It seems that there are as many AI marketing tools as there are stars in the sky. Do you really have to use them? Probably. Do you need a dozen of these? Probably not.
Here’s a guide to help you cut through the chaos and confusion of AI marketing analytics tools and find the ones that truly meet your needs.
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How to use AI for marketing analysis
Marketers are using AI in a variety of ways: content creation, automation, efficiency and speed, and more. I talk to a lot of marketers and it’s rare that I find someone who does this is not Using AI for someThing.
Many marketers believe that AI analytics tools are a huge time saver. I spoke to at the beginning of the year Brent D PayneSEO and CEO of Loudly interactivewho told me about the proprietary AI tools he uses: “What used to take us a month to program – it took us three months to program – but now we’ve programmed it so that we can do it roughly three hours to do.”
In this guide, I’ve focused only on analytics tools, although there is often overlap with uses such as content creation and efficiency.
I’ve also included a few examples of AI-powered tools for each use case to give you a sense of the marketing analytics landscape (and how vast it is).
That doesn’t mean you need a different tool for every step of your marketing campaign – many of them (including, um, HubSpots) use AI to provide analytics for multiple use cases.
Let’s get into it.
1. Data analysis and insights
Data analysis is perhaps the most obvious use for AI marketing analytics. Here are some ways current tools can deliver more – and faster – insights:
Social media and community monitoring
As someone who has been known to fall down a research rabbit hole or two, I like to use a mix of community research and trusted resources. (Depending on what I’m researching, a “trusted resource” can be as simple as a company website.)
This is great for me as a consumer and not so great for me as a marketer. AI tools can shed light on the dark funnelwhere your potential customers may be researching via social media, Reddit, or other places not normally found.
Customer feedback and sentiment analysis
At JPMorgan Outlook for business leaders 2024Almost half of the companies surveyed said they use AI tools such as ChatGPT, virtual assistants and chatbots. And these tools are largely met with open (human) arms.
A 2024 study on European consumers demonstrated an overwhelming willingness to use AI chatbots for customer service. (Spanish consumers were the most willing to talk to a bot at 82%; English consumers were the least willing to engage at 66%.)
HubSpot’s chatbot uses AI to help generate leads.
Although ostensibly customer service and/or lead generation bots, these AI chatbots are also capable of collecting massive amounts of data that the marketer of yore could only dream of – sentiment analysis (consumer flight in all caps? Definitely not a happy camper). ), demographic information, and even identifying a faulty product or customer service glitch before it snowballs.
2. Brand perception
HubSpot released a free tool in 2024 called AI search grader. They tell you a little about your brand; It shows you how your brand is perceived by AI search engines.
It uses sentiment analysis to determine how AI search engines perceive your brand. This information can be particularly useful for marketers and SEOs navigating emerging AI trends in the search landscape.
I’ve used it for a few brands I know and found the recommendations and analysis to be pretty spot on.
Examples: HubSpots AI search graderNaturally; AgoraPulse
3. AI personalization
Marketers know that personalization is a key strategy for building consumer trust and brand loyalty. Smart Marketers know that “personalization” goes much deeper than just using a customer’s first name.
Predictive personalization can make your customers feel like your brand receives them. It can make product recommendations based on shopping history and previous purchases, identify emerging trends in customer behavior, and even predict outcomes for marketing campaigns to enable more informed decision making.
Examples: Optimized, Albert.ai
Customer segmentation and targeting
If you use an email marketing platform, you’ve probably already seen AI at work when adding a subject line to your email – in most cases, there’s an opportunity to generate a subject line using AI.
I’ve used a few platforms that use AI to play with tone and generate and regenerate lyrics that are funny, formal, or somewhere in between.
Example: Twilio’s segment
Personalized ads
AI can automate the creation of personalized ad variations, enabling extensive testing of different creatives to determine which ones perform best with specific audience segments.
Examples: Smartly.io, Google Ads
4. Email marketing automation
Most email marketing platforms today use AI to some degree, including HubSpot.
If you’re skeptical, consider this: In our State of AI in Marketing 2024 report, 75% of the over a thousand marketers we surveyed say using AI for automation helps them reduce the time spent on manual tasks and gives them more time for the critical or creative aspects of their work.
You know, the fun stuff.
More examples: ActiveCampaign, litmus
Real-time updates
AI analytics tools can process and process data continuously in real-time, allowing you as a marketer to adjust and refine your strategies.
AI tools can update sales workflows in real-time, allowing marketers to adjust their email strategies based on current data and customer interactions to increase engagement.
Advanced A/B testing
“A/B test, but do it more“Sounds more like a meme than a marketing tool.
But in one Marketing against the grain In the podcast episode, Kipp Bodnar, CMO of HubSpot, says that AI is poised to take marketers from “A/B testing to A/Z testing because AI can create many different creative versions.”
I had to know: I used Leonardo.ai to see what it would do with A/B testing and that “Do it more” memes.
Below you’ll even find a tool that allows you to perform A/B and multivariate testing on videos, using AI to replicate a video you created so you can test its performance. For text-based content, this can be useful for testing elements like email subject lines.
5. Map customer journeys
Mapping a customer journey manually is a great way to understand the concept – and a good starting point if you’re new to marketing – but it’s not the most efficient way to create a map at scale.
Predictive analytics
A customer journey or buyer’s journey describes the processes your customer (or buyer) goes through when interacting with your brand.
As AI collects data about your current customers as they move through the funnel, it can predict likely next steps, anticipate obstacles, and identify opportunities for personalization.
Real-time travel optimization
Like real-time updates in email platforms, AI can continuously monitor and analyze the customer journey.
This could mean tailoring the trip based on the customer’s preferences or identifying the best times to trigger personalized content or offers.
Examples: Glass box, Milk menu
Marketing analytics tools
- Breeze by HubSpot
- 1Spirit
- 6sense
- Common room
- Humantic.ai and TryScout.ai
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There are dozens (and dozens) of AI marketing tools out there. Here are a few that HubSpot AI pros are talking about:
1. Breeze by HubSpot
breezeHubSpot’s AI has three tools to support it: Breeze Copilot, Breeze Agents and Breeze Intelligence.
Breeze Copilot (formerly known as ChatSpot) works with AI and your CRM data to help you get work done faster without sacrificing quality.
Breeze Agents can help teams automate their work and provide tactical knowledge, and Breeze Intelligence can identify your target market, assess website visitor intent, and enrich contact and company data within HubSpot.
In particular, Breeze Intelligence, which consists of over 200 million buyer and business profiles, has deep analytical capabilities. It can help you improve form conversion rates, identify buyer intent from businesses visiting your website, and keep your database current with regular updates.
Breeze social media agent is an example of how analytics can save you time and brain power: leveraging your past performance, business details, and industry best practices to make your social media content more effective.
Bonus: 95% of our customers say our AI is easy to use.
2. 1Spirit
If you’ve ever started a new customer-facing job, you’ve probably had interactions where you realized you hadn’t accumulated enough institutional knowledge to answer questions and resolve problems easily.
1Mind is designed to solve this problem with an omniscient (at least about your product or service) AI avatar that can provide customers with a human-like chat experience.
Watch HubSpot Marketing SVP Kieran Flanagan speak to One Mind creator Amanda Kahlow’s AI avatar:
3. 6sense
HubSpot contributor Brian Grover writes about 6sense: “I have found that when only a small portion of the total addressable market is buying at any given time, insight into who is actually searching can transform marketing from guesswork into a predictable pipeline. “
Grover says the latest version of 6Sense “features AI that sifts through the massive amount of intent data to uncover actionable insights” – allowing your team to focus on the highest value tasks and activities.
Pro tip: Grover says that 6Sense “can help match buying signals to accounts across devices and channels.”
4. Common room
One of the first things I do when researching a product or service I might want is see what everyone else is saying.
This could be as simple as looking at Yelp reviews for a new restaurant, but I’ve also used X and Threads to ask my colleagues for recommendations.
HubSpot has approximately one (1) Zillions Slack channels, and I’ve used it to get movie recommendations and even find a roofer.
As most consumers do their research these days, one of Common Room’s services is one AI-powered playbook that can identify Ideal Customer Profiles (ICP) in your community.
If you have a Slack community or use a support forum like Discourse, you can create an ICP in the Common Room to help you “identify ideal customers in your community” and notify your team when “an ICP is in the Dark Funnel is active”. That is, the untraceable places where consumers talk about your service or product, such as text messages, word of mouth, or third-party review sites.
Pro tip: Common Room integrates with HubSpot. So if you are already a HubSpot user, check this out Common Room’s HubSpot integration guide.
5. Humantic.ai and 6. TryScout.ai
In one Marketing against the grain Podcast episodeFlanagan describes TryScout.ai as a tool “that allows you to take data and create campaigns around that data that are very personalized.”
Humantic.ai is “very similar,” according to Flanagan, and helps marketers figure out their ideal customer profile.
These platforms focus on extracting information from buyer data and creating personalized campaigns or messages.
Pro tip: TryScout.ai works with LinkedIn to attract leads and fills in the gaps the Briefcase app leaves open, like emails and phone numbers.
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Kipp Bodnar, CMO of HubSpot, describes Icon as “basically (take) one video – they even match you with a creator – and then… you create 20, 50, however many versions of that video.” And then we test them all together to find out what’s best cuts off.”
HubSpot Marketing SVP Kieran Flanagan and Bodnar’s co-host on the Marketing against the grain Podcast notes that creator ads tend to perform better than almost anything else “because they convey an authentic voice.”
Once a creator creates one video, Icon can turn them into 20 and perform detailed A/B testing on hooks, stories, and calls to action.
Pro tip: Flanagan says if you’re in an environment with a lot of creators and advertising is central to acquiring new demand, you’re well-positioned to use a tool like Icon. He suggests experimenting with attaching icons to your paid advertising and seeing how well those ads perform.
Save time with AI
Many people I speak with remain skeptical about AI, especially as it is used in content creation and other creative tasks.
But when I talk to people who actually use AI every day, there is a common thread: AI can’t replace the human brain, but it can make many everyday tasks much faster.
Any of the tools above can help you dive into the AI waters – giving you some time back to do the creative and strategic tasks you’re great at.