At our agency, we see firsthand how AI is transforming the marketing industry – though not always in the ways many had anticipated. Yes, AI is showing up in chatbots, customer interaction, and content creation and optimisation, among many other areas. And while this brings undeniable efficiencies, it’s important to challenge a common misconception: that these efficiencies somehow equate to lesser value for clients. In fact, it’s the opposite. Because alongside automating outputs, AI is driving a reimagining of strategy itself – and that’s where real value is delivered for clients.
According to the Harvard Business Review, ‘of all a company’s functions, marketing has perhaps the most to gain from artificial intelligence.’ Another recent survey backs this up, showing that 87% of marketers have used AI at some point, while almost 68% use it in their daily tasks. Those numbers will continue to grow exponentially. So in this article we will look at how it’s being used, going beyond the surface-level efficiencies and examining how it can be leveraged to improve strategy.
Better strategy through prediction
AI-powered models can now forecast customer behaviours, enabling marketing agencies to anticipate needs and tailor campaigns before customers’ even express interest.
This essentially revolutionises marketing forecasting because anticipating trends or identifying opportunities enhances the overall effectiveness of your campaigns. AI can identify customer behaviour patterns, predict which products will perform well, and then optimise pricing strategies accordingly. In turn, these insights can help marketers refine their strategies to break into new markets based on consumer demand.
Prediction has long been a part of marketing, but AI enables something far more accurate, based on much larger data sets. When strategising for any one client, marketing agency partners have the ability to gain far greater insight into what is happening now and what is likely to happen.
Hyper-personalisation and sentiment analysis
Much like prediction, personalisation isn’t particularly new. But AI takes it to new levels. AI makes it possible to deliver highly-tailored experiences based not only on demographic or behavioural data but also on psychographic patterns – that is, consumers’ psychological and cognitive attributes.
This kind of sentiment analysis uses AI to evaluate customer opinions and emotions as expressed through social media, online reviews and customer feedback. Because AI can sift through huge amounts of data it can extract underlying attitudes. Once marketers properly understand an audience sentiment, they can adjust their messaging and respond proactively to customer concerns.
The personalisation that comes out of this process might take the form of a dynamic website that adapts in real time to each visitor, or it could be an email campaign that is able to alter both the tone, format and message – depending on the recipient’s past engagement behaviour. AI can also use the data to create much finer segmentation, but rather than being broken up by age or gender, the segments can be based on the emotion that is driving the consumer.
What this means ultimately is that AI is helping marketers deliver the right piece of content to the right person at the right time. This often repeated maxim has never been closer, thanks to the power of AI.
Enhancing creative strategy, not replacing it
The hope is that rather than replacing individuals AI will be something teams used to make processes more efficient. We are already seeing AI being used in the execution of marketing campaigns, but at the strategic ‘thinking’ stage it can also play a major role.
Imagine the creative team huddling to brainstorm at the start of a campaign. AI-based image generation tools can be used to quickly bring ideas to life through mood boards and visual concepts that teams can test and discuss. Rather than replacing the creative process, AI enhances it – streamlining early-stage thinking without compromising originality. It means that what might once have taken several days of back-and-forth can now happen in a much shorter time frame, bringing together all the creative flair, expertise and strategic thinking from the team – but just delivering it faster.
Creative teams can also leverage the fact that AI can spot certain things that humans miss. So, by analysing campaign performance from previous campaigns and blending that with other data, AI can suggest the types of storytelling that have a statistically higher chance of performing well. In the process, if AI flags a recurring theme with a demographic that resonates well, it helps the creative team move more quickly to focus on one specific theme with greater potential to gain higher engagement.
Measurement and reporting
Measurement is central to marketing both in terms of understanding what’s working and what needs to change, as well as communicating marketing ROI to stakeholders in other parts of the business.
AI tools are helping agencies go beyond basic metrics by integrating data that includes not only conversions but also business outcomes (such as churn reduction) and then link that back to the campaign. It’s helping create a more robust reporting loop, which, in turn, allows more agile decision-making and tighter alignment with business goals.
Most organisations have a remarkable amount of data, the question is whether they are using it effectively. Traditionally, it was quite common for the data to be so vast that it would be unused. Today, AI is able to sift through it and make sense of it – whether that’s surveys, or customer reviews or any other data.
A new agency model
So, where does this leave us? Everything points towards a complete reframing of what marketing agencies do and how they do it. To be clear, AI is not replacing strategists, creatives or consultants. But it is there to augment them. The smartest agencies use AI not to remove the human touch but to refine it. It can help inform strategy with more accurate insights, better analysis of past campaigns, and better prediction of what will work in the future.
Of course, it’s not the complete picture, and while using AI, it’s also essential to continue with more traditional research efforts. Blending the two will bring a best-of-both-worlds approach, ensuring that the AI has not misunderstood a prompt and, equally, your more traditional data gathering can be seen in the larger context that AI provides.
As we have seen, AI is taking marketing far beyond basic efficiencies. The most forward-thinking agencies will embed AI to the extent that it becomes integral in strategic thinking and ultimately delivers much greater client results.
