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How is generative AI transforming marketing in 2024? And what real-world insights can we gain from agencies and businesses that have already implemented this technology?
Generative AI, with its ability to create content, personalize marketing campaigns, and predict consumer behavior, is revolutionizing how businesses approach marketing.
But while the potential is enormous, the actual generative AI’s impact on marketing strategies and outcomes is still a hot topic of discussion. With consumer expectations higher than ever and fierce competition, agencies are increasingly turning to generative AI to gain an edge.
But how effective is it really? What challenges do companies face in adopting this technology, and what benefits have they seen?
To answer these questions, we partnered with Jasper.ai and other partners to survey over 600 agencies and companies across various industries. Our goal was to understand how agencies are leveraging generative AI in their marketing efforts and what lessons can be learned from their experiences.
We gathered many valuable insights on the practical applications of generative AI, its impact on marketing efficiency, and the challenges and concerns companies have with it.
Let’s get started.
For this report, we partnered up with Jasper and several other partners to survey 600+ agencies and companies across different industries.
Our goal was to explore diverse opinions, expectations, and concerns about generative AI’s role in marketing. We wanted to find out how agencies are adapting to incorporate generative AI and whether companies are receptive to this new approach.
Out of the 600+ respondents we surveyed, 255 companies identified as Marketing or Advertising Agency.
We had 173 companies that identified as Business Utilizing Marketing/Advertising Agency Services and 175 companies that identified as Businesses not Utilizing Marketing/Advertising Agency Services.
In the next part of this report, we’ll take a detailed look at each of these companies’ perspectives on AI individually.
In our survey, there were 255 companies that identified as a Marketing or Advertising Agency.
And more than half of these surveyed agencies are already incorporating generative AI into a few of their service offerings.
When asked which service offerings they are incorporating generative AI into, 87.61% of the agencies selected written content (e.g. blogs), 66% selected SEO optimization and 50% selected marketing strategy.
What about the actual pricing of these services? Has anything changed with the introduction of generative AI?
Well, 38.99% of the agencies anticipate that their pricing adjustments will depend on the specific applications and efficiencies brought by generative AI in their services.
What’s more, most agencies believe that generative AI significantly enhances their effectiveness and efficiency.
When it comes to how their clients reacted to the idea of leveraging AI in agency service offerings, 30.28% stated that some clients are interested in generative AI, while others are indifferent or unaware of its potential.
Another 27.98% stated that their clients have expressed interest but also have concerns or reservations about using generative AI.
Specifically, almost 60% of agencies reported working with clients in the professional services industry.
We segmented business respondents into two groups: those that use marketing/advertising agency services and those that don’t.
First, we’ll find out what businesses that do use marketing agency services have to say on generative AI in marketing.
More than half of the respondents (out of 173 total) stated that they currently work with a service provider to outsource SEO optimization. 41% outsources written content (e.g. blogs) and 40% outsources creative (e.g. images, video)
Notably, 95.30% of the respondents confirmed that their internal teams currently use generative AI to assist with their sales and marketing efforts.
Furthermore, 41.06% of the surveyed companies confirmed that their hired service provider uses generative AI to execute at least some of the sales and marketing efforts they provide, while 35.76% are unsure.
Similar to agencies, most companies (54%) believe that generative AI significantly enhances their effectiveness and efficiency.
Companies believe their outsourced sales and marketing efforts can be replaced by generative AI in Written content (e.g. blogs) – 70% of the companies, SEO optimization – 47.33%, Creative (e.g. images, video) – 36.67%, Sales prospecting – 30.67%.
12.67% of the surveyed companies stated that none of their outsourced sales and marketing efforts can be replaced by generative AI.
When asked how they anticipate adjusting their outsourced sales and marketing efforts in response to advances in generative AI, 34.90% of the companies plan to adjust the type of work outsourced, focusing more on areas where human expertise is crucial and less on tasks AI can handle.
And 30.20% stated that they plan to reduce the work they outsource because generative AI can automate or assist our internal team to do it more effectively or less expensively.
Now, let’s explore what businesses that are not utilizing marketing/advertising agency services have to say about gen AI.
Out of 175 companies, 47.68% confirmed that they don’t outsource any of their sales and marketing efforts. The rest do outsource (probably appoint consultants or contractors).
81.58% of the respondents confirmed that their internal teams currently use generative AI to assist with their sales and marketing efforts.
And most of them (58.28%) believe that generative AI significantly enhances their effectiveness and efficiency.
Companies believe their outsourced sales and marketing efforts can be replaced by generative AI in Written content (e.g. blogs) – 70.67% of the companies, SEO optimization – 50% of the companies, Creative (e.g. images, video) – 38% of the companies.
When asked how they anticipate adjusting their outsourced sales and marketing efforts in response to the advances in generative AI, 30.20% of these companies plan to reduce the work they outsource because generative AI can automate or assist our internal team to do it more effectively or less expensively.
27.52% of them replied that their decision will depend on how generative AI evolves and its impact on their business needs.
While AI offers tremendous potential to streamline marketing efforts, it is not without its challenges and concerns.
From data privacy issues to the potential for algorithmic biases and low-quality content, there are several things you’ll need to pay attention to when using gen AI.
Below, we’ll share some of the main challenges and concerns that our respondents mentioned throughout the survey.
Despite advancements in natural language processing and machine learning, AI-generated content often lacks the nuance and creativity of human writing. This can lead to repetitive phrases, generic ideas, and a lack of depth that fails to engage the audience.
Additionally, AI can accidentally produce duplicate content, which harms SEO rankings and brand reputation. Since AI relies on existing data, it often ends up repeating information already available online, making it hard to produce truly original content.
This problem is worse when AI tools aren’t carefully managed by human editors, leading to content that doesn’t hit the mark in terms of quality or relevance.
Sara Lynch of ProfileTree says that their “primary concern as we integrate AI into our service offerings revolves around upholding the standard of quality in our content.”
“While there’s undoubtedly a temptation to increase production speed and output volume, we recognize that this can potentially compromise quality. Striking a balance between quantity and quality is a significant challenge for us.”
Celine Crestin of Reality Reimagined also noticed that the content “feels too robotic or very clearly AI-generated, and therefore makes our brand feel less genuine and relatable.”
Jacob Mann of Seaworthy Strategy shared how important it is to “keep quality and accuracy at the forefront of our delivery processes. AI makes it easy to ‘phone it in,’ but our commitment to results demands that the outcomes never decrease in quality or efficacy. We use AI as a tool to deliver a solution, not as the solution itself.”
PRO TIP: Are you using generative AI to write long-form content for your blog? If so, you can use our free Google Search Console Queries and Page Overview Dashboard for free. In one screen, you’ll track all of your most relevant content marketing metrics and see how AI is impacting your performance.
AI-generated content often lacks the authenticity that comes naturally to human writers.
Although they’re fast and efficient, AI tools tend to produce stuff that sounds mechanical and impersonal. They rely on algorithms and data, which means they lack the genuine emotion and perspective that only humans can provide.
That’s why the best approach is usually to mix AI’s efficiency with human authenticity to create content that not only informs but also really connects with your audience.
Chris Fell of G2M Solutions adds:
“Building trust and developing authentic relationships with your buyers is the secret to creating meaningful value. Too often Generative AI encourages lazy behavior on behalf of the prompter and often produces vanilla, unremarkable responses. Relying on this condemns your organization to sink into the morass.”
Chris Fell
Founder at G2M Solutionshttps
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Oscar Jaimes Navarro of Buho Clarity for Leaders says that “this concern is valid and something that should be carefully considered when implementing AI technology in commercial communication.”
“While the use of AI can streamline and automate certain aspects of communication, it is important to remember that there is still a human element involved. As such, it is crucial to strike a balance between the efficiency of AI and maintaining a personal touch in communication.”
Luisa Guzman of Kavanah Creative Group talked about how their business is “built on the authenticity of our ideas and how they resonate in relevant ways. When everyone uses AI how much of creative work will be similar and thus turn into noise instead of truly engaging customers?”
It’s not unusual for some employees to push back against change and new technology like AI, but it can be a big headache for the company.
This resistance may come from a fear of the unknown, worries about job security, or just not feeling confident about learning new systems.
To tackle these issues, it’s a good idea for companies to offer solid training programs and ongoing support to help employees feel more comfortable and capable of using the technology.
Linus Johansson of OGOship talked about how some of the staff in his company is “hesitant and old school, and instead of joining the ship, they’re a roadblocker. We need to try, test, and fail as well as succeed to move forward. AI is not a temporary hype, it is here to stay.”
Using generative AI in marketing comes with some serious security and legal concerns that companies need to watch out for.
A big worry is data breaches because AI systems often need access to loads of sensitive info. If these systems aren’t well-protected, they can be prime targets for hackers.
Plus, generative AI might accidentally create content that breaks copyright laws or spreads false info, which can cause legal trouble and hurt your company’s reputation.
There is also the issue of data privacy, as the use of AI may conflict with regulations such as GDPR or CCPA.
Alex Jackson of Experience Innovation Consulting is one of our respondents who says that “managing confidential client and company information is one of the biggest risks associated with adopting GAI into our service offerings and business processes.”
Ralph Otto of COLAB also says that data privacy and security are huge concerns for their team:
“We work with a number of businesses in the financial sector and are very aware that our prompts may be providing us with information, but are also being used to train our AI tools. Generic names and details are substituted in code and content generation to avoid leaking proprietary client data to the learning model.”
Ralph Otto
Chief Product Officer at COLAB
Michelle Symonds of Ditto Digital points out copyright concerns – “Although all our output from generative AI tools is checked by one of our content editors, my main concern is around potential copyright issues with any type of Large Language Model (LLM) that has been trained on existing content.”
David Cartolano of Wealthy Inbox says that, because of potential security issues and hacking attempts, his team “protects clients’ data with ProtonPass, 2FA, and things like that. But we’re still worried about data breaches.”
There are growing concerns that search engines may penalize AI-generated content, hurting a website’s search rankings.
Search engines like Google prioritize high-quality, original content that actually provides value to users, and it’s not uncommon for AI to generate low-quality or even plagiarized content.
If search engines notice patterns that hint content was made by AI without much human input, many worry that it might drop the rankings of that content.
To avoid these issues, it’s recommended to have human writers review and edit AI-generated content to keep it high-quality and original.
Alex Tiffany of Just Go Exploring adds that “search engines like Google are continually evolving to prioritize original, high-quality content. This means that websites with unique and valuable information are given higher ranks, while those with duplicate or low-quality content are pushed down in the search results.
I’m concerned that search engines might start penalizing sites that rely too heavily on generative AI. I’m currently trying to find the right balance between using AI to maximize efficiency and output, while at the same time ensuring that my content doesn’t lose its personal touch and authenticity, or dilute the trust and rapport I’ve built with my readers.”
PRO TIP: Want an easier way to monitor your SEO efforts and see how well you’re ranking for your keywords? Here’s a free Google Search Position Overview Dashboard that you can use to track SEO metrics such as search clicks, impressions, CTR, average position, and much more.
A big problem with AI-generated content is that it often overuses certain terms and phrases.
Since AI relies on patterns from big data sets, it tends to repeat the same language over and over, making the content feel boring and less engaging.
This kind of repetition can hurt the quality and readability, turning off readers. Plus, using the same terms too much can harm SEO because search engines prefer content that’s varied and has a rich vocabulary.
Ann Schreiber of Copywriting For You talked about this specific challenge with using generative AI:
“One of the challenges we’ve noticed with integrating generative AI, like ChatGPT, into our copywriting services is its tendency to overuse certain terms and phrases. While AI can produce content quickly and efficiently, it sometimes gets a bit too comfortable with specific words or expressions, leading to repetitive patterns.
This repetition can make the content feel less natural or engaging. To counter this, we actively monitor and adjust the AI’s outputs, ensuring diversity in language and maintaining the unique voice that resonates with your audience. It’s a balancing act between leveraging AI’s efficiency and keeping our content fresh and varied.”
The quality of what AI produces depends a lot on how well you set up the initial prompts.
If your prompts are vague or poorly constructed, the AI might generate content that’s off-topic, irrelevant, or lacking in depth.
This means you need to be really clear and specific about what you want, including the context and tone. Strategic prompting means knowing what the AI can and can’t do, and giving it instructions that lead to the best results.
It takes time to get this right, and you need to keep tweaking and improving your prompts based on how the AI performs.
Cassidy Salter of Bark puts it like this:
“If used by the right person generative AI can yield amazing outputs and get big results – but it is very dependent on the strategic judgment of the person using it and their ability to adjust for style and to tweak their inputs to get the right result. I feel that a fair bit of time still needs to be spent on copy creation when using AI as this human lens is still very valuable, and when it isn’t used (or the person relies too much on it being right the first time) the results can be stilted, off-brand, or just not very useful.”
Rasim Poloskin of Ligrow Organics says that, while AI is a tool that can perform a large number of valuable functions, “the problem is that you need a highly qualified specialist who knows how to use it effectively. Specialists with such skills are still somewhat in short supply.”
Drew Medley of The Diamond Group agrees, sharing that “the only reservation I have about fully implanting AI throughout business offerings is that some AI outputs produce redundant/incorrect information that would need to be proofread before using. AI also works only as well as the promo that it is given, so learning how to build robust AI prompts is necessary as well.”
Generative AI often struggles with linear thinking and creating a smooth, connected flow in its content.
Unlike human writers, who naturally connect ideas and keep a logical progression, AI can produce content that feels disjointed and jumps around without clear transitions.
This lack of “connective tissue” can make the content hard to follow and confusing for readers. AI also has trouble keeping a consistent tone and style throughout a piece, which hurts the overall readability.
Samantha Hembree of Beam Content shared her perspective on this challenge:
“We are not anti-AI, there is 100% a time and place to lean on these new tools. But we don’t think creative thinking, planning, research, and outlining behind is one of those times or places. The current problem with GenAI, for the type of content we create, isn’t (necessarily) the writing itself. It’s the linear “thinking”, lack of connective tissue, and surface-level points that it turns around, no matter what the prompt looks like.
We started Beam because there’s nothing that replaces expert insights. Barring expert interviews or in-depth internal documentation, there’s nothing that replaces good research and the creative thinking of a good writer.”
Some believe that when employees get too comfortable using AI for content creation, they might lose their knack for creative writing and logical thinking.
That relying too much on AI can make them complacent, letting automated systems do the heavy lifting for ideas and content structure.
Anant Jain of Creole Studios says that her “biggest concern is that our employees would lose the skill of creative writing and logical thinking as the AI models are making them comfortable by pampering them with variety of output to choose from.”
Even Pete Caputa, the CEO of Databox, mentioned that he “fears that some people on the team think that generative AI reduces our need to be creative, curious, and think creatively. We’ve tackled some projects where engineers and others have used Generative AI to write content. And that content is not always accurate or represents the quality of writing that we want to publish.”
Despite the challenges, many businesses have successfully used AI to boost their marketing.
Let’s look at some success stories that show how businesses we surveyed were able to leverage AI.
AI can go through a large amount of data quickly and it uses it to find trending topics, audience preferences, and optimal posting times, which help marketers create more targeted social media content.
AI tools can also come up with creative ideas, draft posts, and even suggest visuals that hit the mark with specific groups. Plus, AI-powered analytics track how your social media campaigns are doing in real-time, showing engagement rates, click-through rates, and conversion metrics.
This lets marketers tweak their strategies quickly based on what the data shows, making the campaigns more effective.
Stuart Henry Meyler of Beeby Clark+Meyler shared that his team has seen a lot of success by “using generative AI to develop paid social creative and to track its effectiveness.”
“Because the tool analyzes data along with pattern recognition, it can highlight things like how many people are in an image and the impact of that on revenue (turns out more is better, but still don’t know how many is too many). Those are insights we may or may not have thought to look at and there are 100’s more in the emerging area of ‘creative analytics’.”
This was by far the most popular positive effect of AI that our respondents talked about throughout the survey.
With generative AI tools, you can quickly create drafts, do research, and even get suggestions for grammar and style, which cuts down on the time needed to create content.
You can automate the boring, repetitive tasks, so the writers can focus on more creative and complex parts of their job. AI can also sift through huge amounts of data to find trends and insights, something that usually took writers hours (or even days) to do.
What’s more, AI-powered platforms can even help optimize content for SEO by suggesting the right keywords and phrases to improve search engine rankings.
Carolina Cano-Espinoza of ShipNetwork talked about her experience with using AI for content and how she managed to greatly speed up the process when launching a new website:
“In the last two years, we’ve launched two new websites. These weren’t just simple touch-ups; they were massive undertakings, especially in terms of content creation. The difference in our approach to these two projects really highlights the positive impact of generative AI on our work.
For the first website, we hadn’t started using AI yet. The task of writing fresh content for numerous service pages and blogs was overwhelming. It was a slow, grueling process, and frankly, when I look back at it, the content quality doesn’t quite hit the mark. The game-changer was the second website, where we had AI tools at our disposal. What a difference it made!
Content creation was not only quicker but the quality of the final output was way better. It’s amazing how much faster and more efficiently we could work with AI’s help. Now, we’re revisiting the content of our first site, this time using AI. The improvement is clear – the content we’re producing now is leagues better, and it’s taking us only a fraction of the time it did before.”
Joy Go of Digital Room LLC was able to double the number of articles her content team produces with the help of AI tools:
“We were able to double the number of articles our content team produces with the help of AI tools. We were very wary about using AI – will it make sense? Will the content be written well? Are we going to be plagiarizing someone else’s content? We put workarounds to address our concerns and proceeded to do a test. We are glad we did! AI will not replace people, but AI will replace people who do not use AI.”
Joy Go
Director of SEO at Digital Room
Amy Cristiani of Trading Heritage International says that generative AI “has saved me hours when it comes to enhancing content for our LinkedIn Newsletter. I can spend more time in the R&D phase of the process, which is a critical component of providing relevant and newsworthy material for our subscribers.”
AI chatbots can handle a large volume of customer questions simultaneously, giving instant replies and cutting down on wait times. They can answer common questions, help with troubleshooting, and even handle simple transactions.
If you use AI to take care of these routine tasks, human agents can focus on more complicated issues, making the whole support process more efficient and satisfying for customers.
You can even use AI chatbots to gather and analyze data from customer interactions and provide insights to improve support strategies and service quality.
Radomir Basta of Four Dots shared how “implementation of generative AI chatbots into CRM support tools enabled measurably better customer support service for three different SaaS platforms. We also created and implemented a chatbot AI solution to improve and speed up the internal onboarding of new employees and easier cross-team knowledge sharing.”
AI is great at finding new marketing angles by sifting through tons of data and spotting patterns that people might miss (or simply didn’t think of).
It can analyze customer behavior, preferences, and trends from different sources, giving you unique insights to come up with creative marketing strategies. You can also use these tools to break down audiences into more specific segments, so you can tailor your messages more accurately.
Avinash Chandra of BrandLoom Consulting is one of our respondents who shared using generative AI “for a client’s marketing campaign, and the impact was nothing short of revolutionary. We were struggling with a creative block, unable to find a fresh angle for their new product launch.”
“Enter AI, and suddenly, we had a plethora of innovative ideas and graphics, all aligned with the client’s brand voice. The AI-generated content not only accelerated our workflow but also brought a level of creativity that was genuinely novel. The campaign was a hit, with increased engagement and sales. It was a striking example of how AI can be a catalyst for breakthroughs in business strategy and execution.”
PRO TIP: Are you using AI to find new angles for your email marketing campaigns? Track your success with the Mailchimp Dashboard Template – it includes all the necessary email metrics from open rates to link click-through rates.
Generative AI technology opens up great chances to teach others in the marketing world.
You can teach internal employees or even take on outside clients and businesses that want to learn more about the technology. Training can cover the basics of AI, and how it helps with content creation, data analysis, and customer engagement.
Also, sharing AI know-how can make you a company leader in the industry, attracting more clients and partnerships.
Guy Alvarez of Good2bSocial says that they “already have two clients who have signed up to have us train and onboard them on Jasper and teach them how to use the platform.”
Through recorded call analysis, AI can pick up on important themes, customer issues, and new trends.
AI can quickly summarize long conversations, highlighting the main points and saving time for marketing teams – something that used to be a grueling process can now be done in just a few minutes.
This information can be super helpful for tweaking marketing strategies, improving customer service, and adjusting products to fit what customers want.
Kelly Wilhelme of Weidert Group talked about how her team uses “Google’s NotebookLM tool to automatically summarize call transcripts, pull out insights, and identify patterns across our book of clients.”
Keith Boswell of Perceptint also said how they’re able to “take our videos and audio through transcription in an afternoon versus the backlog of a year plus we had been working through. We were able to repurpose and create more new content than we had ever been able to before with our small team.”
Tony Carne of Everything AI in Travel shared his system on how they use AI transcripts in their content process:
“We have built a content process that goes as follows – Podcast episode with guest (recorded in Zoom). This is then edited with AI (Descript). Descript will then also create half a dozen short highlight clips from the interview for YouTube shorts and teasers on LinkedIn. We then copy the transcript (automatically created by Descript) and add it as a piece of data which is fed to a custom GPT. From this, we can create new topic-based content that can pull relevant quotes from multiple guests to compare and contrast opinions.
This forms the basis of our newsletter which is our main inbound source of customers. Also, new subs to the newsletter get a link to a custom GPT to help them build the first draft of their own AI business strategy as a gift and lead magnet. All this is run part-time, by one person (about 5 hours per week). That is incredible.”
Tony Carne
Founder at Everything AI in Travel
Integrating generative AI has become essential for companies that lack in-house communication expertise but require effective global outreach.
For example, heavy tech firms excel at technical depth, while the softer aspects of communication often require external support. AI tools can automatically translate complex content into multiple languages or simplify it for non-tech audiences, without changing the intended meaning and impact.
Corey Solivan of Trust Income Equity shared his perspective on this specific impact of generative AI:
“We’re a heavy tech/consulting firm, and the softer side of communication is not an in-house strength, but our brand and communications outsource firm is non-technical. GenAI is helping us to bridge this communication, translation, and interpretation gap.”
AI can crunch huge amounts of data from different sources to spot market trends, understand customer preferences, and keep an eye on the competition. This helps businesses make smart decisions about how to position their products, set prices, and choose their target audiences.
AI can also run simulations to predict different market scenarios, so companies can be ready for whatever comes their way. Using these insights, businesses can put together a solid GTM strategy that’s both smart and flexible.
Dave Smith of Pointae shared how “in one of my client engagements, we leveraged the power of generative AI to analyze extensive market data efficiently, enabling us to identify the most effective positioning for our product launch.”
“This led to an unprecedented product-market fit within the B2B commerce and logistics industry. The AI’s ability to rapidly sift through vast amounts of information allowed us to gain valuable insights and uncover hidden opportunities that would have been challenging to identify manually. By harnessing the potential of AI, we were able to pinpoint unique gaps in the market and tailor our offerings to address them.”
From automating content creation to improving customer interactions and getting to know your audience better, generative AI is transforming how companies approach marketing.
But how can you effectively track and measure the performance improvements driven by these AI technologies?
This is where Databox comes into play.
With Databox Dashboards, you can seamlessly integrate your data from various sources and visualize your most important marketing metrics in one centralized place.
Whether it’s tracking the efficiency of your AI-generated content, monitoring website engagement levels, or analyzing conversion rates, our dashboards provide real-time insights that are crucial for informed decision-making.
You’ll have a clear, real-time view of how your AI initiatives are impacting your marketing performance.
With over 100+ integrations, you can also pull in data from your favorite marketing tools, making it easier than ever to correlate AI activities with tangible results.
And it’s not just about tracking – it’s about understanding. Databox allows you to create custom visualizations and reports that highlight key trends and areas for improvement.
This means you can quickly identify what’s working and what needs adjustment, making sure your marketing strategies are always optimized.
Plus, if you want to see how your AI-driven marketing efforts stack up against others in your industry, you can also leverage Databox’s Benchmark Groups.
With our tool, you’ll be able to instantly compare your performance with peers and industry leaders and see what your strengths and weaknesses are.
Sign up for free today and take the guesswork out of your AI-powered marketing strategies.
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Filip Stojanovic is a content writer who studies Business and Political Sciences. Also, I am a huge tennis enthusiast. Although my dream is to win a Grand Slam, working as a content writer is also interesting.
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