Implementing AI in Your Marketing Tech Stack — Tips and Tricks You Need to Know

Long before ChatGPT, I worked with clients who used AI and machine learning to speed up data analysis at scale. Their enthusiasm about AI’s ability to improve everything from business operations to AI marketing funnels piqued my interest.

So when ChatGPT took over the news cycle, after my initial skepticism, I haven’t looked back.

While it’s always important to take AI with a grain of salt, it provides companies of all sizes opportunities to personalize marketing, deepen customer intimacy, and improve the efficiency and effectiveness of marketing programs.

More importantly, it lowers the barrier to entry for sophisticated marketing efforts, improving the way we can interact with and build on customer relationships. So let’s get into how you can incorporate AI into your marketing funnel.

Table of Contents

• AI and the Marketing Funnel
• Understanding The Buyer Journey
• How to Build a Marketing Funnel With AI
• Tips for Making the Most of AI in Your Marketing Funnel and MarTech Operations

AI and the Marketing Funnel

Before you and I have any conversation about how AI can improve the marketing funnel, let’s make sure we’re on the same page about what marketing funnels are and how they work.

Why?

I strongly feel that before you can automate something, you need a solid understanding of how it works so you know the expected outcomes.

Without that foundation, you can’t know if AI recommendations are any good, you can’t identify what’s working and what’s not, and it’s tough to find a solution that works.

So, at a high level, let’s agree that the entire purpose of a marketing funnel — or flywheel — is to map out each stage of the buyer journey and then improve the way customers move through it.

From there, we can look at the different ways that AI can improve aspects of the marketing funnel — including the buyer journey (and far beyond it).

Understanding The Buyer Journey

Here’s a quick recap of what the buyer journey typically looks like, the types of tasks that are associated with it, and the opportunities for AI marketing funnel optimization.

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Awareness Stage

During this phase, prospective buyers are aware of a problem but may not yet know the solution and search for information to understand their pain points.

Marketing Tasks & Challenges

Marketers working through awareness stage tactics spend time:

• Identifying target audiences and key messages.
• Understanding buyer pain points.
• Creating and optimizing content that speaks to problems and solutions.

So, where are the challenges? Some of the struggles I see other marketers face — and have struggled with myself — include:

• Analyzing whether or not we’re reaching the right audience.
• Ensuring content speaks to different segments and pain points.
• Generating leads — the holy grail!

AI Marketing Funnel Opportunities

I’ve seen AI make a significant difference when it comes to prospecting and lead scoring. I’m working with a client to develop some new programs, and we’ve found the “Likely to Engage” score in ZoomInfo helpful for identifying the best possible targets for initial contact.

Some of the other ways I’ve seen AI help in the awareness stage include:

• Segmenting audiences. This makes it easier to target specific groups based on shared interests, demographics, or problems.
• Personalizing content. AI can identify existing content, push it to the right audience at the right time, and identify opportunities to tailor it for those audiences based on data analysis.
• Ad targeting. Ads can be targeted based on the likelihood of engagement and lookalike audiences.
• Using predictive analytics. This helps determine which content, channels, and formats are most likely to pay off.

Pro tip: Use AI to identify where customers are and deliver the right message at the right time.

Adam Tishman, co-founder of Helix Sleep, says, “AI allows us to know which customers are in which marketing funnel stage by using historical data to categorize them based on their behavior.” He shares that this has led to a 32% increase in engagement.

Consideration Stage

At this stage, buyers are solution-aware. They know solutions to their problem exist and are actively evaluating their options but may not be familiar with your specific product or service yet.

Marketing Tasks & Challenges

If you’re a marketer tackling buyers in the consideration stage, you’re probably focused on:

• Developing and distributing content that helps buyers evaluate options, such as product comparisons, case studies, and expert guides.
• Tracking engagement across channels to gauge interest levels.
• Nurturing leads with personalized email campaigns or retargeting ads.

Common obstacles that can make this stage challenging include:

• Determining which leads are genuinely interested versus those who are just browsing.
• Providing the right information at the right time without overwhelming leads.
• Balancing personalization with scale, especially with a large volume of leads.

AI Marketing Funnel Opportunities

AI offers several advantages for optimizing the consideration stage, such as:

• Lead scoring. This can help you prioritize high-potential prospects.
• Content recommendations. AI can identify which content is most engaging and suggest the next best content to keep them moving through the funnel.
• Automated email nurturing. AI can segment leads and deliver content based on specific triggers without requiring constant manual input.
• Behavior analysis. Assesses buyer intent and helps you adjust messaging based on real time interest levels.

Pro tip: Don’t rely completely on AI — the personal touch still matters.

Roland Jakob of Blazekin.Media shares, “AI spots patterns and predicts actions, but it’s on us to craft messaging that resonates personally. In my early experiences with AI, I relied on it too much for customer interactions.

It’s tempting to automate everything, but I quickly realized that complicated conversations and decisions need a human touch.”

Decision Stage

By the decision stage, buyers understand their problem, know the potential solutions, and are evaluating providers. They’re comparing products, seeking validation through demos or testimonials, and are ready to make a final decision.

Marketing Tasks & Challenges

If you’re working on initiatives to help buyers make a final decision, you may have already handed the lead over to the sales team, who focuses on:

• Offering product demos, trials, or consultations to build confidence.
• Personalizing discounts or promotions to help close deals.
• Addressing buyer objections and providing quick answers to final questions.

While marketing supports the decision stage with content, the biggest problems your company faces at this stage are usually sales-related:

• Closing high-intent leads effectively without seeming overly aggressive.
• Personalizing the buying experience while ensuring consistency.
• Following up at appropriate intervals.

AI Marketing Funnel Opportunities

Because so much of the challenge here relies on timing and further building the relationship, some of the ways AI can help you streamline the decision-making process include:

• Predictive conversions. Identify which leads are most likely to convert, allowing for more effective prioritization of high-potential customers.
• Personalized offers. Identify interested prospects based on previous behaviors to increase the likelihood of conversion.
• Automated follow-ups. Ensure high-intent leads get the right message at the right time.
• Chatbot support. Handle common buyer questions and objections in real-time, supporting purchase decisions.

Pro tip: Use AI to fine-tune timing and personalization to improve conversions.

John Pennypacker, vice president of sales and marketing at Deep Cognition, explains how AI has transformed his team’s approach to conversions. “We use AI-powered lead scoring to prioritize high-potential leads and AI content optimization tools to fine-tune messaging,” he says.

By combining predictive insights with tailored offers, his team increased content engagement by 35% in just two months.

Onboarding, Engagement, and Retention

While not technically part of the buyer journey, onboarding your customers and keeping them engaged is an important part of marketing operations. People are more likely to stick around if they use and like your product.

What’s more, getting new customers costs significantly more than retaining existing ones, meaning customer experience is one of the most important places to invest marketing dollars.

In fact, B2B marketers devote more energy to deepening relationships with existing companies than nurturing new leads and serious opportunities.

Marketing Tasks & Challenges

As a marketer who often works with CX teams to improve retention and customer satisfaction, I’ve found that this stage often involves:

• Following up with customers to ensure satisfaction and offer support.
• Creating opportunities for upsells, cross-sells, and loyalty rewards.
• Gathering feedback through surveys or reviews to improve the customer experience.

Some of the primary challenges include:

• Keeping the engagement momentum building.
• Identifying the right moments to suggest upsells or cross-sells.
• Recognizing and addressing signs people aren’t engaged early.

AI Marketing Funnel Opportunities

In my opinion, while AI has tremendous potential during the buyer stages, some of its most important impact relates to post-purchase nurturing and retention. Some of the ways it can help include:

• Automated personalized follow-ups. These will be based on purchase history, engagement, and likely behaviors.
• Behavior monitoring. Doing so will help detect opportunities for upselling or cross-selling based on previous purchases and browsing patterns.
• Churn prediction. Identify customers showing signs of disengagement or dissatisfaction and trigger actions to keep them engaged.
• Personalized product and resource recommendations. These will Improve customer experience and increase lifetime value.

Pro tip: Use AI to help customers feel valued and understood.

Consultant Nora Sudduth points out, “AI shines when used to segment audiences and deliver personalized experiences that allow the relationship to deepen.”

How to Build a Marketing Funnel With AI

With those insights in mind and a deeper understanding of the challenges marketers face at each stage of the marketing funnel, I want you to know that there’s no one right way to build or optimize your marketing funnel with AI.

I know that you’ve probably already got some marketing funnel components in place — most people aren’t starting at zero. And restarting from the ground up is a nuclear option that I rarely recommend unless your systems are fundamentally broken.

With that in mind, I’m sharing a toolkit below. You can pick and choose any of these elements to enhance what you’re already using.

Step 1: Map and analyze your current funnel.

Why is this Step 1? The best place to start is by gaining a solid understanding of what you have now, what’s working, and where you have the biggest opportunities — or the low-hanging fruit.

By mapping out your funnel and every touchpoint, you can identify strengths, weaknesses, and opportunities to optimize. AI speeds this up, giving you something to react to so you can adapt and adjust as you go.

If you use HubSpot, Breeze is an incredible tool to help you gain insights into your entire funnel — including all aspects of the customer journey. Google Analytics and Search Console are other fantastic tools that can help identify which pages perform well and where you have opportunities to optimize.

Depending on which email marketing program you use, you can also get detailed reporting on open and conversion rates.

Pro tip: Map your customer journey with AI.

Arthur Favier, founder and CEO of Oppizi, shares, “You’ve got all these stages — Awareness, Consideration, Decision, Retention — and each one has its own set of challenges. AI steps in to spot where people are dropping off and why. Maybe your potential customers love the content you’re putting out, but they’re getting lost right before making a decision.”

Step 2: Identify, define, and segment your audience.

What I really love about using AI for this stage is that it can confirm your gut feeling about your audience. Once you define who your top clients or customers are, you can use AI tools like Breeze and Copy.ai to get insights into your target market segments, trends, purchase behavior, and content preferences.

I also love using generative AI like ChatGPT or Claude to analyze customer conversations and reviews to get deeper insights into how they talk about their problems.

Pro tip: Use AI to get precise audience segmentation and targeting.

Dominick Tomanelli, co-founder and CEO of Promobile Marketing, says, “One of the first things I do is look at how AI can help us segment our audience.”

Tomanelli notes these aren’t just generic groups, like “males 25-35” here. AI can break it down into the smallest details, like “males 25-35 who’ve shown interest in sustainable products and have visited our site more than three times in the last month.”

“This kind of precision lets us serve content that’s hyper-relevant, and that’s how we keep people engaged,” Tomanelli says.

Step 3: Identify and tailor your message.

Step 2 and Step 3 go hand-in-hand. Once you know your audience and how they think about their problems, you can start tailoring your messaging to speak directly to their needs.

Where Breeze and Copy.ai can help you ensure that you’re tailoring your message to their needs, other AI content tools like Jasper and ChatGPT can suggest message themes, helping to craft content that resonates with different audience segments.

Step 4: Catalog your content and identify opportunities for repurposing.

The best way to personalize content isn’t creating an entire library of new information — it starts with making the most out of the content you’re already creating.

While you can use generative AI here, in my opinion, Breeze offers a better solution because it’s designed to work with your audience insights to help you deliver consistent, targeted experiences.

Wondering what this looks like?

AI-driven content analysis can reveal that a popular blog post might perform well as a lead magnet or that a webinar could be repurposed as short-form videos or infographics for social media. Or, it might find that it performs well as a series of emails dripped out.

Step 5: Automate lead nurturing.

AI-driven lead nurturing takes carefully designed paths and puts them on steroids, delivering content based on each lead’s activity and engagement level.

AI-enabled tools like HubSpot’s Marketing Hub, Adobe Marketo, or ActiveCampaign can trigger follow-ups and content offers automatically.

AI tools can monitor engagement signals and send relevant follow-ups when leads are most likely to take action, increasing conversion chances.

Pro tip: Timing is everything.

Rafikuzzaman Khan, co-founder and COO of Microters, says, “I’ve been personally using AI to create funnels, and AI tools allow me to analyze data in real-time and develop customer personas almost instantly. We’ve seen conversion rates increase by up to 40% when we use AI to design funnels that speak directly to the customer’s needs.”

Step 6: Analyze and optimize.

Anyone who thinks marketing doesn’t change has their head in the sand — that’s a flag I’ll happily wave. The market is always changing, customer expectations are evolving, and technology is continually maturing and leaping.

That means that you can’t set and forget any of your marketing efforts and expect consistent performance. What worked five years ago isn’t working today — and what’s working today won’t cut it 3-5 years from now.

So what do you do? Continually analyze performance using any of the tools I’ve named here and use the resulting insights to find opportunities to fine-tune targeting, messaging, and content based on performance metrics.

Pro tip: Use GA4 purchase probability to identify customers likely to buy.

Victor Karpenko, founder and CEO of SEOProfy, says, “GA4 has some amazing AI features for predictive analysis. You can set up a few filters to get insights that’ll boost your repeat purchases and optimize your marketing spend. Try creating segments based on purchase probability and predicted revenue.”

Tips for Making the Most of AI in Your Marketing Funnel and MarTech Operations

AI is an incredible tool to have in your arsenal — but it’s just that — a tool that can make you a more effective marketer (or marketing department). Here’s some top advice on how to use AI in your marketing funnel based on expert advice.

Identify which tools you already have.

If you’re using a MarTech tool, there’s a good chance it now has some AI capabilities. And while I know how tempting it is to chase shiny objects because they’re so exciting, every new tool you add to your tech stack adds complexity to your operations and processes — and another line item to your budget.

To stave off tech bloat, before you add new tools into the mix, evaluate the AI capabilities you already have access to. And when you do need new tools, look first for tools that have native integrations with your existing platforms — or that can easily integrate through Zapier or open API.

Pro tip: Choose the right tools for the job.

Khan says, “The biggest mistake most brands make is implementing too many AI tools at once, which leads to disorganization and inefficiency.”

Personalize at every stage of the funnel.

I’ve seen so many people beat the personalization drum. However, until AI, very few companies did it well due to the sheer volume of content needed. AI is the great equalizer — AI-powered personalization increases engagement and builds stronger customer relationships.

Pro tip: Tailor content based on real-time engagement.

Villam Karasti of Pardott says doing so has led to a 25% increase in response rates.

“I use Breeze Copilot to analyze engagement data and trigger personalized workflows. When leads reach specific engagement thresholds, they’re automatically entered into tailored sequences. The platform’s lead scoring and buyer intent features help me focus on high-potential leads while automating repetitive tasks like follow-ups and email sequences,” Karasti says.

Get really good at writing prompts.

As generative AI grows increasingly sophisticated, you don’t need to engineer prompts quite the way you did when it was first introduced. However, it’s still important to understand how to best interact with platforms like ChatGPT.

One of the best courses I’ve taken to date was AI for Copywriters by The Copywriter Club — I learned so much about how generative AI works and some of its capabilities.

Pro tip: Use bite-sized prompts.

Lori Highby of Keystone Click notes that asking for an entire marketing plan produces results, but they’re not well-thought-out.

“For example, rather than asking AI to create an entire marketing funnel, start by asking AI to gather data on your target audience, their pain points, and their typical customer journey. This will help you determine the next steps related to creating content that resonates with that audience while nurturing and guiding them through their preferred customer journey,” Highby says.

Automate repetitive tasks.

If you’ve spent any amount of time diving into AI and marketing funnel optimization, then you already know that one of its best features is its ability to automate repetitive tasks. So if there’s something you do that takes a ton of time, there’s likely a way AI can streamline that part of your MarTech operations.

Looking for an example? I recently shared how I created an AI-enabled ticketing system for client projects, which streamlined the project planning and assignment process. It also included setting up documents in Google Drive in specific folders, which I found to be one of the most cumbersome aspects of the process.

Pro tip: The best part of AI doesn’t have to be the complicated stuff — it can be about simplifying the simple stuff.

Sudduth shares, “One of the best use cases for AI is doing the heavy lifting on simple, repetitive, otherwise time-consuming tasks. AI-driven automation workflows can send specific follow-up emails after a certain trigger, schedule out social media posts, push an email cadence to nurture a segment of your email list, and so much more.”

Know where AI stops and your brain starts.

I’ve seen a lot of fear out there that AI is out to get our jobs.

And like with any modernization project, some jobs will be automated, while even more will be created because AI is only a tool.

You and I have two things it never will — humanity and creativity, and that’s what’s needed to manage your marketing funnel.

Pro tip: Treat AI as an assistant, not a replacement.

Abraham Ernesto, co-founder of GiantFocal, shares, “No one can deny that AI is an incredible assistant in the marketing space. However, I don‘t think AI can replace the ‘creative mind’ that plans the entire marketing funnel, or at least no AI in the market today can. The strategic decisions that drive the funnel’s overall plan still rely on human creativity and intuition.”

AI is the future of marketing funnels.

Despite the fact that there’s no one best way to use AI in marketing funnels, there are a few areas to steer clear of. Strangely enough, they lie in the extremes: not using AI at all and using AI for everything.

The best practices lie in the middle, where we balance AI with human insight. Small adjustments are the best place to start — they allow you to get a sense of AI’s capabilities without overwhelming your processes or team.

At the end of the day, one thing is abundantly clear — anyone not willing to test and iterate with AI is going to be left behind. So here’s to the future of marketing, where AI is more than just a tool — it’s the key to creating more dynamic, responsive, and impactful marketing funnels.