I specialize in content marketing in the pet industry. Our clients are small businesses and or solopreneurs. I started exploring ChatGPT last year and for this year, my goal is to improve that skill so I can help our clients integrate AI tools in their marketing efforts.

What tools and courses can you recommend for my professional development and tools our clients can easily integrate and is cost effective? Any tips on selling that idea to existing clients without making it sound too complicated and technical? Thanks!

There are so many AI tools out there right now.

Which one has impressed you the most that you think is the best for marketers?

Just want to know what all tools are popularly used.

This question is for those people who achieved a level in the field of paid Marketing (digital ads).

• Which tools/tech you use • For why

Your reply may make life easy of other marketer.

Hey everyone! I’m not a marketing expert, but I’m really curious about which AI tools people are using in their marketing work. So far, I’ve been using ChatGPT for pretty much everything since it’s super affordable, but I’m wondering if there are other tools out there that are truly worth paying for.

Have you found any AI tools that have genuinely made a difference in your marketing strategy? Or are you, like me, sticking with more general options like ChatGPT? Would love to hear your experiences and recommendations.

There are so many AI tools available for marketers right now, and it's hard to know which ones actually make a difference for my day to day work. Whether it's content creation, campaign optimization, or go-to-market which AI tool has made the most impact on your marketing? I want to know which tools you've tried that really helped streamline your processes, saved time, or boosted your results. Looking forward to hearing your experiences!

AI is transforming digital marketing. A few tools that really help:

Copy & Content: ChatGPT, Jasper, Copy.ai

Design & Visuals: Canva AI, Runway, MidJourney and Leonardo.

Social Media & Analytics: Lately.ai, Hootsuite Insights

Email Marketing: Seventh Sense, ActiveCampaign AI

Use AI to save time and enhance creativity, not replace strategy. What AI tools have you tried that actually work in SEO?

I have been researching on what can be automated and what not. Would like to know the best tools and your experience with it. If possible, do share your use case for all platforms you have used it for. TIA

I run an AI tools directory and I've tested and curated a list of over 1000 AI tools, a grand total of 135 of which are directly related to digital marketing. Note- I'm not going to go over any AI copywriting tools, as these are quite common at this point. Regardless- Here are some of my top picks and what I'm currently using for my own business, and how you can incorporate them effectively in your campaigns:

Ocoya - Generate Ad Creatives/Graphics, Content Automation/Scheudling\

For me- having one tool to do it all is always great, if not for the simple added benefit of not having to swtich tabs all the time- however Ocoya does that but actually well. Essentially you can use this app to not only generate text for social media posts, but also graphics that align with your branding (the graphics are Canva-tier, if not better). One of my favorite features is the RSS feed automation- where you can give it a few RSS feeds (essentially links that track specific news sites) and anytime a new article is published, Ocoya will generate captions for you based on your prompts for writing style, voice, and brand guidelines. It can then save them as drafts or directly publish on your socials. This has got to be one of my most favorite features by far as it really takes out the time I previously spent tracking multiple news sources for my AI directory to post on social media. For $20/mo, you do get quite a bit of bang for your buck here and it works with most major social media platforms like FB, IG, X, Linkedin, Tiktok, etc.

My AskAI - AI Assisted Inbound Marketing with Chatbots

This tool allows you to connect a custom knowledge base with GPT. Basically, you upload any documents, webpages, or data from Google Drive/Notion, and My AskAI trains a custom bot on this. Essentially what you get at the end is a ChatGPT chatbot that is knowledgeable about your own business, and deflects questions that are unrelated to it- making it suitable for accurate answers around the clock.

In the past, you would have had to design chatbot flows that required very specific answers to advance through the conversation, and oftetimes these types of chatbots cause more harm than good by frustrating users, and create little to no value compared to a simple webpage. Now, you can have a chatbot on your website that can take inputs from your user in natural language, and return a response in natural language as well. By reducing the amount of time it takes for a visitor to find the information they need, having something like this can reduce bounce rates and increase conversions- it's a lot simpler to ask an AI exactly what you need rather than go through potentially 5 or more clicks to get to the same information.

Something that is key to note is that you can integrate your chatbots with messaging platforms like Messenger, Whatsapp, and Telegram with My AskAI's API or even its Zapier integration- this is key as not all visitors may be accessing a chatbot through your website. Another thing to keep in mind of is good prompt engineering- the data sources help GPT craft factual answers but prompting is really what's needed to customize the tone/brand voice of the chatbot as well as set some ground rules for answering questions- you can easily edit this in the settings and I would play around a bit with prompts until you can get what you want. If you aren't familiar with prompting, disregard everyone who calls it engineering- you literally just tell the AI what you want. Finally, you can capture lead info (name and addresses) and access this through your dashboard (which also icnludes an analytics tab to get summary data on what users are asking about). Great and powerful little tool that I would recommend if you are looking for a lowkey way to spice up your inbound marketing.

Plus AI - Inbound Marketing by Having AI Generate Webinars and Online Workshops

While providing webinars/training workshops can be a great way to provide education while also introducing your own products/offerings, creating presentation materials for these events are in most cases a time consuming process. However, there's some quick and easy ways to automate 95% of the grunt work for you now. My current workflow is using ChatGPT to generate a script for a webinar based on the information I need to get through to the audience, revising and double checking it, and finally pasting this into Plus AI (free Google Slides extension) and having it generate my slides for me. Basically, you'll want to choose their "text to presentation" option, and paste in your ChatGPT generated text under "what your presentation is about". From there, you can choose a template and Plus AI will automatically generate the slides for you. Another way to approach this if you have a specific structure to your slide deck that you want, is pasting the text you need for each section (can be an unformatted long blob of text)- and using Plus AI's remix feature to have it design the slide for you. This works great especially if you have very specific information you want to present on each slide. Overall, this is a great little tool that can vastly reduce the amount of work it takes to create materials for courses/webinars/etc.

Markopolo - AI Optimization for PPC Campaigns

Lets you to consolodiate multiple ad platforms including Meta, Google, and Linkedin into one platform where you can have AI optimize ads for you automatically. For small businesses, freelancers, and solo entrepreneurs especially, it really helps you cut down on the amount of manual input and guess-work when it comes to running PPC campaigns. The analytics dashboard is are much more intuitive than what Meta and Google have. It only shows you what you need, and does this for all of your platforms in a single tab. Their retargeting technology also uses server-side pixels, so this lets you overcome device/browser restrictions and gives you much better data, which feeds into their regarteting. While I'm unsure how exactly the AI works for ad optimization, the performance speaks for itself and works in conjunction with Markopolo's automation features, here you can pre-set rules for actions on ads- such as pausing campaigns with bad metrics. It's a powerful tool especially for smaller businesses who may not be able to afford an agency or hire in house to simply PPC work. While its a paid tool, it does have a free trial to let you test the waters a bit.

1. Octane11 AI – Unified analytics layer that connects marketing, sales, and finance data.

2. Writer – Enterprise AI writing with governance and style controls.

3. Copyai – Automated content workflows and AI ops automation.

4. Holo AI – Advanced AI assistant for structured content creation, long-form ideation, and workflow automation. Great for teams building custom models or proprietary content engines.

5. Descript – AI editing, overdub, and content repurposing.

6. Tavus – Personalized AI video at scale.

7. Unbounce Smart Copy – AI for landing page testing and optimization.

8. PunttAI – AI marketing compliance and creative review tool.

9. Clearbit – AI-enriched data for segmentation and targeting.

10. Instacamp – AI-driven social content engines for brands.

11. AdCreativeai– AI ad creative, UGC variations, and headlines.

12. Vidyoai – AI repurposing into short-form content.

13. SurferSEO AI – AI-optimized SEO content generator.

14. MarketMuse – AI content intelligence and topic gap analysis.

15. Mutinex – AI-powered marketing mix modeling.

16. BlackSharkai – Synthetic data generation for visual marketing.

17. RedditSwap AI – AI testing for Reddit ad variations.

18. VWO SmartStats – AI-assisted experimentation and CRO.

19. Segment Personas AI – AI-driven customer segmentation.

20. Relevance AI – No-code AI agents for marketing ops and data workflows.

21. Affinity AI – Relationship intelligence for B2B revenue teams.

22. Lavender – AI that upgrades sales email performance.

23. Seamlessai – AI-powered B2B contact sourcing.

24. Crayon AI – Competitive intelligence automation.

25. PlayPlay AI – Auto-generated brand video creation.

26. HoppyCopy – AI lifecycle email creation and testing.

27. Superhuman AI – AI triage for outbound and sales communication.

28. Tome AI – Automated narrative and deck generation.

29. Mutateai– Automated multivariate creative testing.

I’m sharing my go to list of AI tools for coding, research, media, and lead generation. These power our client projects and internal work. Here’s what I recommend based on our experience, all opinions are mine. Some are obvious, while others not so much. Try them out or share your own picks below.

LLMs

For brainstorming, drafting, or problem-solving:

• ChatGPT: Reliable all-rounder for quick answers

• Claude: Great for detailed, safe outputs

• Gemini: Solid for multi purpose tasks

• Grok: My pick for creative, outside-the-box thinking

• Llama: Lightweight and customizable if you’re technical

• Deepseek: Underrated for deep dives and accuracy

Research

When we need data or insights fast:

• Perplexity: Our go to for quick, cited research, beats google for niche topics

• Any llms deep research mode: most llms have a research setting, we use it for client market analysis

Image Generation

For client visuals or marketing assets:

• Sora: early fave for high quality stills

• Flux: fast and flexible, we’ve used it for mockups

• Midjourney: The gold standard for polished, creative images

Video Generation

For promo videos or lead gen campaigns:

• Kling: simple and effective for short clips

• Runway: versatile for editing and generation

• Sora: promising for video (still testing)

• Hailuo: decent for quick prototypes

• Google Veo 2: high potential, we’re watching this one

Coding/Development

Where we save time building:

• Cursor: our top pick for clean, framework aligned code

• Windsurf: Lightweight and dev focused

• Replit: great for collaborative prototyping

• Bolt: fast for small projects

• Lovable: niche but useful for ui heavy work

Sound/Speech

For audio in lead gen or client demos:

• ElevenLabs: best for realistic voiceovers

• Suno: quick music generation for video backgrounds

Lead generation

For driving client growth and outreach:

• Syndr.ai: ai powered lead gen. It automates finding leads on social media

• Apollo.io: great for finding and targeting leads with AI driven filters

• Hunter.io: simple tool for scraping emails to build lead lists

• Lemlist: ai enhanced email campaigns

• Instantly: solid for scaling cold email outreach with AI optimization

• Clay: ai powered lead enrichment

There are so many AI chatbots out there, like Claude, ChatGPT, etc. When it comes to digital marketing strategies, market research, SEO, etc., which ones are the best and worst? I'm overwhelmed by how many AI chatbots there are so I'd like to know ones that won't hallucinate or give false information

Am trying different AI tools for marketing,things like content creation, SEO and optimization and email automation but there are so many options that's hard to know which one are truly worth the time and money. I'd love to hear from people who have actually used these tools in their business or for clients. Which AI marketing tools have made a real difference for you? What do you use them for? Are there underrated tools or hidden gems that more people should know about? Want honest feedback and real experience

There are hundreds of AI tools popping up every week, copywriters, idea generators, SEO assistants, video editors, and more.

But I’m curious about real-world results, not hype.

Which single AI tool has actually made a noticeable difference in your content marketing workflow?
(writing, research, visuals, automation, or analytics, anything goes)

Bonus points if you can share how you use it day-to-day or what problem it solved for you.

Let’s build a practical list that’s based on experience, not ads.

As a solopreneur and marketer, I’ve tested dozens of AI tools, and while some felt gimmicky, a few became part of my daily workflow.

I’ll go first — here are my 5 favorite AI marketing tools right now:

• ChatGPT – for content ideas, emails, and copywriting

• Surfer SEO – for AI-assisted SEO content planning

• AdCreative.ai – for generating high-converting ad creatives

• Taplio – for growing on LinkedIn with AI-generated posts

• Ocoya – for scheduling + AI content generation for socials

👉 Now your turn: Which 3-5 AI marketing tools do YOU swear by?