In today’s fast-paced digital landscape, AI marketing automation has evolved from a buzzword to a game-changing strategy, transforming the way businesses engage with their audiences. For digital marketing agencies, adopting AI marketing automation is no longer optional—it’s essential to stay ahead in an increasingly competitive market.

Consider this: 25% of businesses plan to adopt AI by the end of 2024. That means one in four of your competitors is already harnessing AI to gain an edge. If you haven’t started integrating AI marketing automation into your strategies yet, now is the time to act.

But where do you begin? If you want to learn how to make money with AI for your agency, you need to understand how it can be applied to drive results. In this blog, we’ll explore exactly that—showing you how to unlock new opportunities and boost profitability with AI.

Table of Contents

• What is Artificial Intelligence (AI)?
• What Is AI Marketing Automation?
• AI vs. Traditional Automation
• How is AI Changing Digital Marketing?
• Key Components of AI Marketing Automation
• Top AI Marketing Automation Applications for Agencies
• How to Implement AI Marketing Automation in Your Agency
• How to Measure the Impact of AI Marketing Automation
• Ethical Considerations and Best Practices
• Future Trends in AI Marketing Automation
• The Best AI Marketing Tools

What is Artificial Intelligence (AI)?

Artificial Intelligence (AI) refers to computer systems that mimic human intelligence to perform tasks like learning, problem-solving, and understanding language. Powered by advanced technologies such as machine learning (ML) and natural language processing (NLP), AI can analyze data, adapt to new information, and automate complex processes.

In marketing, AI has become a game-changer, enabling tools and strategies that were once unimaginable. Think of chatbots delivering real-time customer support, data analysis uncovering actionable insights, or recommendation engines personalizing user experiences—all of these are practical applications of AI helping businesses engage audiences and drive results.

What Is AI Marketing Automation?

So, what exactly is AI marketing automation? 

At its core, it’s the fusion of artificial intelligence with marketing automation that enables a more intelligent, data-driven approach to performing marketing tasks.

One of the many AI marketing automation benefits over traditional automation—which follows a linear, rule-based path—is that when coupled with machine learning, AI-driven automation continuously learns and evolves over time. Think of it as moving from a static, one-size-fits-all approach to an agile system that adjusts quickly based on data, customer behavior, and preferences.

To better understand how AI marketing automation works, let’s take a look at an imaginary sales scenario.

A sales professional can use traditional automation to streamline the process of lead capture by having a webchat collect the leads’ contact information and add it to the CRM.

When a sales professional adds AI to the mix, the scenario gets more interesting. AI can leverage machine learning to identify buyer behavior that indicates a heightened interest in making a purchase. 

For example, after analyzing an X number of previous customers, AI notices that those customers who visit a pricing page are far more likely to convert than those who only download content marketing resources, such as ebooks and how-to guides.

Based on this pattern, AI can automate lead scoring, classifying leads into cold and hot and nudging sales professionals to reach out to those who are just seconds away from signing a contract or handing over their cash.

AI vs. Traditional Automation

Effective marketing automation workflows are essential for maximizing the impact of your AI-driven strategies. 

Traditional marketing automation is like using an old-school road map. Remember those? One of the main characteristics is that it guides you along a pre-determined route. 

AI marketing automation, however, is more like a GPS—it not only follows a route but also reroutes you in real-time based on traffic, tolls, accidents, and road closures (or, in this case, data insights). This leap forward allows for deeper personalization, better targeting, and, ultimately, higher conversion rates.

How is AI Changing Digital Marketing?

Improved Personalization

Using machine learning, AI can identify similarities among hundreds of customers and segment a business’s audience based on these commonalities. 

One of the most well-known examples is Netflix’s recommendation system. It processes vast amounts of data about huge numbers of users. Based on factors such as the times of day when people use Netflix, devices, and languages, AI marketing automation gives users suggestions on what titles to watch next.

It’s undeniable that your marketing agency needs to leverage AI to gather better customer insights and deliver more personalized marketing to your customers. In fact, according to McKinsey’s report, personalization is a must because customers no longer wish for it. They simply expect it. 

Enhanced Efficiency

It goes without saying that traditional automation greatly elevates the workdays for marketing agencies. With automation, employees no longer need to manually send newsletters for each client or spend valuable time logging into multiple digital ad platforms, like Google Ads or Bing Ads, to adjust bids.

AI algorithms can take care of these processes far more quickly and efficiently because they account for a wider range of parameters that impact ad performance than a human could compute.

For example, Google’s Smart Bidding can optimize bids based on whether your prospect uses a mobile, desktop, or tablet device. You can’t deny that such efficient targeting supersedes human abilities!

AI algorithms are also highly effective at generating data markup for web pages, which is important to ensure search engines and voice assistants can easily grasp the content.

The practical benefit of using AI lies in the impressive ROI it delivers through AI marketing automation. Instead of hiring a team of data analysts, you can opt for an AI solution that can perform its job single-handedly and at a far lower cost.

Here’s how you calculate the marketing automation ROI: 

Real-Time Insights

Thanks to automation, data on the performance of various marketing campaigns can be aggregated into user-friendly dashboards from a wide range of digital marketing platforms, including Google Ads, LinkedIn, Facebook, and more.

AI provides instantaneous visibility into the performance of various marketing campaigns and gives recommendations for improvements. These aren’t limited to adjusting bids in a PPC campaign, for example. 

Here’s an example: Vendasta’s Business App is a white-label client portal that gives your customers recommendations about what additional marketing products or services to purchase to boost their online presence.  This information is tailored to your client using our advanced AI technology. And better yet? You can provide your clients with these solutions white-labeled under your brand through our Marketplace.

Remember the marketing joke: “Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted; the trouble is I don't know which half”? 

Well, thanks to AI marketing automation, you can reassure your clients that they are never going to be left in the dark about the fate of their marketing budget. You can guarantee them that your client reporting will be top-notch.

Emerging Trends

AI’s use in digital marketing is constantly evolving. According to Gartner, AI will fundamentally change the nature of marketing jobs. For example, it’s predicted that by 2025, 75% of employees’ tasks will shift from production to more strategic activities.

Other examples of AI innovations are AI-powered voice search that relies on natural language processing, the use of generative AI in search engines, and the proliferation of content marketing platforms that help with the following tasks:

• Content strategy development 
• Content creation
• Collaboration
• Calendarization
• Content performance measurement and optimization

These trends are poised to disrupt traditional marketing, including SEO. For example, AI-powered voice search demands optimizing content for long-tail keywords because these are more conversational. 

Key Components of AI Marketing Automation

Machine Learning Algorithms

At the heart of AI marketing automation is machine learning. These algorithms digest massive amounts of data and then learn from it, enabling more accurate predictions of trends in customer behavior. Based on these trends, AI can respond proactively with the right message at the right time.

Natural Language Processing (NLP)

NLP is what gives AI its conversational skills. This technology allows AI systems to understand and generate human language, making interactions with chatbots and voice assistants feel more natural. 

So what does this mean for you?

For agencies, this means being able to deliver more engaging, relevant content that vibes well with the audience, whether it's through personalized email copy or customer service chatbots.

Predictive Analytics

Predictive analytics takes the guesswork out of marketing. By analyzing historical data, AI can predict future trends and behaviors, allowing marketers to optimize their campaigns more accurately. 

While it certainly is no crystal ball, the fact it can process so much data so quickly cuts down on the time needed for your team to identify patterns, execute client reporting, and plan accordingly.

Whether it’s forecasting campaign performance or optimizing budget allocation, predictive analytics ensures that every dollar spent on marketing is used wisely.

Computer Vision

This is where AI’s ability to interpret visual content comes into play. Computer vision allows AI to analyze the context of images and videos to determine if they will resonate well with the target audience.

Imagine a system that can tell you whether your latest Instagram post will hit the mark or suggest tweaks for better engagement. It’s hard to fathom, but this is the future of visual content optimization.

Top AI Marketing Automation Applications for Agencies

1. Personalized Content Creation

AI marketing automation for small businesses offers scalable solutions that fit your client’s unique needs. Here are some ways you can leverage AI to better serve your clients:

• AI-powered content generators can create tailored content at scale, allowing you to produce blog posts, social media updates, and email campaigns that speak directly to individual customer segments.
• Dynamic email content adjusts in real-time based on pre-set conditions, greatly increasing both your marketing team’s efficiency and the emails’ click-through rates.
• Personalized website experiences are no longer a luxury for the few. AI can tailor everything from product recommendations to landing page content, improving user satisfaction and driving conversions.

Pro Tip: Vendasta’s social marketing platform leverages open-source information about your clients’ businesses to generate social posts that stay on brand with your customers regardless of their industry.  

2. Intelligent Customer Segmentation

Behavioral segmentation uses AI to group customers based on their actions, allowing for more precise targeting. It’s a lot like being able to send different messages to customers based on how they interact with your brand rather than relying on broad demographics.

Predictive segmentation takes it a step further by anticipating future customer behavior, enabling agencies to be proactive rather than reactive. For example, AI can segment customers based on how likely they are to churn, giving marketers an incentive to improve their customer engagement campaigns. 

3. Automated Lead Scoring and Nurturing

AI-driven lead qualification ensures that only the most promising leads are passed to sales teams. This helps sales reps ensure they don’t waste time on poor-quality leads.

Personalized email nurture sequences keep prospects engaged with relevant content and sales promotions until they’re ready to make a purchase, ensuring that no lead is left cold.

4. Chatbots and Conversational AI

24/7 customer support through AI-powered chatbots ensures that your clients handle their customer inquiries quickly, improving customer satisfaction and reducing churn.

Lead qualification chatbots can engage visitors, ask qualifying questions, and direct hot leads to sales teams. This ensures that no opportunity slips through the cracks.

Pro Tip: Vendasta’s AI-assisted web chats are fully integrated with Vendasta’s sales CRM. They not only provide excellent customer service by answering FAQs any time of day and night, but they also capture leads and update the CRM with their contact information, simultaneously scoring them either as qualified or in need of nurturing.  

5. Predictive Analytics for Campaign Optimization

Performance forecasting allows marketers to anticipate the outcomes of campaigns and adjust strategies accordingly. Why wait for a campaign to underperform when you can predict and prevent it?

Budget allocation optimization ensures that marketing spending is directed towards the most effective channels and tactics, maximizing ROI.

6. AI-Powered Social Media Management

Content scheduling and optimization is where AI analyzes audience data to determine the best times to post and which types of content will resonate most, ensuring that every post reaches its full potential.

Sentiment analysis tools can monitor social media across digital marketing channels to gauge public sentiment, allowing agencies to adjust strategies quickly based on how audiences are reacting. 

7. Smart Advertising

Automated bid management ensures that your ads are seen by the right people at the right time, optimizing spend and increasing ad performance.

Dynamic ad creation and targeting allow AI to craft personalized ads and deliver them to the most relevant audiences, driving better results than traditional manual methods.

How to Implement AI Marketing Automation in Your Agency

Before jumping into AI marketing automation, take a step back and assess your current capabilities.

Start by evaluating your existing tech stack to identify gaps and opportunities where AI could make the most impact. Remember, it's not just about adding AI tools—it's about ensuring they integrate well with the systems you already pay good money for.

After you choose AI solutions, you should follow marketing automation best practices to make sure your agency avoids common pitfalls. Some best practices are:

• Training your team on how to balance automation with human creativity.
• Educating your clients on the benefits and best practices of AI-driven automation.
• Prioritizing data privacy and security.

Tip: In a recent installment of our YouTube series, Vishal shares his advice on how agency owners can make the most of their marketing automation integration. He also goes over important soft skills every agency owner needs over the next 10 years. Check it out:

How to Measure the Impact of AI Marketing Automation

To ensure your AI marketing automation efforts are hitting the mark, you should track KPIs such as conversion rates, customer engagement, and ROI. But don’t stop there—look at case studies and testimonials to see how others have successfully integrated AI into their marketing strategies.

Let’s take a more in-depth look at the important KPIs that help gauge the effectiveness of AI marketing automation.

Cost Per Lead (CPL)

Definition: This is the cost of generating every new lead, which is important in lead generation strategies for agencies.

How to measure:   Why measure: Since the whole point of implementing marketing automation is to enhance your agency’s profitability, it’s helpful to keep tabs on your AI-related spending. If you notice that the costs of generating leads are rising, it’s worth reevaluating some parts of your AI strategy.

Lead Conversion Rates

Definition: This is one of the top sales metrics, measuring the percentage of leads that turn into customers.

How to measure:  Why measure: If you automate lead generation and nurturing processes, tracking this metric helps evaluate whether your automation helps you acquire more customers. Coupled with the previous CPL metric, this metric can shed more light on the effectiveness of your AI strategy.

Customer Lifetime Value (CLV)

Definition: This is the metric that assesses the revenue that your agency gets from each of your clients as you grow existing customers.

How to measure:  Why measure: Acquiring lots of new customers at low costs might sound like a dream come true, but it only matters if your new customers stick around long enough for you to grow your portfolio of positive reviews and customer testimonials. If your customer churn rate is high, it might be worth reconsidering your lead generation. Is your target audience right? Does your marketing content align with the pain points of your ideal customer profile (ICP)? 

Email Engagement Metrics

Email automation is one of the easiest to implement, so if you’re looking for beginner-friendly ways to leverage AI at your agency, adopting email marketing automation software is a great first step.

Once you adopt email automation, how do you know it works? Email engagement metrics can help you understand whether your email campaigns get the desired results. 

Click rate and click-through rate are two of the most important lead generation KPIs in email marketing. Click rates show how many recipients open your marketing emails, while click-through rates show how many people who see attachments or advertisements in your emails click on them.  Why measure: If your automated email marketing falls flat with your leads and prospects, you should consider conducting A/B testing for email subject lines, CTAs, and email body content to ensure your email advertising resonates with your target audience.

Ethical Considerations and Best Practices

With great power comes great responsibility. AI marketing automation, while powerful, comes with ethical considerations that you should not turn a blind eye to. 

Copyright

First, it’s worthwhile to understand how copyright laws impact AI-generated marketing content. According to the U.S. Copyright Office, the biggest concerns with the unfair use of AI are:

• Deceptive advertising.
• Exploitation of a human creator’s reputation.
• Diminishing the value of a human creator’s artistic work.
• Copyright infringement.

Here are some best practices to make sure your AI usage is ethical:

• Make sure you always fact-check AI-generated marketing content and include links to studies from where you source any stats or other interesting facts.
• If you leverage AI for image generation, it’s important you don’t instruct the AI to produce images in the style of living human artists. 
• When using AI to record voice-overs for videos, avoid instructing the AI to imitate the voices of celebrities without consent.
• If your agency operates in Europe, according to the EU AI Act, you need to add disclosures whenever AI generates your content. 

Data Privacy and Security

We all know that training AI models requires the use of data. Your customers have the right to know whether your agency uses any of their private data to leverage AI for marketing and advertising. 

Here are a couple of legal resources that you should keep in mind:

• EU AI Act
• California’s AI bill
• Data Privacy Impact Assessment in the U.S.

Future Trends in AI Marketing Automation

The future of AI marketing automation is bright, with emerging technologies such as voice search optimization and augmented reality set to redefine how marketers operate. Agencies that stay ahead of these trends will not only lead the market but set the standard for the industry. 

Here are some things IBM foresees in the coming years regarding AI technology:

• More realistic expectations: AI makes mistakes.
• Multimodal AI.
• Smaller language models and open-source advancements.
• Potential GPU shortages and increased cloud costs.
• Model optimization is getting more accessible.
• Customized local models and data pipelines.
• More powerful virtual agents.
• Increased regulation, copyright, and ethical AI concerns.
• Shadow AI: the “unofficial” personal use of AI by employees in the workplace.

Stay informed by keeping up with the latest marketing automation trends to ensure your agency remains competitive in this ever-evolving digital world.

Pro Tip: Avoiding common marketing workflow automation mistakes can save your agency valuable time and resources, allowing you to focus on delivering the best results for your clients.

The Best AI Marketing Tools

Here is a list of top AI marketing software that your agency can add to its tech stack.

1. Vendasta

This is one of the best AI solutions for marketing agencies because you can easily brand Vendasta’s white-label AI-powered platform as your own without having to spend a single penny on developing your own tools. This includes AI email marketing automation tools, social marketing software, reputation management, and more.  The Vendasta platform has everything your startup agency needs to ensure superior client management.

Vendasta’s AI-powered CRM helps your sales team automate the processes of lead capture, scoring, and nurturing. Vendasta’s AI web chats are a 24/7 powerhouse for capturing leads. Vendasta’s automated Snapshot report is a great way to convert leads by showing them what areas of their online presence need fixing. 

Vendasta’s platform also has a wide range of workflow automations that simplify manual processes from billing to automating marketing email campaigns and transferring lead data into the CRM. 

Additionally, you can resell Vendasta’s white-label AI-enabled marketing services. For example, white-label AI-driven reputation management software makes it easy to do the following tasks: 

• Make sure your clients’ NAP data is consistent across the web.
• Request customer feedback and respond to customer reviews.
• Analyze customer sentiment.

Not only does Vendasta empower your agency to grow your client base and fulfill their marketing needs effectively, but it also streamlines client reporting to make sure your clients are well informed about their digital presence.  Vendasta’s Advertising Intelligence pulls data from various digital marketing platforms into a single place, giving a bird’s eye view of how different marketing campaigns are faring without the need for your employees to log into countless accounts.

2. Sprout Social

If you are only interested in automating your social media management, Sprout Social is an all-in-one social media management platform worth your consideration.    The bulk of its functionality is similar to Vendasta’s. It also leverages AI to speed up the process of content generation. Sprout Social’s AI generates posts and images that human employees can preview and edit before publishing. The AI also classifies followers’ comments into various types and generates responses based on the identified sentiments. 

Similarly to Vendasta’s social media management platform, Sprout Social allows marketers to schedule social posts on major platforms: Instagram, X (formerly known as Twitter), Facebook, LinkedIn, and TikTok. Sprout Social also analyzes posts in terms of engagement metrics to identify the best times for posting.

Sprout Social uses AI to analyze the performance of social media posts and give marketers and their customers insights into the effectiveness of their strategy. AI examines billions of data points to uncover social media trends worth capitalizing on. 

3. Zapier

If your marketing agency uses a mix of various marketing tools rather than a single marketing platform, you’re well aware of the headaches related to integrating various apps and data sets with one another. Zapier is a tool designed to solve this problem.   With this solution, your agency can build a range of workflow automation. One example is automating the process of nurturing a lead by capturing them on LinkedIn.

Let’s say someone fills out a form in your agency’s LinkedIn ad. With Zapier, you can automate the process of adding their contact information to your agency’s CRM and then design a workflow where, based on predefined criteria, either your team gets a Slack notification to make a sales call or a nurturing email goes out.

Similarly to Vendasta, Zapier leverages AI to streamline the process of creating marketing materials. For example, it lets you use ChatGPT automation to craft personalized emails for your prospects. As a cherry on top, Zapier’s integration with OpenAI enables you to build customizable chatbots to streamline lead capture.

4. ChatGPT

ChatGPT is, perhaps, the most popular generative AI marketing tool. Rather than attempting to list all the marketing tasks it can perform (the list would be endless), it’s worthwhile to discuss the advantages of opting for an Enterprise plan.  If your employees need to generate marketing content for dozens of customers, having unlimited conversations using GPT-4 can be a time savior. The enterprise plan can also facilitate teamwork and the flow of information among your employees with the help of shareable chat templates. 

Remember those privacy and security concerns we discussed above? The good news is that ChatGPT’s Enterprise plan comes with enhanced security and privacy features. For example, your chats are not used by OpenAI for training purposes, protecting any proprietary data about your customers you might need to give to the GPT to generate personalized content. 

5. HubSpot

HubSpot is a well-known marketing platform that brings various aspects of running a business—sales, marketing, customer service, operations, content creation, and commerce—under one roof.  HubSpot uses AI to automate lead-generation efforts, gain visibility into the effectiveness of marketing campaigns, and streamline billing processes. One of HubSpot’s AI’s capabilities is that it can perform predictive lead scoring, gauging a prospect’s likelihood of converting. 

HubSpot’s lead scoring categorizes leads into those whose likelihood to convert is Very High, High, Medium, and Low within 90 days. However, as a marketing agency working with SMBs, you might not require such an extensive lead-scoring process, especially if your sales cycle is typically shorter than 90 days. 

HubSpot’s lead scoring relies on black-box machine learning, meaning the exact way the AI evaluates lead data—such as the number of page views—to determine the likelihood of conversion is not explicitly disclosed. 

6. Marketo Engage

Similarly to HubSpot, Marketo Engage is a comprehensive marketing platform that positions itself as a solution poised to streamline alignment between sales and marketing teams.  The tool helps automate lead capturing and enrichment of captured profiles, orchestrate omnichannel marketing campaigns, and identify best-performing marketing and sales engagement content. 

Marketo Engage emphasizes its seamless integration capabilities and ability to support teams of all sizes. The platform also provides multi-touch marketing attribution, helping understand what marketing campaigns have the most impact on driving revenue growth.

7. Salesforce Marketing Cloud

Salesforce Marketing Cloud is a valuable addition to Salesforce’s CRM because it leverages AI to deliver personalized experiences at scale and facilitate every step of the customer journey. Machine learning also analyzes marketing data from across channels and devices to deliver deep insights into the performance of marketing campaigns and facilitate data-based decisions.  According to Salesforce research, 72% of their clients value Marketing Cloud for giving them the ability to analyze marketing performance in real-time. Also, Marketing Cloud’s clients rank the solution as a top one in terms of ease and efficiency of implementation and utilization.

Einstein 1 Platform is an innovative platform-as-a-service solution that empowers marketers to create apps that they are free to manage with no coding skills required. Salesforce’s Einstein AI is grounded into this platform, and it serves a wide range of marketing functions:

• Personalized marketing content generation.
• Speedy customer service thanks to the immediate surfacing of relevant information to answer FAQs.
• Predictive AI to identify top prospects and leads.
• Actionable insights to optimize marketing campaigns, offers, and target audiences.

8. Drift

If you are looking for an AI-powered solution to elevate customers’ experience on your website, Drift is a great option. It leverages AI-powered chatbots to engage website visitors in real-time, qualify leads, and schedule meetings.  Drift’s AI analyzes buyer engagement signals to identify those website visitors ready to meet with sales reps. This not only streamlines the lead qualification process but also ensures your sales team focuses on high-priority prospects.

Additionally, Drift offers integrations with CRM and marketing platforms, allowing seamless data sharing and automation. 

9. Jasper (formerly Jarvis)

If you are looking for a standalone tool to boost your content generation, you may opt for Jasper AI. It enables your team to generate high-quality content in a fraction of the time it would take to draft manually. This content includes blog posts, social media captions, email campaigns, and ad copy.  Jasper AI helps ensure brand consistency by allowing you to customize the tone and style for each client. Simply input your client’s brand guidelines, and Jasper will adapt its suggestions accordingly.

Jasper AI leverages advanced natural language processing and machine learning to generate content optimized for engagement and readability. It also uses AI to personalize images and make sure all marketing content is appealing to the eyes.

10. Grammarly

No matter how engaging your marketing copy is, a grammar mistake can turn potential buyers away. Grammarly Pro automates proofreading and editing, offering real-time suggestions for grammar, punctuation, style, and even tone.  Also, Grammarly’s customizable style guides make it easy to standardize voice and tone for each client, ensuring their content always aligns with their brand identity. Grammarly Pro also includes a robust plagiarism detection tool that scans billions of web pages and academic databases to ensure the uniqueness of your content.

Unlock Success with AI Marketing Automation AI

Marketing automation is transforming the way digital marketing agencies operate, offering unprecedented opportunities for personalization, efficiency, and data-driven decision-making. By embracing this technology now, you can ensure you will deliver superior marketing results for your clients. 

If there is one thing we hope you take away from this blog, it’s to not sit around and wait—start integrating AI marketing automation into your strategy right now to unlock its full potential for your agency tomorrow. 

If a DIY approach to assembling a tech stack of AI marketing tools doesn’t appeal to you, you should opt for Vendasta’s all-in-one white-label marketing platform. Request a demo today!

This article was originally published in August 2024 and was updated in December 2024 to include the latest information and insights.