2023 was a landmark year for AI. It started with a red-hot surge in AI advancements leading to subsequent adoption across various sectors, including marketing, media, tech, finance, and healthcare.
We saw AI assisting in diagnosing diseases and developing personalized treatment plans. If that wasn’t eye-opening enough, we also witnessed OpenAI’s GPT-4 score of 297 on the bar exam, exceeding the passing score in every US state. On the AI marketing front, the three most significant AI innovations included generative AI, multimodality, and creating video scenes based on descriptive text. You know, something like this:
With AI taking the marketing reins, all tasks, ranging from automated workflows to creating outlines and drafts, seemed not only possible but also streamlined and simple. AI content generators started popping out from every corner, which made brands and agencies rejoice but also had content writers, copywriters, and social media marketers worried about losing their jobs. As the year progressed and brands, marketers, and agencies began to truly understand AI capabilities, the sentiment around AI became mixed, with excitement and skepticism.
While some marketers became concerned about the potential negative impacts of generative AI, voicing their apprehension about the quality and ethical implications of content produced by AI, as well as its potential to pollute data sets, others were enthusiastic about everything that the technology had yet to offer.
To get a pulse on everything going on with AI marketing in 2023, we surveyed 200+ marketing and advertising professionals from various industries, including real estate, DTC, Healthcare, and Fintech, and asked them their take on the state of AI marketing in 2023, what challenges they faced this year and how AI helped them overcome them.
Key Findings from the State of AI in Marketing 2023 Survey
1. The adoption of AI tools was at an all-time high
AI marketing has proven itself to be much more than a trending fad. From the marketing professionals we surveyed, an overwhelming number currently use AI tools and also reported that artificial intelligence is used by all departments across their companies.
95.8% of marketers use AI in their jobs every day, and the tech is used by all major company departments.
2. Drafting blog posts and social media posts was the predominant use of AI marketing tech
46.8% of marketing professionals using AI save at least 3 hours daily using various AI platforms, with 55.1% of marketers reporting that the tools have integrated pretty deeply into their daily workflow.
61.8% of the respondents use AI tools to write social media posts, while 49.3% use it for content ideation, closely followed by tasks such as sales flow triggers and content generation.
3. AI-produced content isn’t perfect. It needs edits and final revisions
While it may seem that content writers and copywriters may soon be out of jobs because generative AI will make them redundant, we found the opposite to be true. While generative AI tools make it easy to produce content, that content still needs a professional touch to be finalized.
52.8% of marketing professionals reported minor edits to AI content, while 34.3% said AI content needs significant edits.
4. AI education is on the rise, with generative AI policies guiding the daily use and practice of AI in companies
60.6% of marketers reported that their company offers them AI-focused education/training. 49.5% of marketers said that they learn about AI tools mainly through online courses, while 45.4% sign up for webinars, masterclasses, and virtual summits to stay on top of AI uses and advancements.
5. AI is not going to take over jobs
Not only do 55.6% of marketing professionals believe AI will create more jobs, but 54.6% of respondents reported that AI is essential to the success of their marketing campaigns over the next 12 months.
While 59.1% of respondents believe that AI-written content is better than AI-generated content, 24% of marketers believe that the content can be used to optimize marketing channels, eventually helping their companies grow.
6. The challenges and benefits of AI marketing
Out of increased ROI, real-time personalization, faster decision-making, enhanced measurement and analysis, and ease of scaling campaigns, most AI marketing professionals believe that improved measurement and analysis is the most significant benefit of adding AI tech into their current marketing stack.
The biggest challenge of leveraging AI for marketing was the extensive training required to use AI tools.
30.6% of marketers reported that personalized, automated omnichannel campaigns were the most beneficial area for AI marketing, while content generation came in as a close second.
The future of AI marketing is bright and beaming
- 46.8% of marketers save 3 hours/day on average using AI tools
- 54.6% of marketers believe AI is critical to the success of their marketing campaigns in 2024
- 55.6% of marketers believe AI will help generate more jobs in the next three years
All these stats point to one thing: AI marketing isn’t going anywhere, and the marketers and advertisers best leveraging the power of AI in their everyday tasks will reap the benefits in their workflows while achieving superior results in their marketing efforts.
Staying relevant in the age of AI marketing means learning to strike the perfect balance between human storytelling and using the capabilities of AI technologies to amplify it.
This is what Instapage helps you do. With Instapage’s AI Content Generator, you can experience the future and benefits of landing page personalization. Strike that magical balance of human and AI when you build, test, and optimize your pages with the power of artificial intelligence.
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