Think of all the different types of digital marketing campaigns you can run and the systems and processes involved in each. For nearly each of those processes, there is a relevant AI marketing tool —but how do you determine when it’s best to use AI or not?
The trick is finding a tool with the right technology for the right application. Here are some tried-and-true options for integrating AI into your marketing efforts wherever it makes sense for your business’s unique needs.
What are AI marketing tools?
AI marketing tools are software applications that use artificial intelligence (AI) to promote goods and services. This umbrella term covers a wide range of technology and marketing tasks, from content creation to customer segmentation.
AI marketing tool use case examples
There are a lot of tasks that AI marketing tools can automate partially or entirely for your business.
Use cases for AI marketing tools include:
- Copy ideation and drafting
- Product image editing
- Content marketing keyword optimization
- Live chat for customer service
- Content scheduling
- Project management workflows
Are AI marketing tools actually useful?
According to a report from Salesforce, leveraging AI is marketers’ number-one priority in 2024. But just because a marketing tool advertises its AI capabilities, that doesn’t mean it’s better than what you already have.
“AI sometimes can be that solution in search of a problem,” Neil Hoyne, chief strategist for data and measurement at Google, says on Shopify Masters. “You shouldn’t look at [AI] as something that you have to immediately integrate into your business or worry about being left behind,” Neil says.
Instead of overhauling your martech stack, Neil suggests asking yourself: “Where can [AI] start to fill in and add immediate value in the processes and things we’re doing day to day?”
By slowly testing AI software’s potential to improve your current marketing strategy, you can ensure your AI tools support your business—not the other way around.
3 types of AI
Understanding AI’s capabilities can help you make an informed choice about which tools will be most helpful for your business. Some common types of AI technology used in marketing include:
1. Generative AI
Generative AI uses machine learning to create brand-new content such as text, images, videos, or computer code. For example, Shopify’s free business name generator uses generative AI to come up with a business name based on your industry and brand personality.
Unlike predictive or discriminative AI models, which analyze data to make predictions and suggestions, generative models absorb large amounts of content in order to actually create new content based on your prompts. According to a 2024 survey of ecommerce marketers, 56% used generative AI tools at work—more than any other type of AI.
Despite fears that generative AI would make certain marketing roles obsolete, generally marketers have been able to collaborate with AI instead. They’re making use of generative AI marketing tools in ways that streamline and optimize marketing workflows, not replace them entirely. When done strategically, this collaboration gets the benefits of AI automations and insights in conjunction with the benefits of human expertise and quality assurance.
For example, Shopify offers generative AI tools as part of Shopify Magic. Shopify merchants can use Shopify Magic tools to get variants on copy suggestions for their product descriptions, email campaigns, and FAQ pages. Those AI-generated suggestions can inspire and unblock sellers, freeing up their time and energy to polish the copy—not get stuck starting from a blank page.
Other forms of artificial intelligence have been in development for decades, but currently OpenAI’s ChatGPT is the best-known example of genAI, and what people think of when they hear “AI.”
2. Predictive AI
Predictive AI analyzes large amounts of historical structured data for patterns, which it then uses to make predictions about future outcomes. That same 2024 survey shows that 53% percent of ecommerce marketers use predictive AI at work in applications such as marketing personalization.
A major advantage of predictive AI is that it allows marketers to make data-driven decisions in the same amount of time it would take to make a gut decision, since computer models can recognize patterns in customer data much faster than our human brains can. Predictive AI is a lot less buzzy than generative AI, so it’s possible you’ve already been using predictive-AI-powered software for a while.
3. Natural language processing
Natural language processing (NLP) uses machine learning to better understand the nuances of human language. (Machine learning describes the type of training AI undergoes to “learn” human behavior; in the case of NLP, training involves large language models, or LLM.)
NLP was a big deal when Google announced its language model BERT in 2018. BERT-based algorithms allowed Google Search to understand subtle differences in search queries by looking at not just the words within the query but their relationship to each other.
Here’s an example of what Google Search looked like before and after BERT:
Once engineers figured out how to train AI to understand human language, it wasn’t long before they were able to train it to create human-sounding text. NLP technology like BERT paved the way for genAI tools such as Gemini and ChatGPT.
AI tools for search engine optimization
Every marketer knows the importance of search engine optimization (SEO). It doesn’t matter how great your product page or blog is—if it’s not search-engine-friendly, few people will see it.
There are a range of AI SEO tools that promise to speed up some of the more time-consuming tasks of optimizing your website, but do they really work?
Here are a few of the best ways to use AI for SEO:
SERP analysis tools
If you want your product page or blog post to show up at the top of the search engine results page (SERP) for a particular keyword, you need to conduct SERP analysis. This basically involves looking at the current search engine results page to understand search intent and get a sense of what’s already out there. That might not be too big of a lift if you only need to look at the SERP for one keyword, but SERP analysis can get pretty time-consuming when you’re comparing hundreds of keywords. This is when AI can come in handy.
Examples of SERP analysis tools
- Surfer’s SERP Analyzer tool uses NLP to conduct sentiment analysis—predicting whether the top-ranking articles take a positive or negative view of a particular keyword.
- The Keywords Explorer tool from Ahrefs uses AI to match the top-ranking keywords with their specific search intent, like “finding the best microwave models.”
Technical SEO tools
If you’re not a coder, but you want to improve your on-page SEO, NLP and GenAI can help with that. Here’s an example of how Ryan Law, director of content marketing at Ahrefs, uses ChatGPT to generate hreflang tags for international SEO:
You can also use GenAI to create product schema, which is code that lets search engines display rich results like your product image, rating, and price.
SEO content creation tools
Today’s SEO tools don’t just use AI to help you optimize your copy—popular software like Surfer and ContentShake allow you to write and optimize entire articles using GenAI.
When it comes to AI content creation, a common concern is that while GenAI content can look and sound more human than previous iterations of AI, the language can be a bit stiff and the content can be generic. Because of that, SEO specialists generally advise against using AI-generated content wholesale on your blog, because it may not be unique or ownable to your brand. However much or little you incorporate GenAI into your content creation, always make sure a human proofreads and edits the AI-generated content to meet brand and quality standards.
Here’s one example from Surfer of how AI can help you generate ideas for content outlines:
“Most of the tools I’ve used so far can help with generating basic text, email subject lines, fun images, or simple blog posts,” marketing consultant Nik Sharma shares in his DTC branding newsletter. “I still think a lot (if not all of it) needs to be reviewed and edited by a human because it still sounds a bit too robotic and it’s never truly on brand.”
(In case you’re wondering, the article you’re reading not only looks like it was written by a human—it actually was written by a human.)
AI tools for social media marketing
Timing is everything when it comes to social media marketing. That’s where AI can help—unlike human social media managers, AI tools don’t need to sleep.
Social media management tools
Social media management (SMM) software allows you to control all of your social media accounts from a single interface, so you can schedule posts and measure performance without switching between apps.
SMMs typically offer a range of tools for different situations. For example, Sprout Social uses machine learning to determine the best time to post based on your audience’s engagement. Its AI Assist feature uses GenAI to draft alt text for posting on X.
Social listening tools
It’s 10 p.m. Do you know where your customers are?
AI-powered social listening tools allow you to keep track of what your target audience is posting on social media 24/7 so you never miss a trend (even while your social media manager is asleep). Talkwalker, acquired by SMM Hootsuite in April 2024, is one such tool.
Talkwalker’s Blue Silk GPT extracts text from social media posts (including images and audio) and packages it into AI-generated summaries and conversation clusters.
AI image generation tools
AI image generators can yield some pretty wacky results (see: this bodybuilder croissant), but they can also be a great solution for moments when you want to quickly respond to something topical, like Chili’s did with this post on X:
According to a 2024 Klaviyo survey, 36% of ecommerce marketers use AI for image generation. (Slightly less—30%—use AI writing tools for copy generation.)
“They are amazing for creating fantasy-style graphics,” marketing consultant Nik Sharma shares in his newsletter. That said, they’re not necessarily up to par with experienced human designers. “My team of designers who have been making ads and sites for years and actually understand which creative formats convert (and also understand the context of what’s been tried before and what style the client prefers) can still make assets faster and better with less errors than AI tools today.”
DALL-E, the image generator from OpenAI (which also makes ChatGPT) is one of the more popular AI generators, used by both Microsoft Copilot and Canva. Adobe Firefly, Midjourney, and Stable Diffusion all use proprietary text-to-image models.
Shopify also offers an AI image generator, but with a focus on improving the product photography process for sellers. This generative AI tool by Shopify Magic makes it easy to remove, replace, or match the backgrounds of your product photos for more professional, consistent branding. Especially for sellers who are still working on their photography skills, this tool is a big time saver and quality booster for online shops.
AI tools for direct marketing
Direct marketing can be a powerful relationship-building tool. Instead of relying on third parties like social media platforms and search engines, you can communicate directly with customers via email and text.
Direct marketing has long benefitted from automation—the ability to send emails and SMS without human intervention when triggered by certain conditions—but AI has the potential to go beyond simple automations. Think of it as A/B testing on steroids.
For example, skin-care brand Tata Harper used Klaviyo AI to optimize when and how it displayed a pop-up email and SMS sign-up form on its site. Instead of manually A/B testing two form variations at a time (one experiment and one control), the Tata Harper team was able to simultaneously test 20 AI-generated variations on the form, according to a 2024 case study.
AI marketing tools FAQ
What is the best AI tool for digital marketing?
The best AI tool depends on your specific business needs. Some popular AI marketing tools include Chat GPT, Surfer SEO, and Klaviyo AI.
What is the best use of AI in marketing?
One of the most powerful uses of AI in marketing is personalization—creating customized experiences designed to engage members of your target audience. AI software can analyze large data sets to glean valuable insights for personalized campaigns, content strategy, and digital experiences based on individual user preferences and customer behavior to boost your engagement and conversions.
How can AI be used in social media marketing?
AI tools can help generate marketing content for social platforms, publish posts at specific times, and analyze data for ad targeting and to examine campaign performance. Chatbots can engage users on Facebook Messenger and other platforms, and they can leverage customer data to nurture relationships and improve customer retention.
Does Shopify offer AI marketing tools?
Yes! Shopify Magic is a suite of AI-powered tools available to most Shopify merchants—check your subscription plan for details. With Shopify Magic tools, you can use AI to edit product photography, get suggestions for your shop’s FAQ page, write product descriptions more quickly, and more.
