No one can deny that the search landscape is shifting rapidly. So rapidly, in fact, that far too many B2B organizations are jumping to use technology like artificial intelligence (AI) without pausing to build a foundational strategy.
Relying on AI in digital marketing is, for many businesses, a given. But it’s not the be-all end-all, and AI tools certainly aren’t advanced enough to go solo. To get the best AI in marketing results, organizations need to meld human expertise with intelligent solutions. That combination is a recipe for staying ahead of the competition and creating high-quality marketing experiences.
Here are six ways organizations can unite the power of AI with the power of human experts to maximize the efficacy of their digital marketing efforts.
As an expert in your field, you likely have a pulse on where your target audience’s needs, pain points, and interests lie. But translating that higher-level understanding into content marketing ideas is a different talent — one that AI in marketing can help with.
AI tools like ChatGPT, Gemini, and Perplexity AI are great at analyzing massive amounts of published content to spot trends, user needs, and potential topics. Use these tools to generate specific themes for your content or to turn ideas into content marketing plans.
If you’re a healthcare SaaS company, for example, you might already know that your audience is facing difficulties meeting shifting compliance requirements. AI solutions can help you create related and specific content topics based off that initial knowledge, such as “Why EHRs With Embedded Compliance Trackers Are Critical to Meeting Compliance Requirements.”
AI tools are certainly helpful for analyzing large-scale trends in your industry to aid in content ideation. But you know your specific audience better than any tool can. As such, it’s critical to review the content topics AI solutions serve up to ensure they’re the right ones to meet your audience’s needs.
Use anecdotal and on-the-ground experiences to tailor topics to specific customer segments — and be sure to detail your audience segments in the first place. AI in digital marketing can assist, but it’s up to you and your team to do the audience research necessary to ensure ideas connect thoughtfully to their needs.
AI solutions take the heavy lifting out of research by scanning colossal datasets to surface audience insights, differentiators, and patterns — so you can back your marketing decisions with data, not guesswork.
For example, a healthcare SaaS company might use AI chatbots or generative AI tools to find insights about health-related social needs in your target communities, for example, or pinpoint how often administrative burdens lead to provider burnout. A finance SaaS business, on the other hand, could use AI to identify small businesses that struggle with bookkeeping and tailor its messaging accordingly.
As AI-driven data analysis becomes more common, privacy and compliance are increasingly critical. Be sure to choose solutions that meet current data protection regulations and uphold the highest standards of transparency and security.
AI is helpful for research, but beware. AI tools are only as good as the information they’re trained on, and they’re still prone to producing hallucinations or inaccurate data. As the human expert, you'll need to review all the data AI serves up and verify its accuracy. Inaccurate insights can break customers’ trust, so this is a crucial step.
Also, not all AI-produced data will serve your content goals. Focus on the insights and analytics that uncover meaningful takeaways for your audience.
According to Statista, 42% of marketers worldwide already use AI tools at least weekly to generate content. And for good reason: It’s a quick way to put words on the page without spending too much of your team’s time. AI in digital marketing is taking off primarily because of its content generation abilities.
AI tools can also help you personalize your content, as they can spot user trends and patterns and create and distribute content that’s hyper-targeted to those patterns.
Here’s the big caveat, though: AI content is only as strong as the humans who refine it. Audiences can easily spot writing that's repetitive, inauthentic, or just plain wrong. It’s ok to let AI take the first pass at content, but it should be just that — the first pass. The second, third, or even fourth passes should come from human experts.
Follow these tips:
SEO — and its evolving counterparts like generative answer optimization (GEO), answer engine optimization (AEO), and large language model optimization (LLMO) — are essential in content marketing today. As search engines and AI models increasingly determine what audiences see first, optimizing for both humans and machines has never been more important.
AI solutions can help optimize your content by:
By blending these optimizations with human creativity and expertise, your content becomes more visible, credible, and effective across both traditional search and emerging AI-driven discovery channels.
As with content production, optimization still needs the human touch. Just because an AI in marketing tool suggests certain keywords or placements doesn’t mean they’re the right fit for your strategy. Some terms might miss your audience’s intent, clash with your brand voice, or fall short on search volume and difficulty balance. Other recommendations may simply not align with the user experience you want to deliver.
Optimization is both a science and an art. AI excels at the analytical side (spotting patterns, surfacing opportunities, and identifying gaps), but it can’t understand nuance, tone, or emotional resonance. That’s where human judgment comes in. Your expertise turns AI’s raw data into messaging that feels authentic, purposeful, and engaging.
Effective distribution is just as important as strong content, and AI in digital marketing makes managing that process far more efficient. These tools can handle repetitive tasks and streamline workflows so your team can focus on strategy and creativity.
With AI-powered automation, you can:
By automating the busy work, AI ensures your content reaches the right audience at the right moment — without sacrificing consistency or quality.
As with every part of AI in digital marketing, distribution should involve human oversight. Your team should interpret AI-generated data through the lens of the buyer journey, crafting a distribution strategy that aligns with audience needs, timing, and intent. Let AI surface the insights, but rely on human judgment to shape how and where those insights are applied.
Any good marketer knows that the process doesn’t end when your content goes live. Analyzing performance can uncover valuable insights that inform and strengthen future efforts. AI in digital marketing can help by tracking key performance indicators (KPIs), identifying trends, and suggesting data-backed ways to improve results.
Evaluating performance is only half the battle — deciding what to do with those insights is where humans shine. Use AI’s suggestions as a starting point, then use your expertise to interpret the data and refine your strategy. Look beyond the KPI data your AI in marketing tools provide to consider the bigger picture: What’s working? What’s not? Which tactics should you double down on, and which ones need to evolve?
Think about any major technological innovation: The ballpoint pen was revolutionary, but it’s the words we write with it that have an impact. The printing press changed everything, but it was how we used it to share ideas that transformed the way people engage with the world.
AI in digital marketing is no different. On their own, AI marketing tools are important and groundbreaking. But it’s what we do with them that matters. And as experts in our fields, it’s our responsibility to not simply put AI to work, but rather to work with AI. After all, audiences want, above all things, authentic experiences.
As you move forward with your marketing efforts, consider AI a powerful tool for aiding your team’s work, enabling them to create content at scale, reach more audiences, and deepen audience connections.
That’s what we do at Spot On: We help B2B SaaS companies combine cutting-edge technologies and human experience to create lasting brand legacies. Want to build a winning AI in digital marketing strategy? Reach out to our team today to get started.