Why AI is the ultimate secret weapon to boost your marketing productivity and ROI

AIMarketing
Written By Emily Wilkinson

Short of time? The takeaways

  • Positive ROI: 68% of marketing leaders have seen a return on their AI investments.

  • Enhanced Productivity: 45% say AI tools have made their teams more efficient.

  • Revenue Growth: 94% of marketers report AI has positively impacted their bottom line.

  • Conversational AI: Chatbots and virtual assistants are revolutionising customer engagement.

  • Strategic Integration: Businesses embedding AI into everyday workflows are seeing major time and cost savings.

  • But remember: AI is here to enhance human creativity, not replace it. Your ideas, experience and intuition remain essential.

Unlocking the power of AI in marketing

Before you dive in:
It’s tempting to jump straight into using AI everywhere but take a moment to plan. Ask yourself: What areas of my marketing could genuinely benefit from automation, speed, or insights? AI is a powerful tool, but it’s your strategic thinking and creative ideas that will set you apart from competitors.

1. Enhanced productivity and efficiency

AI is brilliant at automating tasks that consume your time so you can focus on what only a human can do: building relationships, developing creative campaigns, and steering strategy. But remember, AI can't dream up bold new ideas or truly understand your customers how you can.

Practical ways to use AI for productivity:

  • Content generation: Tools like ChatGPT or Jasper can help create first drafts of blog posts, newsletters, or social media captions.

  • Data analysis: AI platforms can quickly pull out trends and insights from customer data, speeding up your reporting.

  • Customer segmentation: Use AI to automatically group your audience based on behaviours and buying habits for sharper targeting.

AI prompt to try:
"Create a first draft of a blog post about [your topic] aimed at [your target audience]. The tone should be [friendly/professional/informal]."

2. Improved ROI

AI can massively boost your marketing return on investment, but only when guided by a smart strategy. AI will help you spend smarter, but it still needs your human judgement to decide what to say, when to say it, and how to say it to.

Practical ways to use AI for better ROI:

  • Predictive analytics: Use AI to identify which leads are most likely to convert, so that you can prioritise your sales efforts.

  • Smart ad optimisation: Let AI tools adjust your ad bids and creatives in real time for better results.

  • Website personalisation: Serve different content (A/B, Split testing) to visitors depending on their interests and behaviours using AI-powered platforms.

AI prompt to try:
"Analyse my customer data to predict which audience segments are most likely to purchase [product/service]. Suggest campaign ideas to reach and engage them."

3. Conversational AI: the new frontier

Instant responses are no longer a luxury for businesses, they’re expected. Conversational AI like chatbots and virtual assistants help you deliver better customer service and gather insights, but they should never fully replace the human touch. Customers still want to feel heard, valued, and understood and will be left frustrated if they can’t speak to a human when they need to.

Practical ways to use conversational AI:

  • Answer FAQs automatically: Set up a chatbot to handle common customer queries. Ensure it’s clear how to get through to a human if their question goes unanswered.

  • Lead qualification: Use AI to gently gather information from website visitors and direct serious leads to your sales team.

  • First-touch support: AI can triage basic support requests, passing on only complex issues to your human team.

AI prompt to try:
"Create a chatbot script that helps visitors find the right product based on their needs. Include friendly greetings and offer a handover to a human agent if needed."

4. Strategic integration across workflows

The real value comes when AI isn't just a bolt-on to one campaign, it's smoothly woven into your whole marketing workflow. That said, you should always be in the driver's seat. AI can suggest, speed up, and support but you must set the direction and context.

Practical ways to integrate AI strategically:

  • Audit and prioritise: Identify repetitive tasks and decide which ones AI could genuinely improve.

  • Connect your systems: Ensure your CRM, email platform, social ads and reporting tools all 'talk' to each other, powered by AI.

  • Upskill your team: Invest time in learning how AI tools work, it’s the key to getting better results and staying competitive. Learn more about the different types of AI here.

AI prompt to try:
"Suggest a list of marketing workflows (e.g. email scheduling, lead scoring, ad retargeting) that could be streamlined or automated using AI. Prioritise them by potential impact."

In summary

AI is transforming marketing but it’s not a magic button. The brands winning today are those that use AI to amplify their human creativity and strategic thinking, not replace it. When you know exactly what you want to achieve, AI becomes a secret weapon for getting there faster, smarter, and with greater impact.

Get clear on what you need, start small, stay curious, and never lose sight of the human connection that makes marketing work.

Sources & further reading

Emily Wilkinson https://www.emyilwilkinson.co.uk
Next

Why 2025 could be a turning point for E-Commerce (and how to prepare)