AI is everywhere, but when is it useful? What do you need to know about it?
How are marketers and SEO professionals actually using generative AI today to work more efficiently and execute better campaigns?
With search engines announcing new AI integrations and thousands of AI tools coming online every day, it can be tough to sort the fabulous from the flops.
In our upcoming webinar, you can find out how others are adapting to these recent changes and making the most of AI.
Get the latest on:
How AI is impacting search right now & predictions on the future.
How SEO pros and marketers are adapting to the latest AI & Google changes.
Answers to your questions on how to use generative AI and large language models in modern marketing.
Join Angie Nikoleychuk, Content Marketing Manager at Search Engine Journal, as she sits down with Matt Southern, our Senior News Writer, and Jennifer McDonald, our Client Success Manager to talk about the:
Latest search-related AI news.
Best generative AI tools.
Answers to your questions about marketing and SEO-related AI.
The SEJ team will also share their best tips for testing and adopting new AI tools.
SEO, Marketing & AI: Your Questions Answered By Our Experts
1.
2. From Science Fiction
To Marketing Reality:
Exploring The Impact
Of AI
Jennifer McDonald
Matt G. Southern
3. Matt G. Southern
What Is AI?
Artificial Intelligence refers to a broad field of computer science aimed at creating
systems capable of performing tasks that usually require human intelligence.
4. Matt G. Southern
What Is Generative AI?
Generative AI is a subfield of AI.
It learns from data and uses that learning to
create new content or predictions.
Think GPT-4 developed by OpenAI, which can
generate human-like text that is contextually
relevant and highly sophisticated.
5. Poll
● Have you used Generative AI?
○ Not at all
○ I’ve tested a few things out of interest
○ About once a month
○ Once a week
○ Multiple times per week
○ Once a day
○ Multiple times per day
6. Matt G. Southern
How Far Has Generative AI Come?
Timeline of AI Developments:
● Logic Theorist (Dartmouth Conference, 1956)
● AI systems & Eliza effect (1960s-1970s)
● AI Winter (1980s)
● Deep Blue victory (1997)
● Watson victory (2011)
● Rise of Deep Learning (2010s)
● Progress in AI fields & AGI Challenge (2022)
● Search (2023)
7. Jennifer McDonald
How Is Generative AI Changing
Digital Marketing?
Improved Productivity
○ Faster output of narrow tasks saves mental
energy
Improved Connection
○ Stronger understanding of personas,
demographics, & language.
Improved Ideation
○ Pushes leaping-off point farther down the field.
Improved Funnels
○ Deeper, more powerful campaigns.
Improved Beginner Content
○ SMBs & Solopreneurs now able to create
content that’s up to industry standards.
8. Poll
● What areas of marketing have you tried using AI in?
○ SEO
○ PPC/Paid Media
○ Content Creation
○ Email Marketing
○ Marketing Strategy
○ Operations
○ Sales
○ Social Media
○ Personal Life
○ Other (Answer in the comments!)
9. When Is Generative AI Useful In
Digital Marketing?
Advanced/Trained language model uses:
Proprietary, more realistic customer service chatbots
Generate accurate sales forecasts & campaign performance forecasts with in-house data
Predictive nurture pathing & personalized upselling through consumer pattern recognition
Discovery of customer churn & creation of hyper-targeted sales content towards “swing” customers
SEO
High-engagement title generation
Grouping unstructured content
Keyword strategy & cluster validation
Keyword & copy intent validation
Link building outreach
Organic link building content research
EEAT content recaps
Content
Topic ideation & content gap identification
Content outlines & structure
First draft creation
Image & video creation
Product image background generation
Audience tone validation
Hyper-personalized email generation
Sales
Script creation
Predictive hurdles & proactive sales content
Product description creation
Paid Media
Personalized & powerful ad creation
Strategy
Project outlining & research
Audience verification
Creation of brand stories
IT & AI
Prompt creation
Code generation
Code validation
06/2023
10. When Is Generative AI Harmful In
Digital Marketing?
Data Privacy & Proprietary information protection
○ Samsung confidential data leak
Content Accuracy
○ Lawyer faces court hearing: Gen AI cited 6 legal
cases that did not exist.
“Total-AI” Content
○ While Google does not directly penalize
AI-generated content, it does praise EEAT
content, which gen AI cannot create.
Jennifer McDonald
12. Tips For Testing & Adopting New
AI Tools
Crawl, Then Walk, Then Run
○ Start with simple tasks & learn how your business can augment AI output
with human-centric connections.
Use The Cyborg Approach
○ Heart, emotions & experiences of a human, speed of a machine/CPU.
Efficacy Comparison
○ At the end of each project or task, input your OG idea into AI.
○ See how close it is to your final human-result.
○ Select areas that you can take off of your plate to use AI for.
Take Trials
○ Use trials of multiple tools; don’t settle on a single tool.
Make AI Your Best Friend
○ Spend 5 minutes each day using AI for non-work questions and tasks to build
your personal database of potential search uses.
Start An AI Committee
○ Task individuals to ideate around ethics, use cases, business research, and
education.
Think Of AI As Your Co-pilot/Personal Assistant
○ What would you ask them to do for you? Can AI kickstart that task for you?
Jennifer McDonald
14. Matt Southern & Jennifer McDonald
Predictions
• Small business & Solopreneurs will see the faster success.
• First-party data will have a more accessible & robust home, allowing for a
resurgence of hyper-targeted marketing.
• Better audience connection through predictive problem-solving.
• “Total-AI” content will be naturally demoted, due to its duplicatory nature;
personal experience and human touch will be the key differentiator.
• Hyper-niche content will get a chance to shine in search results.
• AI will bring a level of personalization to SERPs like we’ve never seen before.