Webinar recap: How marketers can deliver impact with AI

CIM course director and digital marketing consultant Nick Baggott recently delivered a member exclusive webinar on using AI to deliver more impact with your marketing. He provided guidance on how AI can enhance existing marketing efforts and advised marketers to focus on data analytics and content management for faster ROI.

Baggott has worked in over 50 countries as a marketing consultant, and in addition to being course director at CIM for a number of digital and CRM courses, he is also a professor at Holt International Business School in London. His career spans the full agency spectrum ranging from roles at small independent firms, to founding and scaling the UK’s largest independent digital and CRM agency. 

Impact of AI on marketing efficiency 

We all know AI has created waves in the marketing industry, and this webinar taught attendees how they can deliver more impact with their work by harnessing the tools on offer. Baggott highlighted that AI and automation help marketers save time on manual tasks, with 90% of marketers reporting reduced manual work and 79% increased creativity. He discussed how AI is changing job roles in the marketing industry, with some roles becoming more in-demand and others less so. AI is a huge industry change, the biggest one in Baggott’s 35-year marketing career, and it has grown staggeringly quickly. 

Most marketers have used AI tools in some way, whether its ChatGPT, or experimenting with creating some videos. And now, marketers are doing more and more with AI, and just about every software is adding in AI functionality too. It has the ability to assist or automate lots of existing marketing practises, and Baggott covered a few during the webinar. 

However, Baggott also pointed out the limitations of AI, such as inaccuracies and biases, and explained that to negate this, marketers must always keep humans in the loop to ensure you maintain quality in your work.

Data and technology drivers of AI adoption

Baggott reflected on the rapid adoption of AI tools, noting that three years ago, few marketers were using AI, but now almost everyone is. He attributed the rapid adoption to the availability of data, advancements in IT processing power, and the simplicity of AI tools.

Data is very important for AI to work effectively. Not only are we capturing more first party data within our own businesses through digital interactions, but also the entire knowledge of the world is effectively available for free online, so AI models like ChatGPT or Gemini can access it to build these models. 

Every time you ask ChatGPT a question, it doesn’t understand the question. And it doesn’t understand the answer. It builds a predictive model that searches the internet and comes back to you with an answer in real time. And it does it incredibly fast. 

The predictive modelling technique used by AI tools uses neural networks, which have been around for decades but are now more effective due to wide data access and processing power.
Another reason for the accelerated adoption of AI tools is the simplicity of them. They require minimal technical proficiency to use, making them accessible to a wide range of users.

AI’s application in marketing 

Baggott defined AI as a machine's ability to perform cognitive functions associated with the human brain, including interacting, problem-solving, and creativity. The concept of machine learning means AI models learn from experiences and adapt over time, creating better output results quicker.

Baggot introduced various popular AI tools like ChatGPT, Gemini, and Claude, many of which you will be familiar with. AI tools have many applications in marketing, including personalisation at scale and helping marketers create more content. AI can also be used to gather data analytics, automate tasks, or manage paid search campaigns. 

AI in search 

Baggott explained the impact of AI-generated introductions on Google search and their effect on click-through rates, with many users getting all the information they need from an AI overview, and therefore no longer clicking onto websites. He highlighted the importance of optimising content for AI tools like ChatGPT by structuring content in a question-and-answer format, and the similarities with traditional SEO strategies.

Google's AI-driven tool for managing paid search campaigns, Performance Max, was introduced during the webinar. The tool uses a test and learn methodology to improve the efficiency of your campaigns and reduce the time that you spend doing it, so it has many benefits for even the smallest of brands.

AI in social media 

The webinar also covered the use of AI in social media, including making content, sentiment tracking, and managing paid social media ads. The use of AI in managing social media ads works very similar to Google’s Performance Max campaigns, with Meta, Reddit, TikTok, LinkedIn, Pinterest, etc. all having their own versions of it.

AI can also automate your targeting; it will find people who have responded to your campaigns in the past and will target similar people. But it will also keep learning every time somebody clicks on the ad, or doesn't click on the ad, and it will go back and recalibrate the model, so it'll get more efficient over time. So, leaving AI tools to run for a while will achieve maximum efficiency, and mean less manual work for you.

Baggott also demonstrated the various tools available for content generation, from simple phone apps like CapCut to sophisticated tools like Adobe Firefly and Canva.

Predictive analytics and automation 

In the session, Baggot explained the concept of predictive modelling and its application in marketing: if you've got a data set, you can often use that data to predict other outcomes. You can predict which customers are likely to spend more money with you, or which people with a contract are likely to cancel, or which employees are likely to become future chief executives.

You can use of data to predict customer behaviour, revenue flows, and employee performance. One of the advantages of AI models over traditional predictive models is that they can be updated in real-time and adapt to changing conditions.

AI tools can also automate asks for you, for example content testing. AI can test multiple variants of a web page and quickly identify the most effective elements, rather than you carrying out A/B content testing and then analysing those results.  

The future of digital marketing 

You can utilise AI tools for a variety of things to drive the impact of your marketing, although Baggott highlighted opportunities in content management and data analytics, as these areas are often underutilised and offer significant benefits. Machine learning in AI allows models to adapt and improve over time, meaning they will keep getting better at assisting us.

The role of digital marketers is changing, with more tasks performed in-house now and AI affecting many junior roles, making the market extremely competitive. Baggott advised marketing professionals to develop their AI skills and emphasised the importance of keeping a human in the loop to ensure consistency with brand voice and style.

Want to take your AI skills a step further? Sign up for CIM’s AI in Marketing training course to learn all about AI and emerging digital tech to improve customer experiences, drive data-driven insights and create and optimise content. CIM members can also watch back this webinar on demand now.