49 per month. Company plan pricing is available upon request.

Promotloop uses AI models to take care of a few common tasks in Excel. You can prompt the AI to categorize text data, answer questions based on information in your data set, and create dummy data so you can test your sheet.

When I first logged in, I was asked about the task I needed to complete.

I explained I needed help cleaning sales data, as data cleaning is one of the core functionalities of Promptloop — but I could also have skipped this and gone straight to the dashboard.

Since I was on the free plan, my data was limited to 25 rows once I attached my Excel workbook.

For the follow-up question, I explained how I needed to clean the data, saying, “I would like to categorize the data into product types from row D. So Pencil, Pen Set, and Binder should be categorized as Small while Desk should be categorized as large.”

Promptloop then gave me an opportunity to clarify the columns and the expected output.

It then very quickly processed the task and provided me with an output file to download.

After hitting the “Download” button, it took me a couple of extra steps to actually get the data and sheet, but it did work as expected.

What I like: Promptloop is very useful if you have a lot of text-based data to sort through. Responses to surveys, especially those where the user can input free-form text rather than selection options, are one example of where Promptloop could come in really handy.

That being said, I wasn’t as fond of the experienceon this tool compared with others on this list. There were a few unnecessary steps and clicks along the way.

5. ChatGPT

With the release of GPT.4, ChatGPT is more powerful than ever. Having had frustrations with ChatGPT and spreadsheet-based prompts previously, I wanted to see what changed.

First, I asked ChatGPT what it could do if I gave it a spreadsheet to work with. It came back with answers, including data analysis, cleaning, visualization, transformation, formulas, and automation. So, I put it to the test.

First, I had it create a pivot table, providing no other instruction.

Here is what it provided to me, which I was able to download as a CSV file:

Next, I asked it to visualize the data in the pivot table. It did a pretty great job delivering a color-coded bar graph:

Finally, I asked it to help me with a macro using the following prompt:

“Can you give me a macro I could run on this data in Excel for Mac that let’s me keep a running track of the total units sold by each rep?”

In response, it gave me a script that it claimed would create “a summary of the total units sold by each representative and output the result to a new sheet named “Summary.” If you run this macro periodically, it will update the totals accordingly.”

I tried it and hit a little snag, but I went back to Chat-GPT and let it know which line was highlighted in the Debug Tool. It immediately gave me a new output that worked perfectly.

What I like: Since ChatGPT now has such advanced language capabilities, even a complete Excel beginner could use it to complete tasks for the tool quickly and easily.

While you need the paid version at $20 per month to access this level of ability, it was one of the most straightforward experiences on this list.

6. Formula Bot

Formula Bot handles lots of data and Excel-related tasks. For many features, you must install Formula Bot as an add-on to either Excel or Google Sheets to use its capabilities, but some simpler, generative AI features are available via the browser app.

To begin, I selected the “Free Analysis” feature on the dashboard to see what it would do with no instruction.

First, I had to add my data. I could upload an Excel file or choose from some interesting connector options like Google Sheets or Facebook Ads:

After uploading my spreadsheet, the only option I could see was the “Start Chat” button.

I asked the chat to give me “Which region has the highest sales?” from my sample sheet. Disappointingly, I was given a CSV file to download with the answer, and it had just grouped the unit data into regions without giving me a direct answer.

I decided to try one of the other AI features to see if I fared any better.

This time, I wanted to upload a PDF and convert it to an Excel spreadsheet.

I uploaded a PDF containing data to see how well it would translate to an Excel sheet.

(Note: Formula Bot also allows you to paste text to be turned into a spreadsheet, which is handy.)

Formula Bot asks you to select a couple of options after uploading your PDF. It also recommends that you don’t try to turn non-table data from the file into Excel data or try to combine multiple tables into one sheet in your workbook.

Converting the PDF file only took a couple of seconds and the spreadsheet was ready for download right from the same screen.

When I downloaded and opened the Excel file, the data was perfect and ready for use.

What I like: The interface of Formula Bot is and the tool is relatively straightforward to use. You don’t need to sift through dozens of tutorials to figure out how the platform works. However, it did feel a little glitchy here and there.

The PDF to Excel feature was impressive, and with the paid add-on ($9-13 per month) right within your Excel workbooks, some of the advanced features like sentiment analysis or text classification would be interesting to see.

Making the Most of Excel

Of all the AI tools for Excel I tested, two stood out as my favorites. ChatGPT turned out to be way more adept than I thought, especially when it came to data visualization. It’s a system that I already use, and many marketers fall in the same category. If you’re hesitant about using a new system, you can’t beat ChatGPT.

However, if your looking for a more robust program focused on excel, go with Ajelix. The program was especially helpful for generating formulas that I don’t have memorized. Beyond that, Ajelix’s AI chat allowed me to answer questions with ease.

If Excel is a part of your job, checking out these AI tools can save you time and help you supplement any gaps in your knowledge.

On TikTok, anyone can go viral. You don’t need to be a videographer or social media expert to get traffic to your videos.

In fact, the most popular videos I’ve seen on my For You Page aren’t overly produced or too serious. The videos that get me to stop scrolling are the ones that are short and silly and let me know exactly what I’m about to watch.

To increase your chances of being seen, there are a few tips and tricks that top marketers and content creators swear by.

From leveraging trending audio to green screen effects, read on to discover the 13 best TikTok tricks, according to HubSpot’s Social Team and TikTok marketers.

Table of Contents

• 13 Best TikTok Tips and Tricks
• Tips for Making Great TikTok Videos

Tips for Making Great TikTok Videos

To find out what type of organic content works well on the platform, I asked some marketers for their best tips for making great TikTok videos.

Focus on the hook.

If there’s one thing marketers can agree on, it’s that your TikTok video needs a hook. Every marketer I spoke to suggests that capturing your viewers’ attention within the first few seconds is essential for engagement.

As a TikTok user myself, I couldn’t agree more. If I can’t immediately tell what the video is about, I keep scrolling.

“Viewers want to know what they’re getting from a video before they watch it,” says Petra Khan, associate director of strategy at ICUC.Social.

“Grab their attention right away with eye-catching visuals. For example, a close-up shot or a colorful visual, such as a splash of bright color or an enticing shot of a finished recipe.”

If you’re just getting started on TikTok and not getting many views yet, your hook can be what takes you to the next level.

“If your videos aren’t getting off the ground (i.e., getting less than 500 views), just focus on nailing the first three seconds,” suggests Xavier English, co-founder at Supermix.

He recommends “taking inspiration from what hooks are working for other creators in your niche and then getting very experimental with the different ways you can introduce or frame the same content.”

Meg O’Neill, a marketing expert and Instagram coach, recommends that if you’re using the storytelling format, jump right in to hook viewers immediately.

“Get right to the point!” she says. “As soon as your finger hits record, start telling your story from the middle.”

Use TikTok Studio.

If you’ve been on TikTok for the last couple of years or so, you’re probably familiar with Creator tools, the suite of features that enable creators to see their analytics and stay on top of trends.

In May 2024, TikTok replaced its “Creator tools” with TikTok Studio. The new tool allows creators to create, edit, upload, manage, and analyze their TikTok account and content performance.

You can access it within the platform or as a separate app.

Monitoring your engagement, checking on top-performing videos, and analyzing follower behavior is essential if you want to make good TikTok videos. You have to see what’s working and what needs adjustments if you want to stand out and reach your audience.

This is also true if you plan on running ads on TikTok — you should always monitor video ad performance to make sure you’re reaching the right people and meeting your goals.

Go into content creation with fresh eyes.

As marketers, it’s our job to be data-driven, tell our brand story, and promote the company. However, this knowledge can also get in our way.

When it comes to creating videos on TikTok, we sometimes have *too much* context to be a good judge of your own content, suggests English.

“We’ve seen a lot of videos fail because the moment we actually put them in front of fresh viewers, we realized something really basic was missing,” English says.

“For example, the start didn‘t make any sense to someone who didn’t have all the context we had about the topic, or the way they interpreted a certain visual was confusing, even though no one on our team interpreted it that way because we already knew the message we were trying to convey.”

Pro tip: So, how do you overcome this challenge? English’s suggestion is to “take off your context goggles,” especially during the scripting and editing processes.

13 Best TikTok Tips and Tricks

1. Find the right niche

“The algorithm favors niches. If you get traffic based on a particular style or type of content, videos outside of that won’t perform as well,” Nicole Phillip, social media lead at the Hustle, told me.

Of course, finding the right niche isn’t so easy. You have to find the sweet spot between the content that works for your brand and the content that your audience finds valuable.

To strike this balance, Phillip suggests experimenting with different types of content to see what resonates — and then stick with it.

Example: Mia Swinehart from Gathered Nutrition

Content creator and registered dietician Mia Swinehart has built a loyal audience (500K+ strong) by sharing health-conscious, balanced, and predominantly plant-based recipes.

While her audience has come to love her recipe videos, she also explores different angles within her niche — like grocery hauls and meal prep hacks — to keep her content fresh while staying true to her brand identity.

2. Don’t delete low-performing videos.

You post a video thinking it will get a million likes. Instead, it disappears into the TikTok void, leaving you with nothing to show for your hard work. Your gut reaction is to delete it, but Phillips has a different take.

“Don’t be discouraged by low performance, especially in the beginning. It takes a while for the algorithm to feed you to the right group of people and for you to find your footing before something takes off,” Phillips says.

Phillips also points out that virality often happens when you least expect it, so be careful when deleting videos. “Don’t delete low performing videos because you never know when the algorithm might pick it up and serve it to the right audience,” Phillips says.

3. Post at the right time.

According to HubSpot’s 2024 Social Media Trends Report, these are the best times to post on TikTok:

• Between 6-9 p.m.
• Between 3-6 p.m.
• Between 12-3 p.m.

And the best day to post on TikTok is Friday.

Keep in mind that every audience is different, so it’s worth checking your analytics to see when your audience is most active. You can do this by navigating to your profile, hitting the three lines in the top-right corner, and tapping “TikTok Studio.”

Then, tap “Analytics.” This opens a dashboard with your follower growth, video views, likes, comments, traffic sources, and shares.

4. Stitch top-performing or relevant videos.

The Stitch tool enables you to combine another video on TikTok with the one you‘re creating. It’s another way to collaborate with other TikTokers and expand your reach.

Start by looking for top-performing videos in your niche. You can do this by using the search bar and typing keywords relating to your brand. Or, check if any videos directly mention your brand.

Once you find a video to stitch, tap the Share icon on the right-hand side.

Then, tap Stitch. This will open an editing tool where you can select five seconds of the video to use in yours.

Let’s look at stitching in action with an example from Puma.

Example: Puma

In case you’re out of the loop, latte art is a huge deal on TikTok — amassing over 2.4 billion views. When one user put the Puma logo on top of a steaming cup of coffee, the brand decided to join the action by “stitching” the original video and attempting to recreate it.

This is a great example of a brand collaborating with its audience and leveraging user-generated content.

5. Use the green screen effect.

TikTok has an entire library of filters and effects, but one stands out from the rest: the green screen effect.

Like a traditional green screen, this effect lets you stay on-screen while different images appear in the background. By incorporating visual aids, it adds a whole new level of storytelling.

This filter is ideal for explaining topics, providing recommendations, or whenever visuals could complement your story.

For instance, suppose you’re a fitness influencer. You could explain the proper form of an exercise by referencing photos in the background. In this case, the background visuals enhance your commentary rather than distract from it.

Example: Levi’s

Using the green screen effect, Levi’s recommends different jeans using product photos in the background. Viewers can easily follow along, and seeing pictures of the jeans may pique their interest.

6. Leverage trending audio.

90% of TikTok users say sound is essential to the TikTok experience. It grabs people‘s attention and adds flavor to your content. And for many users, it’s the starting point for creating a great video.

Image Source

Pro tip: Not sure what sounds are trending right now? TikTok’s Creative Center ranks the most popular music and audio clips each day. You can even filter the results by region, which is helpful if your audience is in a different location.

Example: Duolingo

Duolingo is a fan favorite on the platform, especially for its funny, trendy, and sometimes chaotic videos featuring its mascot, Duo the Owl. Duo can be seen dancing to popular songs and acting in skits that incorporate popular audio clips, like in the example below.

7. Try vlog-style videos.

Vlog-style videos feel more personal and intimate — which might explain why they’re so popular on TikTok.

These videos typically include multiple clips tied together with a voiceover describing the series of events. It‘s highly engaging and lets viewers feel like they’re living in your shoes.

Example: Netflix

This example shows Netflix using the vlog style to take its audience on a journey. While most of us won‘t walk a red carpet in our lifetime, we can still get a peak of what the experience entails — and how our favorite actors behave off-screen. It’s also a great way to showcase “behind the scenes” content.

8. Incorporate both niche and trending hashtags.

Making a TikTok is half the battle — you also need to ensure it lands in front of your audience. Hashtags are one way to get there.

Adding hashtags in your description gives your videos a better chance of being seen, allowing you to drive discoverability, build brand awareness, and extend your reach. But how can you do it?

This may sound counterintuitive, but only targeting popular hashtags is ineffective. While they command a larger audience, they’re also highly competitive. On the other hand, niche hashtags have fewer people searching for them, but those who do are highly engaged and interested.

For example, #workout is a popular hashtag with over 95 billion views, but #coreworkout is more niche with a fraction of the audience.

A well-rounded hashtag strategy should include both niche and popular hashtags. Take a look at the example below.

Example: Dunkin’

Fall is just around the corner, and Dunkin’ is getting everyone hyped for its seasonal menu. To get the word out, the brand incorporates a variety of hashtags to reach more people.

For instance, the video below uses #fall, a trending hashtag (15+ billion views), and #pumpkinszn, a more niche hashtag with fewer views (40+ million). By including #pumpkinszn, Dunkin’ can tap into a smaller, more engaged audience.

9. Respond to comments with video.

On TikTok, almost every brand has the same goal: to connect with its audience. Often, that connection forms in the comment section. It’s where viewers go to ask questions and share opinions.

But instead of replying to a comment with text, you can now respond with another video. This allows you to dive deeper into topics, answer questions, and keep your audience coming back for more.

Example: Glossier

When a TikTok user asked Glossier how to use one of its products, the brand didn‘t miss the opportunity to reply with a video explaining all the ways to use it. In doing so, the brand adds value while highlighting the product’s versatility.

10. Add value with “how to” TikToks.

“How To” videos and tutorials are an easy way to provide value to TikTok viewers without sounding overly promotional. Plus, positioning yourself as an expert or authority in your niche keeps your brand, products, and/or services top-of-mind for viewers.

For instance, if you’re a travel brand, you could film videos of must-see attractions, restaurant recommendations, and travel tips — like the example below.

Example: Travel + Leisure

Travel + Leisure provides all the content you need to “kick your wanderlust into high gear.” From hotel recommendations to photography tips, the brand has you covered, positioning itself as a gold mine of advice for the travel-obsessed.

11. Leave a CTA in your description and/or comments.

Need more engagement? Sometimes, it’s as simple as asking for it.

The ultimate goal of a CTA is to persuade users to do something — follow your TikTok page, visit your website, leave a comment, and so on. So ask yourself, “what do I want my viewers to do?”

Whatever you choose, it should help you move closer to your primary goal (i.e., drive website traffic, increase brand awareness, etc.).

Your description and comment section are prime real estate for CTAs. Use this area to ask questions, encourage users to follow you, or drive traffic to your website, blog, or other social channels (ie, “More tips on my blog, link in bio!”).

On top of that, if you’re running ads, we recommend using a marketing integration tool to sync all your lead data to your CRM. (P.S. You can do this using the TikTok-Hubspot ads integration!)

Example: Fenty Beauty

In this TikTok, Fenty Beauty shows different ways to use one of its products. Then, to encourage engagement, they add a relevant question in the description that also incorporates a brand-specific hashtag (“Which #POUTSICLE look was ya fave?”).

Another way to invite users to take action is to set up a TikTok shop for your business. This allows users to see the products you have available. You can even create videos where the CTA is to click on your products.

12. Add subtitles to your videos.

TikTok videos became more accessible with the introduction of auto-captions.

Although you can manually add captions — which allows for greater flexibility to play around with text color and font — you can also use the Captions tool. With just a click, you can generate subtitles for your videos, allowing others to read or listen to your content.

Image Source

Pro tip: Including text overlays and captions is a great way to make your content accessible and tap into social SEO, suggests Khan. “It also happens to be a workaround for instances in which people are watching on mute,” she says.

Example: Formula 1

If you‘re into car racing, there’s a good chance Formula 1’s TikTok is on your radar.

But have you ever noticed how often they add subtitles to their videos?

Take the example below, which uses colorful captions and emojis to add an extra layer of interest to the video. And if you mute your phone, you can still follow along without skipping a beat.

13. Explore top-performing videos in your niche for inspiration.

The most successful videos on TikTok are creative, out-of-the-box, and often quirky by nature. That’s a tall order — which is why every brand should explore the top-performing videos in its niche for inspiration.

Start by typing keywords relating to your brand in the search bar. Then, click the filter icon and sort by relevance, like count or date posted. If you choose to sort by the like count, it will populate TikTok videos that have gone viral using that specific keyword.

Once you’ve identified some top-performing videos, brainstorm ways to recreate them while adding your own spin.

Experiment With TikTok to Achieve Results

My biggest takeaway about TikTok tips and tricks is that there isn’t one right path to success. TikTok is a platform that relies on experimentation, and brands willing to get creative see the most success.

If you’re new to TikTok, start with the tips in this article — and give yourself room to experiment with different videos, filters, and concepts.

Don’t be discouraged if you post a video that doesn’t get much traction. Instead, try another trending tactic, see what your competitors are doing, and then lean into whatever style or format sticks.

TikTok is an engaging platform once you reach the right people. My suggestion is to keep posting videos, engaging with users, and try to have fun to get the most out of the platform.

Editor’s note: This post was originally published in August 2022 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.