Businesses that use artificial intelligence (AI) in marketing are 2.6x more likely to see revenue increase, according to McKinsey. But many marketing teams are still stuck with manual processes, disconnected tools, and scattered data. These challenges make marketing feel less like a strategic powerhouse and more like a game of catch-up.
AI-powered marketing tools change everything. They automate repetitive tasks, uncover actionable insights, and help your team focus on data-driven marketing strategies. But adopting AI isn’t merely implementing another trending MarTech app—it’s about assessing your current approach, aligning your team, and using tools that truly make a difference.
Here’s a six-step process you can use to integrate AI into your existing marketing workflow.
1. Assess your current marketing approach to AI
Before making AI-driven marketing work for you, it’s important to understand where your present efforts stand. Without a clear picture, you risk investing in solutions that don’t solve the real problems. This step helps you see the gaps and opportunities that AI can address.
Identify the key areas of your marketing workflow
- Processes: Are you spending too much time on manual tasks like reporting, lead scoring, or campaign management?
- Tools: Are your existing platforms integrated? Do they provide insights, or are you stuck exporting spreadsheets?
- Data: Is your data clean, consistent, and accessible? AI relies on high-quality data to deliver accurate results.
Actionable steps to streamline your current setup
- Map out all your workflows and pinpoint bottlenecks or inefficiencies.
- Audit your marketing technology tools to see what’s working and what’s not.
- Review your data sources to ensure they’re up-to-date, accurate, and unified.
2. Conduct an AI-powered marketing analysis
AI is only as good as the data it has to work with. That’s why analyzing your current marketing performance matters before implementing any AI solution. The marketing analysis will highlight inefficiencies, uncover hidden opportunities, and reveal areas where AI can make a tangible difference, like optimizing ad spend or improving personalization.
Evaluate your marketing performance across key areas
- Channel performance: Which platforms are driving the most ROI and mROI? Are there channels where you’re overspending?
- Audience insights: How well do you understand your customers? Are you personalizing your campaigns effectively?
- Campaign effectiveness: Are your campaigns achieving measurable results, or are you just spinning wheels?
Steps to conduct a meaningful marketing analysis
- Track traffic trends and engagement: Measure how users interact with your website and other content. Identify top-performing pages, bounce rates, and conversion paths to see where you’re gaining or losing potential customers.
- Analyze customer behavior patterns: Dive into your CRM platform to perform a sentiment analysis and understand trends in customer preferences, buying habits, and lifecycle stages. Use this data to refine your audience segments and target campaigns more effectively.
- Review channel performance: Use an AI-powered marketing tool like Keen to compare the ROI of your traditional and digital marketing channels—paid search, email, social media, and more. Are there channels where you’re overspending or underinvesting? The analysis ensures you focus on channels that deliver real value.
- Audit campaign effectiveness: Examine KPIs for your recent campaigns. Are you meeting your goals for lead generation, brand awareness, or conversions? Identify campaigns that can be scaled or need adjustments.
3. Choose the right AI-driven marketing tools and technologies
The AI marketing tools you choose can make or break your success. Ensure you’re picking the right ones for your needs.
What to prioritize when choosing tools
- Ease of integration: Can the tool work seamlessly with your current platforms?
- Scalability: Will it grow with your team and business goals?
- Data security: Does it comply with regulations like GDPR and CCPA?
- Actionable insights: Does it provide clear next steps, or is it just another dashboard?
Key AI marketing tool categories
- Predictive analytics: Modern MMM tools like Keen that forecast performance and optimize budgets.
- Personalization platforms: AI tools that help in hyper-relevant personalized content creation.
- Automation solutions: Platforms that handle repetitive tasks, from email campaigns to ad bidding.
Start small by addressing one specific challenge, such as creating an AI-driven media plan or simplifying email workflows. Otherwise, you risk overloading your team with new tech stack before they can understand the proper usage.
Keep learning: The Keen Advantage Over Traditional MMM Providers
4. Simplify change management with AI marketing software
Even the best technology fails without team buy-in. Change management is the most important (and difficult) step in successfully adopting AI-powered marketing tools.
How to get your team on board
- Communicate the value: Show them the power of AI-driven insights and how the tools will solve their pain points—saving time, reducing repetitive tasks, or delivering better results.
- Provide training: Make sure everyone understands how to use AI tools for marketing effectively.
- Start small: Pilot the tool on a single campaign to demonstrate its value before rolling it out across the board.
Align teams for success
- Break silos between marketing, sales, and IT. AI solutions often require collaboration across departments.
- Set shared KPIs, such as reducing customer acquisition costs (CAC), conversion rate, or increasing customer lifetime value (CLV).
- Celebrate early wins to build enthusiasm and trust in AI-driven processes.
5. Transform marketing from a cost center to a profit driver
Marketing still gets labeled as a cost center. But AI can help you with your marketing investment optimization, making your efforts more strategic and revenue-focused.
Decision-makers are also understanding the shift in the world of AI-driven marketing tools. According to Gartner, 63% of marketing leaders plan to invest in generative AI. With the tide shifting towards natural language processing (NLP) and machine learning (ML) tools, you might have an easier time getting the budget approved today.
Steps to shift marketing into a revenue engine
- Focus on ROI: Use AI marketing solutions to identify which channels and strategies deliver the most revenue and cut what isn’t working.
- Prioritize high-value customers: Segment your target audience to focus on customers with the highest lifetime value.
- Measure success constantly: Track important metrics like mROI and iROAS to understand the incremental impact of the new tool.
6. Envision the future of leadership led by AI
The role of marketing leaders is shifting. It’s no longer enough to oversee creative campaigns and lead with intuition—you need to rely on data analysis and AI technology.
Key traits of successful leaders
- Comfort with AI in marketing: Leaders must know how to interpret data and act quickly on insights.
- Adaptability: The ability to pivot strategies as trends and tools evolve.
- Commitment to innovation: A willingness to experiment and stay ahead of the curve.
Why this matters for the future of AI in marketing
The leaders of tomorrow will be those who embrace AI as a partner, using it to make smarter, faster decisions that drive measurable impact.
Take the leap into artificial intelligence with Keen
AI isn’t the future of marketing—it’s the present. You can transform your strategies into a profit-driving powerhouse by assessing your current approach, analyzing your marketing efforts, and implementing artificial intelligence tools strategically.
With trustworthy data, advanced algorithms and machine-learning techniques, Keen makes it easier than ever to unlock the full potential of artificial intelligence in marketing. Ready to start seeing real results with our AI-powered marketing platform? Get a free Keen demo.
