Author: siteadmin

I’m optimistic about the future of SEO, and I want everyone who reads this to feel the same. Of course, I can’t deny that things are changing, and I’m preparing for many major shifts over the next few years regarding AI and the future of SEO.

I’m optimistic about the future of SEO, and I want everyone who reads this to feel the same. Of course, I can’t deny that things are changing, and I’m preparing for many major shifts over the next few years regarding AI and the future of SEO.

Advancements like Google’s integration of generative AI into search are already changing the digital search landscape, and yes, we can’t deny it: people are using LLMs to solve problems and even buy products. But, to what degree is this new type of search taking over, and how do we prepare?

Many web analysts, SEO strategists, and writers are learning how to leverage AI to create stronger websites and more effective content. This will greatly alter how your competitors approach content creation — and it should alter how you approach it, too.

To shed light on the future of SEO, we’ve reached out to SEO experts at Semrush, Search Engine Journal, and HubSpot. Keep reading to learn how you should prepare your SEO strategy for 2025 and beyond. And if you want to learn more about the latest in marketing, check out our latest State of Marketing Report.

Predictions on the Future of SEO, and How You Should Prepare [Data + Expert Insights]

There’s no doubt that with the rise of AI, the future of SEO can feel uncertain, but after working in this industry for over ten years, I can honestly say I’m not worried. SEO has always been uncertain and ever-changing; that’s what makes it so exciting, challenging, and, yes, admittedly, a bit stressful at times.

I was very careful with the predictions I included in this article. I desperately wanted to balance the narrative about AI and the future of SEO. Please read all the predictions and remember to consider that two things can be true at once:

• AI is great and impactful.
• AI has its limitations.

1. The LLM hype will peak.

I’m going to start with this prediction because I think it instantly adds balance to this discussion.

I know I’m not alone in thinking that AI, generative content, and marketing shortcuts are not always what they seem. The problem is that the hype around AI, the promise of faster, better, and cheaper, is muddying the water. Online, it feels like the benefits of AI are shared far more than the consequences of over-reliance.

With the overly optimistic outlook about AI’s role in the future of SEO, even I can feel under pressure and challenged by clients who, unbeknownst to them, are asking for a sub-par process using AI because someone on LinkedIn shared their AI miracle.

Let me tell you: I was relieved when experienced and respected SEO Mark Williams-Cook shared his thoughts on LLMs and a prediction that we’re near the peak of where we’re going to be with LLMs.

Williams-Cook is the director of Candour and founder of AlsoAsked. I’ve been following Williams-Cook for years on LinkedIn and have always appreciated his contribution to SEO, which includes his unsolicited SEO tips and well-rounded, well-researched, and sophisticated take on the SEO landscape.

With twenty years of experience in SEO, he stays close to what’s happening in the industry and keeps us all updated in his newsletter, Core Updates. Williams-Cook also shares unmissable SEO insights on the Search with Candour podcast.

It’s fair to say that he’s learned a lot about how the SEO landscape changes, and importantly for this article, how people respond to new and exciting developments like AI.

Williams-Cook says, “In terms of the hype cycle, I feel we’re near the peak of where we are going to be with LLMs now. There are a couple of realities that are starting to hit home.”

Source

Williams-Cook notes that the big one is the unsolved problem of hallucinations.

“Many tasks require a series of objectively correct answers, but the very technological nature and, in fact, the ‘magic’ of LLMs, means hallucinations are unavoidable in the base models,” Williams-Cook says.

For those who don’t know, ‘hallucination’ refers to irrelevant, false, and/or inconsistent content generated from LLMs. Naturally, it reduces trust and, if unnoticed, could be catastrophic for businesses.

Below is one of the less serious but completely useless examples of hallucination. AI overviews provide the exact same phone number for a number of businesses.

Source

Williams-Cook brings some data about hallucination rates.

“OpenAI’s technical card for ChatGPT 4.5 stated a 19% hallucination rate on a test designed to catch them; however, it scored a 37% hallucination rate on SimpleQA, a standardized test that asks for facts about known entities published on websites that rank,” he says.

Williams-Cook shares that there are attempts at “grounding’ this output. Arguably, Google is best placed to do so with its extensive web index and scoring metrics. However, Williams-Cook points out that attempts to do so reliably seem to be failing to scale, with Google returning hallucinated information.

Williams-Cook continues, “While LLMs can be useful, the danger is that the public at large has no idea how these tools are working, and we’ve been trained at large to ‘trust’ Google and others as a brand for many years. When we hear ‘AI’, a lot of people will automatically think it is something ‘intelligent’, rather than a very fancy but spicy predictive text.”

According to Williams-Cook, the byproduct of generating likely text so confidently is that it sounds so believable. Studies have shown that not only are LLMs wrong a staggering amount of the time, but they are confidently wrong.

Williams-Cook told me a story where a client used AI for a scientific piece. The AI cited studies, including titles, researcher names, and even the year a study took place.

The client’s in-house expert reviewed the content. The verdict? Well, the study was a complete hallucination. It was entirely false. Because of how the AI wrote the content (with conviction), the study looked completely legitimate to the average reader.

It would be very easy to publish falsities using AI. So, marketers (and everyone) must review every word of AI. Luckily for the client, they work with educated industry experts who spotted the incorrect study. Anyone less qualified could easily have missed it. I would’ve.

Source

Williams-Cook believes that we’ll see an erosion in public trust in these tools as this becomes clearer. He points to an “agentic” future, in which AI agents can perform research and multi-step tasks completely independently. Williams-Cook speculates that this will likely end up being an entirely separate technology to LLMs, but it will still need a source of truth.

“Whichever scenario plays out, many of the principles of what we are currently doing will hold true, as they are fundamentally user-centric,” he says. Both outcomes lead to an erosion in public trust.

I believe marketers have a greater understanding of how LLMs work. In fact, for many marketers, the limitations of AI are not news. In HubSpot’s latest survey on the State of AI Marketing, marketers expressed that barriers to using AI tools included:

• Data privacy concerns. Almost half (42.67%) of people surveyed were concerned about data privacy.
• Role security concerns. Over one-quarter (25.16%) of people surveyed were concerned with security.
• Ethical or legal compliance concerns were shared by 22.05% of those surveyed.

Why I liked this prediction: As above, it brought balance. Additionally, I can absolutely see the narrative change as everyone understands the limitations of AI. I believe this will reduce the over-reliance on AI and increase the AI user’s understanding of the value of SOPs when using AI. No business should risk its brand integrity.

So, what does this mean for the future of AI and SEO?

Well, it means we have to be careful when we use AI. I often use AI as a tool. Sometimes, I generate a bit of content, and I love writing. I don’t deny it can be very useful, but a human edit is critical.

2. Conversion from LLMs will increase.

There’s certainty that conversions from LLMs will increase. The facts are, a year or two ago, we didn’t get any conversions from LLMs because they didn’t exist, so the only way is up.

Before I get into this section, it’s vital you remember that we’re still dealing with small datasets when discussing conversions from LLMs. The vast majority of search is still happening on Google. An article by Danny Goodwin in Search Engine Land rounds up a few studies and reports:

• Even if every single one of ChatGPT’s one billion daily prompts were search-related, it would still account for under 1% of global search activity.
• Only about 30% of prompts resemble traditional search behavior.
• Google handled more than 5 trillion searches in 2024 — roughly 14 billion per day — holding onto a dominant 93.57% share of the global search market.
• By comparison, ChatGPT handled around 37.5 million search-style queries each day — a tiny 0.25% slice of the pie.
• ChatGPT’s search share is less than Bing (4.10%), Yahoo (1.35%), and DuckDuckGo (0.73%).

All this said, I don’t think we can ignore the role of AI, the future of SEO, and how it impacts user behavior when considering a product or service.

I was “chatting” with ChatGPT last week about a purchase. I was torn between two brands at very different price points, and it was a conversation with ChatGPT that helped me decide which product to choose.

Nate Tower, president at Perrill, has some interesting data and insights about conversions in LLMs.

In a LinkedIn post, Tower boldly stated that “traffic from ChatGPT and Perplexity is converting at higher rates than any other channel right now.”

Tower believes that ChatGPT and other AI-driven search engines generate higher conversions because users view them and ‘talk’ to them “more like colleagues and friends.”

While the conversion rates are higher, Tower admits that “volume is really low compared to other channels, but there is a potential goldmine of high-quality users waiting for you on ChatGPT.”

I was curious about Tower’s statements and wanted to know if he had the data to support what he was saying, and he did.

Tower shared four data sets from four industries:

• B2B services.
• B2B manufacturing.
• B2B healthcare.
• SaaS.

Some of the findings from this data include:

• Across each industry, conversions from LLMs were higher.
• In the most extreme instance, LLMs converted at 7.75% for the SaaS company compared with a sitewide conversion of 0.47%.
• In many cases, LLM conversion rates were two to three times the sitewide conversion rate.
• Conversion rates have been as high as sixteen times the sitewide conversion rate.
• There are a few cases, particularly in ecommerce, where conversion rates from LLMs are not performing as high as other channels.

Tower predicts that AI search provides a huge opportunity for smaller brands to make their mark in generative engines. Tower says, “Prompts on ChatGPT and other tools are hyper-specific to the user’s needs, giving smaller brands more opportunity to appear as the top recommended option.”

Tower gives an example where a Google user might search “best CRM” or “best CRM for a manufacturing company.”

“On ChatGPT, that same user is providing a very specific prompt like ‘Please recommend a CRM for a $100M metal fabrication company with six sales reps spread out over six territories in multiple countries…’ And often the prompt is more specific than that,” Tower says.

I strongly agree with what Tower is saying here. AI search does provide an opportunity for smaller brands to reach their prospects by showcasing how they can meet their specific needs and differentiate themselves.

However, as AI search develops, I predict there will be barriers to getting visibility in the search, as we see on Google. At the moment, my experience is that the AI search, such as ChatGPT, only shows sites that are performing well in Google, meaning you need a site that can reach the top spots in Google before you’ll get visibility in AI search, and we all know that is no easy feat. Equally, as SEOs know, the algorithm is always trying to provide the best results, and often this isn’t in favor of small businesses.

Top tips:

• You can start tracking your visibility in AI search now. Take a look at Kyle Rushton McGregor’s Looker Studio AI traffic tracker.
• You can also view conversions from people who landed on a page from an AI tool and converted. The screenshot below shows the landing page report with sales made, showing the page the user landed on, the session source, and total revenue.

• You can use HubSpot’s AI Search Grader to understand how LLMs view your brand. It’s easy to use.

With HubSpot’s AI Search Grader, you’ll find your:

• Brand sentiment.
• Share of voice.
• Overview of how your brand is perceived (positive, negative, or neutral).
• General analysis.

So, what does this mean for the future of AI and SEO?

AI search is currently playing a small role in the buyer journey. Although small, early data suggests that AI search and LLMs could be quite a significant part of the decision process. We can also see that Google is by far the most used search engine, and SEOs should be mindful of this while gently pivoting strategies to increase visibility in LLMs.

So far, good SEO that takes a consumer-first approach is what helps brands secure ranks on Google and visibility in AI.

3. Audiences will still want answers from real people.

“AI will change how search works,” says Andy Crestodina of Orbit Media Studios. “You may already find it at the top of many search results.”

However, Crestodina says your audience will still look to your company for answers.

“Your audience needs your help and expertise. As subject matter experts in our niches, we can still publish helpful, useful articles and that content can still be discovered, in search results, in AI overviews, or in prompt responses in the AI apps,” he explains.

Crestodina says we are still subject matter experts in our niches and that our brands can become the most helpful resource to prospective customers. Marketers just have to adapt.

“Likely, the brand with the biggest digital footprint will win,” he says.

And Crestodina believes a brand can win by:

• Writing for many websites beyond their own blog.
• Collaborating with influencers, especially those who create content.
• Appearing on lists, directories, and podcasts.
• Conducting original research and making their site the primary source for new data.
• Doubling down on social media and email marketing.
• Recording videos and making sure the transcript includes the elevator pitch for the brand.
• Publishing true thought leadership because strong opinion is the fastest way to differentiate human-made content from AI-generated content.

In other words, show off your industry expertise while leveraging as many channels as you can to get your brand in front of your audience and in their ears.

“With a few changes to your content strategy, you may be well suited to win in the new era of content discovery, where you optimize for search, but also optimize the AI, training it to recommend your company and your content,” Crestodina says.

Top tip: If you‘re unsure how to get started on updating your content strategy in the age of AI, HubSpot’s AI Search Grader will come in handy.

It’s a first-of-its-kind, free app that quickly analyzes your brand based on what your prospects & customers are seeing across AI search engines — then gives you actionable recommendations on how to improve.

So, what does this mean for the future of AI and SEO?

Human-written content is far from over, writers, especially industry experts, are still very much in need; they are critical to a content strategy that continues to move the needle for businesses.

4. Human-written content will continue to form the basis of AI responses.

As a follow-up to the prediction above, Yannick Van Noy has some thoughts on the role human-written content plays and will continue to play in the future of SEO and AI search.

Yannick Van Noy is the founder and CEO of Alpha Strategy & Marketing. I happen to know that Van Noy’s SEO knowledge is excellent because he recently audited my work. I found his understanding of SEO to be vast, considered, in-depth, balanced, and sophisticated. We had many discussions about SEO, and one particular story stands out.

First, Van Noy’s predictions for the future of SEO and AI. He says, “In the next two to three years, I believe we’ll see a more nuanced approach to how people use search engines versus AI tools.”

Van Noy echoes Nate Tower’s point about the importance of nuance, explaining that AI shines in situations where users are dealing with complex or layered problems.

“AI is incredibly useful for tackling highly complex or nuanced problems — situations where users need a personalized solution, are debugging a technical issue, or are navigating something that doesn’t have a straightforward answer,” he says.

In these cases, AI can offer faster, more synthesized responses than traditional search, which often requires digging through dozens of links. However, Van Noy draws a clear distinction between those scenarios and more straightforward queries.

“For more conventional searches — such as finding a restaurant, shopping for products, looking up tutorials, or following instructions — Google and other search engines will remain the go-to,” he explains.

Existing search tools are already optimized for these tasks through blog posts, forums, and reviews, and AI isn’t expected to replace that. “Just like calculators didn’t replace basic arithmetic in our heads, AI won’t replace simple search habits — it’ll just fill the gaps where traditional search struggles.”

He adds that the content we create for search today — blogs, news articles, how-to guides — will continue to matter in the age of AI.

“If anything, they’ll remain a foundation for AI responses. The future will be about knowing which tool fits the job: AI for context-heavy, layered questions, and search engines for everything that’s already been well-documented and indexed,” he explained.

Van Noy has a great story to illustrate the importance of human-written content in a digital world that may move toward AI search in some instances. Van Noy and his team had an article to edit. The article was already ranking on page one, rank one, but they wanted to keep the article updated.

The team turned to AI to research the topic, but of course, with their article ranking page one, rank one, all the AI could do was regurgitate his own article back at them. The AI didn’t have new data to add anything insightful. The topic was already covered in full, so new insights needed to be added by a human.

According to HubSpot’s data from the State of Marketing, 64% of marketers surveyed are using generative AI for text-based content creation such as blogs, ebooks, marketing email copy, press releases, product descriptions, text-based social posts.

A study by Originality.ai shows that content ranking on Google that includes AI is rapidly increasing. I can see that this may continue for a while; however, we should, in theory, hit a point where human-written content is absolutely critical, and the hype around this will increase.

Source

So, what does this mean for the future of AI and SEO?

It is absolutely essential that you don’t abandon human-written and human-reviewed content. Although things look great for AI now, we know AI is limited in what it can share. While using AI, your content can only be as good as others have input. If your brand has any unique insights or pioneering thoughts, AI simply won’t be good enough.

5. SEO evolves to include LLMs.

Although Google is the go-to for online search, we can’t deny that SEO is evolving, and visibility in LLMs matters.

Daniel Foley Carter is a highly respected SEO expert with over 26 years of experience across all areas of the industry. He’s currently the director at the digital agency Assertive, as well as the director of SEO Audits, known for its in-depth audits that go beyond SEO to include metrics like user engagement. He also leads SEO Stack, a tool designed to enhance the power of Google Search Console.

I’ve followed Foley Carter for years on LinkedIn and always appreciate his direct and informed perspectives on SEO. To help conceptualize his dedication to SEO, I can tell you that he recently shared a six-hour webinar on technical SEO.

When asked about the future of SEO and AI, Foley Carter says, “With the advent of machine learning and AI, we’re seeing faster and more impactful progression in the SEO space.”

Foley Carter explains that, given Google’s stranglehold on the search market and the fact that it has the largest index of documents on the planet, it’s primed to lead progress in search. We know that competing engines such as ChatGPT and BING have pushed forward Google’s integration of AI into search.

As search becomes more conversational, Foley Carter notes, the way people interact with information is already starting to shift — something we’re seeing with tools like Google’s AI Overviews (AIOs) and emerging conversational search features.

According to Foley Carter, “conventional SEO is most definitely going to be phased out as Google isn’t reliant on the things it used to be.”

With both technology and user behavior evolving, the strategies behind search optimization will need to adapt as well. Foley Carter predicts that SEO as a skill will see a shifting need to optimize for LLMs. That includes strengthening the selection of citation sources.

In other words, it’s no longer just about ranking well in traditional search — it’s about showing up in AI-generated results and being seen as a credible, high-quality source.

“With LLMs growing, we’re going to see a paradigm shift in a lot of industries, but, fundamentally, end users’ needs need to be met with good quality results, whether they are AIOs or traditional search results,” Folly Carter says. “Subsequently, being present in both is going to be crucial to maintain traffic and to drive conversions/revenue.”

While this may sound like a steep change, he ensures that SEO will continue to incorporate the fundamentals for crawlers, addressing things such as rendering, DOM output, good technical practice, and structured data. However, the field will also rely more heavily on trust signals as well as content types that are more likely to be used in AIO generation or citing.

So, what does this mean for the future of AI and SEO?

I wanted to bring Foley Carter’s insights after the prediction above (that human-written content will continue to form the basis of search) because the two are very linked.

Foley Carter says that SEO will optimize for LLMs to strengthen the selection of citation sources; ultimately, without human-written content and excellent SEO (which is also what gets brands into LLMs), there won’t be new content in the LLMs. SEO is the ticket to visibility in AI search.

6. The type of content that performs best will change tremendously over the next year.

HubSpot’s Senior Director of SEO Global Growth Aja Frost told me that Google is prioritizing “first-person, credible, personality-driven content.” This is a response to the exponential increase in the amount of AI-written, low-value content.

The shift to personality-driven content makes sense. If Google’s consumers are flooded with low-value AI content, Google knows:

1. The content isn’t going to resonate with their audience, and
2. Their AI models won’t have enough new information to keep learning and adapting.

So, what does this mean for the future of SEO?

For Frost and her SEO team at HubSpot, it means drastically increasing their investments in authoritative, human-first perspectives.

And, it means reimagining HubSpot’s existing strategy, with a greater emphasis on perspective-driven content and emerging channels.

7. Human-first perspectives will win over more traditional, educational posts.

Over the next few years, expect to see branded content that is written from the perspective and experience of the content’s creator.

“For years, most companies I wrote for required me to write in their brand‘s voice,” HubSpot Blogger Erica Santiago recalls. “I never had to dive into my own experiences or pepper in my own sense of humor. It was all very clinical, detached. And that was the tone of most branded listicles and articles I’d find in my own search results as well.”

But she says she’s already seeing and experiencing a shift as AI gains more traction in SERPs.

“I wrote an article recently for HubSpot about email marketing trends, and I ended up citing marketing emails in my own personal inbox to ensure I was writing perspective-driven content that AI couldn’t emulate,” she says.

Santiago explains, “Now, when I read branded content, I notice writers are citing their own unique experiences and injecting their personality as well.”

Frost told me that she no longer distinguishes between SEO and editorial. For a post to rank, it needs to meet certain criteria for both.

She says, “That means looking at every piece of content and asking, ‘How do we make this a really unique, compelling piece of content that you can’t find anywhere else on the web?’ And ‘how can we ensure it‘s written by someone who has unique expertise on the topic?’”

8. Brands will have to optimize their content for voice search.

AI is used in voice search to improve language recognition, personalization, and accuracy. As AI becomes more integrated in search engines like Google, users will likely see more improvements in tools like voice search.

It’s also worth noting that voice search is being used more and more when searching for information online.

According to DataReportal, 30% of internet users aged 16-64 worldwide use voice assistants each week. What’s more, 45% of Americans report using voice search on their smartphones.

So, what does this mean for the future of SEO?

Well, it simply means brands will need to optimize their content for voice search results. Marketers can do this by:

• Leveraging featured snippets.
• Optimize your website for mobile users.
• Use long-tail keywords and words like “how,” “what,” and “where” when possible.

9. Web analysts predict trustworthiness will become the most important ranking factor in the SERPs.

When it comes to Google’s E-E-A-T, web analysts say that trustworthiness will become the most important factor in ranking highly on SERPs, followed by expertise, experience, and authoritativeness.

It makes sense that trustworthiness will continue to matter most in the coming years since trustworthiness is essentially the sum total of the other three rating factors.

In other words, your website’s rating for expertise, experience, and authoritativeness helps Google dictate how trustworthy your website is overall.

I spoke with Katie Morton, Search Engine Journal’s senior managing growth editor, to learn her tips for increasing trustworthiness.

She told me, “Since Experience, Expertise, and Authoritativeness support Trust, it’s best to look at the whole of the E-E-A-T concept rather than focusing on any single aspect of the acronym.”

That said, Morton points out that Google’s Search Quality Rater Guidelines specifically call out the following three points to increase Trust:

• E-commerce sites with secure online payment systems and reliable customer service.
• Honest product reviews meant to inform rather than solely to drive purchases.
• Accurate content about Your Money or Your Life (YMYL) topics to prevent harm.

For companies looking to increase trustworthiness, again, it’s important to address all aspects of E-E-A-T. Here are her suggestions:

Expert Authors

Source content from authors with direct experience, a depth of knowledge, and expertise in the topic they are writing about. Anyone could Google a subject and write an article about it, but if the writer isn’t a subject matter expert, this doesn’t establish E-E-A-T.

Having recognized experts and authorities in your industry as authors on your site can boost the credibility of your website and brand. On your website, provide bios of your authors and content creators that include their expertise, experience, and credentials.

Accurate Content from Trusted Sources

Publish truthful and well-researched content that cites credible sources. Support claims via the experience and expertise of the author’s first-hand knowledge, with research and statistics from trustworthy sources, or both.

Originality and Value

Ensure that your content is original, substantial, comprehensive, and provides valuable insights. Content that provides value to users is more likely to be shared. When a piece of content gets positive attention through shares and backlinks, it can lend a sense of authority when your content is cited as a trusted source.

Morton adds, “It takes a lot of effort to create content that establishes E-E-A-T, but the results are well worth it. If you follow these suggestions, you will also create Helpful Content, which Google strongly encourages.”

This can help serve both your business and your audience while establishing a positive brand reputation.

10. Marketers will leverage social search and other platforms.

Search engines are still dominant, but social search is growing in popularity, especially among Gen Z, Millennials, and Gen X.

In fact, 31% of consumers use social search when looking for answers to questions online, and 1 in 4 consumers aged 18-54 actually prefer social search over search engines.

This could have a major impact on the future of SEO by shifting your focus from Google to Instagram, TikTok, and other social platforms.

HubSpot’s Santiago has first-hand experience with this shift.

“I‘m leading a quick-hit video initiative with other HubSpot bloggers so we can add more value to our posts for readers as well as get more eyes on our content,” she explains. “This means we’re making videos for platforms like Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube Shorts and then embedding these videos into our posts.”

Santiago says with more people using the above platforms as search engines, it‘s important marketers create content for these channels that leverage back to the brand’s website.

“I don‘t Google things nearly as much as even just a year ago,” she says. “Just the other day, I looked up ’Best platform sandals for the summer‘ on TikTok and found so many new brands I ended up following. I even bought a pair directly from one brand’s Instagram. A year or two ago, I would have Googled that query and bought from the brand’s website.”

Marketers who optimize their accounts for social search have three top strategies:

• Include relevant keywords and hashtags in your social posts.
• Include relevant keywords and hashtags in your bio.
• Make sure that your username is easy to search for.

I’ve seen the power of social search first-hand. When I hear about a new brand, I don’t Google them anymore — I search for their Instagram account. And oftentimes, their social media page is the determining factor in whether I end up purchasing one of their products.

While it’s early days, social media might someday take the lead in product discovery. Many users prefer visuals over text, so it makes sense that they might not want to read a lengthy webpage about a product:

They just want to see it in action.

Additionally, SEO experts are leaning more heavily into multimedia content to expand beyond search regarding opportunities for reaching audiences.

This makes sense: During volatile times, it’s critical that your business becomes adaptable, and you learn how to find new avenues to obtain traffic and leads.

As Frost told me, “At HubSpot, we are dramatically increasing our investment in other types of media, like video, podcasts, newsletters, and types of media that will be far less affected by the changes in search happening on Google.”

11. AI will change how SEOs and content creators do their jobs …

And finally, for the least surprising prediction in this list: AI will change how SEOs and creators do their work.

In fact, more than half of blog writers already use AI, and 74% of web analysts say it improves their content’s performance and ranking on the SERPs.

Over 50% of web analysts have already incorporated AI tools into their workflow.

Some of these analysts are gradually testing it and comparing results to performance without AI, while other analysts are building entirely new teams to leverage AI.

In particular, these web analysts are using AI for specific tasks, including keyword research, automating tedious tasks, optimizing their websites, and idea generation.

Nick LeRoy is an SEO consultant who has worked in the SEO industry for over fifteen years. He is the author of the SEOForLunch newsletter, where he brings updates, articles, SEO interview tips, the latest jobs, and more to the industry.

LeRoy has some thoughts on how the future of SEO will impact how SEOs are tracking data. LeRoy warns that “If you’re still measuring SEO success only by rankings and organic traffic, you’re missing the bigger picture.”

Instead, LeRoy says, SEOs should be shifting their tracking to:

• How does our SEO work impact email, social, and referral traffic?
• What’s the total “halo effect” of our content investments?
• What efficiencies or scale are we providing to our paid media counterparts?
• Are we building a brand that Google cannot ignore?

I agree that conversion tracking and the way we talk and think about SEO have to change. I stand strong with the notion that impressions, clicks, and clickthrough rate still matter, but it’s critical that SEOs think about the wider marketing landscape and how SEO fits into it.

So, what does this mean for the future of AI and SEO?

When used correctly, AI can drastically improve an SEO team‘s strategy. That’s why it’s critical to work with AI, not against it, as you consider how you might shift your strategy to meet these new challenges.

12. … And it will greatly improve marketers’ web optimization strategies.

Kyle Byers, director of organic search at Semrush, told me there are innumerable ways marketers can leverage AI.

As he puts it, “AI is incredibly powerful and flexible in what it can help marketers accomplish — from purpose-built tools like our own ContentShake (AI content generator app) and SEO Writing Assistant to general chat-based interfaces like ChatGPT, Bing Chat, and Google’s Gemini.”

AI can also help marketers optimize their websites.

Here are some of the ways Byers suggests marketers leverage AI for web optimization:

• Conversion copywriting. (“Act as a tech-savvy small business owner who is shopping for accounting software. Grade the following landing page headlines on a scale of 1 to 10 based on how likely they are to make you want to try or purchase my product, then draft five new headline ideas that would be more compelling.”)
• Rephrasing content. For example, simplifying a long paragraph or sentence to meet an 8th-grade reading level. Or rewriting content to make it more unique, to strike a different tone, or to follow your brand’s style guide.
• Getting “unstuck” with content writing. (“Help me finish the following paragraph.”)
• Brainstorming additional angles to add to your content. (“Act as a sales manager who wants to develop an internal training program to improve your team’s sales skills. What important subtopics or angles are missing from the following content, which you would want to learn more about?”)
• Quickly drafting a list of 10 possible title tags and meta descriptions for a given webpage.
• Generating Schema markup. (“Generate FAQPage Schema markup for the following FAQs.”)
• Generating tags for different languages/locations.
• Translating content from one language to another.
• Generating regular expressions (for example, using Google Search Console or Google Analytics).
• Generating new robots.txt rules will also help understand existing robots.txt rules.

He adds, “AI tools can be amazingly powerful if used correctly. Just keep in mind that they’re just that: tools. Use them to leverage your expertise — not to replace it.”

(Interested in trying Semrush for yourself? Click here for an exclusive extended 14-day PRO free trial for HubSpot readers.)

The Next Evolution of SEO

From speaking with experts, I can see that AI is here to stay, and with it comes a new dawn of SEO.

After having discussed the future of SEO and AI with experts, the reality is that this shift may not be as scary as it can seem. Good SEO is what’s keeping LLMs updated, and people are still using Google significantly more than anything else.

As a content creator long-trained in the art of writing for SEO, I’m personally thrilled about this evolution.

It will require businesses to recalibrate and continue putting innovative, novel, human-first perspectives ahead of rote, cut-and-dry content.

As a marketer, nothing could make me happier.

Editor’s note: This post was originally published in January 2023 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.

When I was first setting up my freelance business website, I read tons of articles and social media posts about how to find and attract quality leads. Because none of that advice said much about designing the actual form for capturing those leads, I didn’t put much thought into whether lead form best practices even existed.

When I was first setting up my freelance business website, I read tons of articles and social media posts about how to find and attract quality leads. Because none of that advice said much about designing the actual form for capturing those leads, I didn’t put much thought into whether lead form best practices even existed.

After all, if your offer is strong enough, it doesn’t matter what kind of form you use to collect people’s information, right? Well, not exactly.

It turns out that some forms are more effective than others at capturing not just more leads, but higher-quality leads. So, in this guide, I’ve compiled the most up-to-date expert advice on lead generation form best practices. (And if you want to take a step back and think through your strategy first, this free lead generation starter guide can help.)

What is a lead generation form?

Lead forms, or lead generation forms, gather information from potential customers in exchange for an offer or a piece of content such as an ebook, case study, research report, or webinar.

Often, these forms are delivered through a landing page, but you might embed them directly into your website content as well.

Personally, I’ve seen greater success from lead forms that were directly embedded into my web pages than from those that required an extra click to access the landing page. But this can depend on your audience and on your offer. When in doubt, try testing both to see which placement performs better for you.

In any case, once a website visitor fills out the lead form with their information, they are able to access your offering. The key is to ensure prospects see a clear value in the resources you offer so they will be compelled to trade their personal information for access.

This means you need to offer something your prospects will value, but it also means you need to clearly communicate that value to them.

That’s where lead form best practices come in.

An effective lead generation form communicates your value proposition in a way that entices prospects to sign up.

7 Lead Generation Form Best Practices

As with most marketing strategies, finding just the right structure for your lead forms will take some trial and error to get the results you want. But these six lead generation form best practices will give you a solid foundation to build on.

1. Choose the right placement.

Before I get into what to include in your lead generation form, let’s talk about where to place the form itself.

Generally, you’ll want to keep your form above the fold. This means placing it at the top of the page so it’s prevalent and easy to spot without scrolling. However, this isn’t the only position to consider for your lead form placement.

Here are four potential placements for you to test.

Beside the Landing Page Offer

Placing your lead generation form above the fold doesn’t necessarily mean it has to be the only thing visitors see when they first land on the page. Instead, try placing the form and copy introducing your offer side-by-side.

For example, take a look at the landing page below. The lead form is above the fold, but it’s not the most eye-catching element on the page — the content is.

Putting the form beside the landing page copy reminds users of the valuable resource they’ll receive if they submit their basic information.

Source

Throughout the Landing Page or Website Content

If you have a lengthy landing page or are embedding your lead form into website content such as a blog post, you’ll want to include the lead form in at least three positions — or after every 350 words — throughout the page.

Take this report for example. It contains over 1,000 words of content, with the lead form in five different locations as you scroll down the page.

Source

This accomplishes several purposes:

• It prevents the prospect from forgetting about your offer as they digest the content.
• It makes it easy for the prospect to fill out the form, since they don’t need to scroll back up and find it again after reading.
• It repeatedly prompts the prospect to fill out the form so they can access your offer, giving them more chances to say yes.

Regardless of how long your landing page is, make sure to include the lead form one final time at the bottom of the page. This position allows your content to take center stage so visitors have one more chance to determine if it’s worth downloading.

For a more streamlined look, you could even replace some of the embedded lead forms with buttons that automatically scroll down to that final lead form at the bottom of the page.

In a Chatbot

Besides using chatbots to automate responses and communicate with your visitors, you can use them to share your lead generation form. For instance, when you click “Get full report” on the landing page below, the form pops up, requesting your email to “Download the Full Report.”

Using a chatbot to share your form is an unobtrusive way to keep your offer in visitors’ line of sight no matter how far down the page they scroll.

Source

2. Determine the right length for your lead form.

The next — and probably biggest — concern when designing your forms is the length. In other words, how much information should you ask for?

I asked this question of several marketing experts, and their consensus was: it depends.

While ideally, you want to keep your lead forms as simple as possible, the exact number of form fields you should include will vary based on whether you’re aiming for quantity or quality of leads — and what sort of resource you’re offering in exchange for their information.

Shorter forms are great for generating more leads since people can fill them out quickly.

Longer forms, on the other hand, require prospects to provide more details about themselves and their needs, meaning they show a better purchasing intent. So you may get fewer leads, but they’ll be of better quality.

Source

Arham Khan, founder and CEO of Pixated, recommends tailoring your lead forms to the stages of the buyer’s journey:

• For prospects in the early awareness stage, only ask for their name and email so you can keep in contact.
• For serious buyers considering their options, add specific qualifying questions to help filter out lower-quality leads.
• Likewise, for high-ticket deals, add a few more strategic qualifying questions to filter out all but the most qualified leads.

“For a B2B software client,” Khan says as an example, “we added a simple ‘Company Size’ drop-down. Lead volume decreased by 22%, but qualified prospects jumped 37%. Their sales team celebrated the change.”

That said, even high-intent prospects may click away if they see a long, complicated lead generation form. To avoid this, many of the experts I spoke with advised using a progressive lead form that includes steps and a progress bar like the one pictured below.

This gives visitors an idea of how quickly they can complete the form and download the resource.

3. Personalize the form.

A great way to qualify the leads from your lead generation form is to personalize the form fields to your target audience using dynamic form fields.

Dynamic form fields use dependencies to show visitors different questions based on their previous answers. For example, if you work with clients in different industries, you might first have them select their industry from a drop-down list. Then, the form would ask for industry-specific information to help you determine which services they need.

Some dynamic forms can also change depending on the visitor’s previous interactions with your website. For example, it might automatically populate certain fields with information the user has entered on other pages of the site or ask specific questions related to information on pages they’ve previously viewed.

Callum Gracie has used this tactic on the website for his digital marketing agency, Otto Media.

“If someone visits a client’s pricing page multiple times but hasn’t signed up, our form doesn’t just ask for their email, it includes a question like, ‘What’s stopping you from signing up?’ with multiple-choice options,” he explains.

“If they select ‘Need more details on ROI,’ we send them a case study instead of a generic sales email. When we applied this tactic to an e-learning client, conversions increased by 39% because leads felt like we were addressing their specific concerns, not just pushing them into a sales funnel.”

4. Offer low-commitment options.

Not everyone who views your form will fill it out. But that doesn’t mean you have to let potential leads slip away just because they aren’t quite ready to give you all of their information. Many of the experts I consulted recommended adding a few low-commitment actions that interested visitors can take.

• Follow up on incomplete forms. If visitors provide their email but abandon the form midway through, send a quick follow-up email to ask if they’re still interested in your offer and link them back to the form.
• Let them save it for later. Sometimes, people can’t fill out the form in one sitting. Using a form that saves their information and prefills it on their next visit can help encourage them to come back and finish later. Likewise, letting visitors email the form to themselves can help reduce the chances of them forgetting about it.
• Use buttons instead of free-text fields. When possible, replace free-text fields in your form with buttons or drop-down selections. Not only does this reduce friction for visitors to complete your form, but it will also make it easier for you to categorize your leads based on their responses.
• Offer an alternative. If your form is targeted at serious buyers, visitors who aren’t ready to buy will end up leaving the page. However, you can still capture some of those top-of-funnel leads with an alternative offer. Create an exit intent popup with a simple offer — like a free download or newsletter content — in exchange for just their name and email.

Source

5. Include your privacy policy.

More than 80 countries, including the United States, Canada, Australia, Argentina, and members of the European Union, have privacy and data collection laws. Often, these laws require you to include a privacy policy when collecting personally identifiable information (PII).

PII covers both sensitive information, like a visitor’s full name and email address, and non-sensitive information, like their zip code, race, date of birth, etc.

Irrespective of a form’s location on your website, you should place your privacy policy where it’s easily noticeable. This puts prospects at ease if they are skeptical about sharing their information.

For example, our lead forms show a privacy policy preview right above the download button. Visitors who want to know more about how their information may be used or stored can click the link to read the full privacy policy before signing up.

Source

Finally, consider placing client testimonials, authority endorsements, third-party security certifications, or a guarantee seal beside your privacy policy. These can help alleviate any remaining concerns for visitors who may hesitate to fill out your form.

6. Change the submission text and button appearance.

The submission button is a major component of your lead form, so how it looks should never be an afterthought. If you’re using the default text “submit” for this button, you may be losing out on leads.

Overwhelmingly, the majority of experts I spoke to reported a jump in conversion rates after changing the submission text to something more conversational and relevant to the offer or brand.

For example, Kate Ross, a marketing professional for beauty brand Irresistible Me, has seen great success with on-brand, friendly language like “Hey, want first dibs on new styles?” instead of the generic “Submit your info.”

Depending on your offer, other alternatives to “Submit” could include “Download now,” “Get the free guide,” or even “Sign me up!”

But the text isn’t the only component of the submission button you should consider changing. Ross tested two color options for her lead form’s buttons — red and teal, in her case — and found that teal outperformed red by as much as 15%.

Since such a small change can make a huge difference in conversion rates, I recommend running A/B tests to determine which designs and wording perform best for you.

However, when testing your form, only test one element at a time.

For instance, if you’re testing the color, shape, or size of the submission button, don’t simultaneously test the form length. That way, when one variation of the form brings in more leads, you’ll know exactly which element made the difference.

7. Bonus: Don’t forget the success message.

Whether people are applying for a role in a company, downloading a free resource, or contacting you about your services, they want a response once they hit your submit button. Otherwise, they’re left wondering if the submission succeeded.

This is where autoresponders come in handy. Many form builders have this functionality, so take advantage of it. Besides providing an excellent experience, having an autoresponder in place helps you begin your relationship with prospects on the right foot.

Additionally, I’ve found it helpful to change the form submission success message so that it prompts users to check their email inbox and spam folder for the confirmation email. After all, the last thing you want is someone thinking you failed to deliver the promised resource just because it landed in spam.

Building Better Lead Forms

As my own experience creating lead generation forms has taught me, how a lead form looks and where it’s located matter just as much as the value you’re offering in exchange for prospects’ information.

But my biggest takeaway from the above best practices is that there is no perfect formula for an effective lead form.

Instead, when building your form, start with who you’re targeting and what kind of incentive you’re providing them. Tailor the form’s design and fields accordingly, and then test and tweak it until you achieve your desired results.

Editor’s note: This post was originally published in November 2011 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.

Three years ago, if you’d asked Kasey Brown, founder and CEO of Different Breed Media, she’d tell you scheduling one post to identically populate across the gamut of social media platforms was a smart, time-saving strategy.

But in 2025, that won’t fly.

Three years ago, if you’d asked Kasey Brown, founder and CEO of Different Breed Media, she’d tell you scheduling one post to identically populate across the gamut of social media platforms was a smart, time-saving strategy.

But in 2025, that won’t fly.

“These platforms are becoming more sophisticated in their own ways,” says Brown. That means understanding each one’s unique features, strengths, and weaknesses — and tailoring your strategy accordingly — is more important than ever.

In our Social Media Marketing Trends report, we asked 1,100+ social media professionals about the social media platforms they use most in 2025. We also tapped experts to weigh in on the ones that are losing steam, and the trends determining how marketers can optimally reach their audiences and customers across this digital ecosystem.

Table of Contents

• 2025 Social Media Trends
• Social Media Platforms Marketers Should Watch in 2025
• New Social Media Platforms
• What Platforms May Be Losing Steam?
• How To Determine Which Social Media Platforms Are Worth the Investment

2025 Social Media Trends

1. Short-form is dominating.

In 2025, it’s no secret that quick videos are dominating — I recently wrote about this short-is-king surge among social media entrepreneurs.

Turns out, short-form video is the top format among social media marketers more largely, who’ve determined it has the highest ROI.

It’s also the area in which they plan to increase the most investment in 2025 — when compared to other focuses like images, UGC, and live streaming — with 75% planning to keep their current investment level and 17% planning to increase theirs.

Source

2. AI is being leveraged for content creation.

The number one way marketers are using AI is for content creation — specifically for assistance with tasks like writing copy, creating images, and generating ideas from scratch. According to HubSpot findings, about 56% of marketers are using AI to create short-form videos, while 53% are using it to generate images, and 42% are creating long-form videos.

I’ve found that ChatGPT is a helpful tool to generate thought-starters — just be sure to spend enough time training it to understand your brand’s unique tone of voice. I’ve found it particularly useful in instances involving collaborations: Maybe you’re partnering with another brand and need guidance for how to merge the two styles for a collaborative campaign or event.

“I think AI gives us much more leverage,” says Aymber Young, a social media growth expert. “The biggest change that I‘m seeing is the ability to integrate AI to where you don’t have to do as much of the legwork when it comes to content creation.”

“You can go to ChatGPT and say, ‘Hey, I create content on health and wellness, and I want people to focus on eating plant-based foods. Can you give me a content calendar for the month, for LinkedIn? For YouTube?”

3. Live video and audio are building community.

I’m a big fan of how-the-sausage-is-made videos. In other words, brands who take viewers behind the scenes in a way that feels more raw and personal than edited content does.

According to Brown, this strategy works really well for building trust.

“Lives should be staples in any sort of strategy that involves building relationships with an audience,” she says. This is especially true in what she calls an ongoing “trust recession,” wherein people are using a lot more discernment when determining where to spend their dollars.

4. Content must entertain audiences.

People want to be entertained, even while they’re being sold a product or taught something new. Bonus points if you can make them laugh: Turns out, 91% of consumers want brands to be funny.

“I work with a lot of clients to help them ‘edutain’ a lot more,” says Brown. “Some of the best content that’s working mixes education with entertainment and really good personal storytelling.”

To help you stay on the cutting edge of social media, I’ve compiled a list of key platforms and features you should have on your radar this year.

Social Media Platforms Marketers Should Watch in 2025

1. Instagram

Instagram is one of the leading platforms social media marketers expect to invest in most in 2025. Recent data shows Instagram is the top-performing platform when it comes to driving site traffic, engagement, and audience growth, with 58% of marketers using it to establish their communities.

I’m particularly drawn to the interactivity fostered by Instagram Stories, where elements like cross-collaborating and link sharing are effective for community-building and engagement.

2. TikTok

As mentioned, short-form video is one of the most popular, top-performing, and highest ROI trends. Given this, it’s no surprise that TikTok users sit at 1.5 billion as it caters to short-form videos.

TikTok is also a great platform for reaching Gen Z, as our consumer trends survey found that 62% of the generation uses TikTok — and it’s also the platform it spends the most time on.

That said, people — myself included — may be wary of TikTok (given the recent U.S. ban) but Young believes TikTok’s value isn’t going anywhere. It still sets the short-form standard.

“It’s still the platform with high virality,” says Young. “You have the [highest] chance of going viral just with organic content on TikTok.”

3. Facebook

Despite increasing competition, the old-standing Facebook should still be on the radar of marketers in 2025 due to its massive reach — bringing in 3.06 billion active users every month.

It’s also still a hotspot for ads: In 2024, Facebook’s total ad revenue amounted to $164.5 billion, up from $134 billion the previous year.

4. YouTube

Based on HubSpot’s findings, YouTube is the platform seeing the most increased investment from marketers in 2025.

While the platform’s done a lot of evolving over the years, integrating features like YouTube Shorts and live streams, Brown says she’s bullish about its future for a different reason: long-form.

Yes, short-form content may be dominating, but she believes YouTube’s long-form content will never lose steam for its strong retention value. It all goes back to trust — and the more time consumers spend with a brand, the more inclined they are to trust them.

5. LinkedIn

Data shows most marketers might not agree, but Young believes LinkedIn should be the platform that’s top of mind in 2025. “It’s really shifting to be a leading community-based platform,” she says.

I’m in Young’s camp. LinkedIn’s been an unmatched source for organic networking, thought leadership, and overall narrative-driven branding. It’s more of a long-game platform, but the results can be worth it.

With a now wider array of content types — text posts, carousels, long-form blogs, lives, and more recently, a vertical video feed, LinkedIn is also trying to step up its game to compete with platforms like Instagram.

New Social Media Platforms

In the ever-evolving landscape of social media, new platforms are continuously emerging, bringing fresh ideas and opportunities — but also question marks in terms of new strategies to consider and overall sustainability.

Here are some up-and-coming platforms to keep an eye on.

Threads

Launched by Meta in July 2023, Threads is one of the newest social media platforms on this list. Its arrival is timely due to the technical and cultural changes Twitter (now X) has faced since Elon Musk’s takeover in 2022. “I do think Threads has a lot of potential given it does operate a little bit similar to X,” says Young. “It feels a lot more buttoned up.”

Thanks to its integration with Instagram, Threads grew rapidly, reaching 100 million active users within 10 days of its launch.

Users can seamlessly transfer their Instagram profile information and followers to Threads, simplifying app adoption. Additionally, users can embed Thread posts into their Instagram Stories and profile bios, generating more interest in the app.

Lemon8

Lemon8 is a new social media platform owned by ByteDance (aka TikTok’s parent company). Though it was initially launched in Japan in 2020, it became accessible in the U.S. and U.K. in February 2023.

Lemon8 is often described as a combination of Pinterest and Instagram, since it’s a photo-sharing app where users can share and discover curated lifestyle content. Popular categories on the platform include fashion, beauty, and health and wellness.

Young is unsure about its longevity. “Lemon8 had a moment especially during the TikTok ban scare back in January but its long-term potential feels uncertain to me,” says Young. “I personally jumped on it and noticed how visually similar it is to Pinterest, which was interesting at first. But I haven’t seen the same stickiness or creator excitement that drives growth.”

Substack

Substack is an online platform that enables writers, journalists, and content creators to publish and monetize their work through subscription-based newsletters. It provides an easy-to-use interface for writers to create and distribute their content directly to subscribers.

Substack also offers tools for managing subscriptions, collecting payments, and engaging with readers. The platform has gained popularity as a way for independent writers (like myself) to generate income and build a loyal audience without relying on traditional media outlets or advertising.

My Substack, Stella, is home to exclusive interviews from Black women in media and an engaged audience that can opt into a free subscription or a paid one for additional content behind a paywall.

Source

Twitch

Twitch is a live streaming platform primarily used for streaming video games, eSports events, and other creative content. It allows users to watch live broadcasts of games being played by other players, as well as interact with the streamers and other viewers through chat.

“I’ve been particularly intrigued by Twitch,” says Young. “I’ve noticed more creators and influencers leveraging the platform for real-time engagement and some are generating significant income through subscriptions, donations, and partnerships.”

“I think there’s untapped potential here for major brands to get creative: partnering with streamers for organic product placements, having spokespersons do live demos or Q&As, or even hosting hybrid conferences with a Twitch livestream component,” Young concluded.

What platforms may be losing steam?

BeReal emerged in 2020 wanting to be the more real alternative to other apps like Instagram promoting the use of filters and editing. But it may not be sticking quite the way its creators initially planned: In 2023, worldwide downloads were at about 31.5 million, which decreased 60% year-over-year to 12.7 million in 2024.

That’s likely because data shows Gen Z’s media consumption habits are defining social media trends — and Gen Zers aren’t enthused by an app that offers very minimal opportunities to curate.

“I don’t think younger audiences are adapting to it as much,” says Brown. “It feels just a little too impulsive for Gen Z.”

How To Determine Which Social Media Platforms Are Worth the Investment

To determine which social media platforms are worth investing in, marketers consider a variety of factors:

• Audience reach
• Sales conversions
• Driving traffic to websites

When it comes to figuring what works best for your brand, consider a low-stakes approach to start. Brown is a big fan of using dummy accounts to tap into new platforms, understand their value, and assess if it’s worth a larger investment.

“When you start up a fresh account, it feeds you everything, because it‘s trying to gauge what you’re interested in. And this fresh content generally is super viral and has a ton of engagement, right? So the first kind of few days on that new account is just showing some of the best content out there.”

From there, you can determine what might (and might not) be a fit for your brand.

You also don’t have to explore all that’s out there all at once. “Start with mastering three,” says Young. “And then as you grow your team, and you grow the ability to manage all these different platforms, incorporate more. It can be overwhelming trying to keep up with every single platform.”

Should you follow the social media trends of 2025?

Consumer behavior changes quickly in the digital space, and businesses that are willing to adapt to social media trends are probably the ones that are going to see the most success.

For staying on top of the latest social media trends, I seek insight from active leaders in the social media marketing space, like Rachel Karten. Her Substack newsletter, Link in Bio, has more than 92K subscribers and breaks down social media trends, news, and strategies on a weekly basis.

Young also advises searching the archives of free platforms like YouTube University, where you’ll likely find the answer to any questions you might have around social media marketing.

Whatever your strategy, Brown emphasizes one important factor: “What‘s working best is content that’s super authentic,” she says. “But also leaning more into what I like to call ‘unselfish content.’ Ask yourself, ‘How can I always have the viewer in mind?’”

Not every trend will work to achieve your goals, but keeping the customer as your north star will ensure you stay on track.

Editor’s note: This post was originally published in July 2019 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.

I love the Back to the Future series, especially Part II where we see “the future.” Of course, the most famous part of our promised 2015 was the Mattel Hoverboard. A decade later, and I’m still waiting to glide down the sidewalk on my hoverboard.

The pattern of excitement, overpromising, and then reality isn’t relegated to the movies. Because I’m a marketer, AI tools have flooded my working world with the promise of revolutionizing my department and company.

I love the Back to the Future series, especially Part II where we see “the future.” Of course, the most famous part of our promised 2015 was the Mattel Hoverboard. A decade later, and I’m still waiting to glide down the sidewalk on my hoverboard.

The pattern of excitement, overpromising, and then reality isn’t relegated to the movies. Because I’m a marketer, AI tools have flooded my working world with the promise of revolutionizing my department and company.

The latest push centers on agentic AI. I’ve found AI agents helpful in some capacities — saving me time, automating repetitive tasks, and assisting with research. But have they reached their full potential? Not yet.

Agentic AI offers impressive advances in technology. But many companies haven’t realized AI’s potential yet — and they’re still not fully ready to implement agentic AI for maximum benefit.

Let’s talk about where AI agents fit into marketing today, the real benefits they can deliver to your marketing team, and what the future could hold.

Table of Contents

• What are AI agents?
• Why are AI agents useful in marketing?
• Benefits of Marketing AI Agents
• Best AI Agents for Marketing
• Challenges of Using AI Agents in Marketing

Essentially, you give an agentic AI a goal and allow it to figure out what to do and then do it. An AI agent goes beyond basic automation by adapting and responding to tasks without human prompting. It’s an agent you put into the world to do things.

This is an early space, but demand is growing: The AI agent market is expected to grow to $47 billion by 2030. Expect to see more AI agents populating the marketing space soon.

Why are AI agents useful in marketing?

Marketing today demands two things above everything else: speed and personalization.

Audiences always expect better marketing — they want their marketing messages to feel timely, relevant, and real to their experience. But marketing teams are stretched thin, being asked to deliver that individualized experience at scale across more customer segments, channels, and product lines. And, of course, to do so with tighter marketing budgets and timelines.

Agentic AI fills that gap.

Most people hear “AI” and think of a generative AI tool like ChatGPT or DALL-E. And these AI tools have already influenced digital marketing by helping teams brainstorm ideas, draft content, and automate simple tasks. Agentic AI builds on that foundation — managing the workflows within the team and executing actions with much less human involvement.

Right now, AI agents for marketing show up in four key areas:

• Content creation
• Customer support
• Campaign optimization
• Data analysis

The common thread across these use cases is workflow automation. Agentic AI offers marketing teams freedom from draining, repetitive work tasks like drafting social copy, pulling reports, or triggering customer messages.

Unlike their chat-based or bot counterparts, AI agents can run with greater autonomy within their pre-designed boxes. Once set up, they can listen for triggers, take action, and adjust outputs based on real-time data — all (mostly) on their own.

Mind you: AI agents don’t replace strategy or creativity. Instead, they give marketers more time and energy to focus on those things.

That said, part of agentic AI’s challenge today is separating its specific use cases from “AI” as a general concept. Many companies are still discovering what AI is, let alone how to plug it into their operations and grant it more decision-making authority.

The data reflects this challenge: McKinsey found that, while 55% of organizations use generative AI in some capacity, over 80% haven’t seen measurable impacts on enterprise-level earnings. If AI broadly hasn’t driven bottom-line benefits yet, it’s understandable that leaders might hesitate to invest more — even if agentic AI offers something more advanced.

Gartner projects that 33% of enterprise software will include true agentic AI by 2028 — up from less than 1% today. The potential is clear, as is the utility. But for most marketing teams, agentic AI’s actual power lies just over the horizon.

Benefits of Marketing AI Agents

Even though AI agents haven’t reached their full potential, they offer interesting (if mostly incremental) benefits for any marketing team. The common ones you’ll find are faster content creation, personalized customer experiences, and increased team efficiency.

That said, I asked a few marketing experts about benefits beyond the basics. Here’s what they shared.

Parallelizing Variant Work

Who’s ready to redesign their landing page again? Every marketer who’s undergone that process knows the linear steps you take to pick a target audience, build a campaign, test, and repeat.

Ross Simmonds, founder of Foundation Marketing and Distribution AI, sees agentic AI’s power in adding another dimension to the grind of this build-and-test process.

“One surprising way AI agents are reshaping marketing workflows is by parallelizing variant work,” said Simmonds. “Historically, marketers tackled tasks like writing landing pages or emails in a linear process: one industry, one page, one campaign at a time.”

“But with AI agents, you can now create 5-10 variations of the same asset — tailored by industry, persona, or geography — simultaneously. What once took days or weeks can now be completed in hours.”

Part of that benefit comes from what Simmonds calls “autonomous quality assurance” — an important trust-building piece of AI as a teammate.

“Trained AI agents can review documents for brand voice, grammar, tone, and formatting errors at scale,” he said. “Instead of manual checks, these agents can flag inconsistencies across hundreds of assets in minutes, freeing up marketers for more strategic tasks.”

Adaptive Decision-Making

You’ll find plenty of chatter about using agentic AI to handle repetitive marketing tasks. But Sergey Ermakovich, CMO at HasData, pushes marketers to widen their thinking on using AI’s data-crunching capabilities for decision-making.

“An aspect [marketers] don’t think about is its adaptive decision-making,” said Ermakovich. “AI scans through first-party data at scale. Then, change customer segmentation depending on behavioral triggers. It can shift a customer to a high-intent audience segment after they abandon their cart. The adjustment happens in real-time and at a frequency and precision that a human team cannot match.”

This process removes many of the barriers that those repetitive tasks create.

“It creates a personalized customer journey that optimizes conversion from each moment and interaction,” said Ermakovich. “The optimization isn’t dependent on scheduled campaigns or A/B tests.”

Real-Time Micro-Segmentation

Customer segmentation has long been a focus of marketing research and tools — how do you more effectively reach the right people? Anastasia Parokha, head of marketing at Creative Fabrica, sees an opportunity to get incredibly tactical by using AI for real-time micro-segmentation. And she thinks it’s a gap in many teams’ marketing strategies.

“Modern AI models are trained to analyze user behavior in real time and even adjust your content. Now, you can create specific micro-groups of audiences that help you personalize content,” she said.

She also notes many marketers still doubt this approach because they worry about uniqueness or authenticity.

My advice is to take a hybrid approach, such as using AI for lower-risk tasks,” said Parokha. “This could be A/B testing or copywriting for emails. After that, you can expand the role of AI in marketing because you will be the one to train it. The key is to collaborate and continuously improve the artificial intelligence models you use in your work.”

Best AI Agents for Marketing

In my list of the best AI agents for marketing, you’ll notice a theme: workflow automation and assistance. That’s really where the wall is now — we’re waiting to cross the autonomy threshold. But, in the meantime, these are solid tools to help your marketing team save time, enhance personalization, and optimize campaigns with far less manual work.

Breeze AI by HubSpot

I’ve found the more specialized the agent’s purpose, the better the results. Such an idea seems straightforward in theory, but it’s much trickier to implement in practice.

That’s why I like HubSpot’s Breeze AI agents. You can deploy agents focused entirely on content generation, customer inquiries, prospecting, social media, or knowledge base development.

For instance, I’ve been on a landing page split testing kick lately, and retargeting landing page content is a perfect use case for an AI agent.

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Plus, if you use HubSpot’s platform, your internal data can inform more tailored answers for customers and better results for your team. No confusing integration points or additional tools required.

Pricing: Some parts of Breeze AI, like Copilot, are available for free with a HubSpot plan. These advanced agents need a Professional plan (starting at $800/month) or Enterprise plan (starting at $3,600/month).

ZBrain AI Agents

ZBrain AI agents are great options for AI power users and enterprise-level buyers. Integrating AI agents is one of the largest hurdles facing enterprises, and ZBrain can help solve that problem.

I really like ZBrain’s “Agent Store,” with a gigantic selection of pre-built and curated agents. Technical proficiency needs can slow down many enthusiastic AI adopters within the enterprise setting, so having it laid out so “plug-n-play” style is fantastic.

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ZBrain a “low-code” option, but even with the Agent Store I’d recommend at least intermediate levels of AI know-how before investing. It’s a powerful work suite and comes with a heftier price tag to boot. But, when you’re ready to scale agentic work, lean on ZBrain.

Pricing: ZBrain starts at $999/month, with custom enterprise quoting available.

Chatsonic

For a tactical marketing AI assistant, Chatsonic by Writesonic does some fine work. It’s built for content creation but extends across the entire process, from generating ideas your audiences like to analyzing performance automatically.

I like Chatsonic’s multimodal approach — it combines multiple models like ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini in the content creation process. I’ve found each model to be more adept at certain kinds of writing and other creation tasks, so it’s nice to have it all under one digital umbrella.

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Pricing: Start for free with Chatsonic or upgrade starting at $16/month/user.

Agentforce

Salesforce has recently thrown a lot of its weight behind agentic AI integrated into its suite. Agentforce provides agentic assistance for automating customer service, sales, and marketing operations.

If you keep your Salesforce databases updated, you have tons of data at your disposal for conversational AI tools and predictive analytics to anticipate your customers’ needs.

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Like any company-specific offering, I’d advise you to think carefully about integration requirements.

Pricing: Agentforce’s pricing rolls into your Salesforce contract. You can get a dose of Agentforce for free with Salesforce Foundations — after that, expect a consumption-based pricing model of $2/conversation.

Relevance AI Agents

Relevance AI isn’t totally no-code, but its platform makes creating and launching AI agents much easier than coding them on your own.

For marketing, the company highlights its “AI Lifecycle Marketing Agent,” focused on customer research and outreach management. That’s a useful need, especially for smaller teams.

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Pricing: Relevance AI will give you 100 credits per day on its free plan. The Team Plan will run you $199/month with 100,000 credits for some real agentic horsepower.

SmythOS

If coding isn’t your jam, SmythOS offers a solid no-code platform to help your team build and deploy AI agents. You assemble your agent using a drag-and-drop interface, making it a more visually appealing process (and less complex). I like SmythOS’s pre-built modules and templates for common tasks, so you don’t get caught in a building loop of your own.

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It’s a good place to handle workflows and repetitive tasks — where agentic AI is most useful now.

Pricing: You can use SmythOS on a limited free plan or jump into a paid plan starting at $39/month. It also scales from startup to enterprise sizes, depending on your needs.

Challenges of Using AI Agents in Marketing

I asked several marketing experts to share their experiences and challenges with AI today. Here’s what they told me.

Agentic AI Integration

Even with powerful tools and low/no-code options available, operational integration remains a massive hurdle to clear. As companies grow their staff count and tech stack, the number of integration points expands faster than some people expect.

When it comes time to integrate a new resource like agentic AI, marketing leaders can hit some difficult walls. Jose Fuente, marketing lead at SYMVOLT, shares more.

“AI tools often struggle to mesh seamlessly with legacy systems, creating data silos that hinder performance,” Fuente said. “Add to this the technical expertise required for implementation, and it’s clear why adoption rates can lag behind expectations.”

However, integration challenges shouldn’t halt progress forever. Fuente shares her solution for pushing past these barriers.

“We [marketers] can overcome this by focusing on solutions with dynamic API integrations and partnering with AI specialists for smoother implementation,” she said.

“Pilot programs are also invaluable as they allow teams to test and refine processes before scaling up. The broader trend here is about shifting mindsets. AI isn‘t just a shiny new tool; it’s a co-worker that thrives on collaboration.”

Data Hygiene and Management

It’s 10PM — do you know where your data is? Proper data management was hard enough before AI tools clamored for access. Without clear structures and guidelines for data collection, management, and use, agentic AI can stall out before it hits velocity.

Sean Clancy, managing director at SEO Gold Coast, shares why specificity of data shared with AI matters.

“The hard part is training it on what’s actually important. Marketers throw everything at these tools without showing what a ‘bad’ campaign looks like in context,” he said.

“I’ve seen better results when teams feed in a few messy past campaigns first. Let the agent learn from those before giving it new material. This makes the checks more relevant and the alerts more useful.”

Clancy continues by noting that’s when marketing teams actually accomplish things with agentic AI.

“You stop wasting time on things that don‘t move the needle, and your team doesn’t need to babysit live campaigns hour by hour,” he said. “It’s a quiet shift, but it changes how teams catch problems before they become expensive.”

Staff Resistance

You might build it, but they might not come. I believe employee distrust of AI is your biggest barrier to adoption. If people don’t understand, care, or want to use these tools, they’ll flop.

It’s a challenge that Vrutika Patel, CMO of Cambay Tiger, met head-on when using AI to run hyper-local campaigns.

“Our team worried about job security and learning curves. We overcame this by starting small — training staff on one AI tool at a time and celebrating early wins,” she said.

“Begin with a clear problem to solve. For us, it was proving our freshness claims to specific neighborhoods. We matched delivery speed data with customer locations to create tailored messages that resonated with local buyers. This story-driven approach works because customers connect with authentic, relevant messaging.”

Understanding AI as a Partner

I’ve seen marketers be encouraged to “just try AI for a bit” and become incredibly frustrated when AI doesn’t behave as expected. But if the marketer doesn’t understand what they’re asking in the first place? AI can’t magically fill the gap; it’s a partner, not a replacement.

And agentic AI does even more processing away from the human operator, which can give it a black-box feel if you’re not careful with implementation.

Tim Hanson, CMO at Penfriend, calls this the “understanding gap.”

“I‘ve witnessed countless marketing teams throw vague prompts at AI and then complain that ‘AI doesn’t work’ when the output isn’t what they imagined,” said Hanson.

“The AI never did it wrong; they just didn‘t know the process well enough themselves to explain it properly. The uncomfortable truth is that AI exposes our knowledge gaps. If you can’t clearly articulate every step of how you‘d create something manually, you can’t effectively delegate it to AI.”

Hanson continues with an answer to this marketing conundrum.

“The solution is counterintuitive — to use AI effectively, you need to first get better at doing things manually,” he said.

“I had this exact experience when I started with AI. I was getting mediocre results until I realized I needed to map out processes I knew intimately first. Once I started with processes I could explain step by step (like competitive content analysis), suddenly I was getting exceptional results.”

“Start with a process you know cold, map out every decision point, and use that as your foundation for AI integration. Only then expand to more complex workflows.”

Prepared marketing teams will benefit the most from AI agents.

While I wait for my hoverboard, I hang onto the excitement and enthusiasm for new ideas that have driven my marketing career — especially with AI.

Like any new marketing idea or technology, agentic AI follows the same pattern. Tools improve and promises grow. But the real marketing work stays the same: Build good systems, craft strong strategies, and solve for your customer.

AI agents aren’t science fiction anymore, but we’re not quite at the hoverboard either. In this in-between state, agentic AI can help marketing teams, and they’re getting smarter. The potential to change how we work is real.

But what I learned most from researching AI agents is that the future of marketing won’t belong to teams chasing shiny new tools. The teams that’ll win with agentic AI will build readiness: organized data, clear processes, well-mapped workflows, and a culture that embraces testing and learning.

When I first started my small business, advertising seemed daunting. With a limited budget, I couldn’t fathom spending thousands on TV commercials or ad campaigns.

When I first started my small business, advertising seemed daunting. With a limited budget, I couldn’t fathom spending thousands on TV commercials or ad campaigns.

But over the years, I‘ve discovered that free advertising can be just as effective as paid. In fact, some of the most impactful strategies I’ve used were completely free.

It can be frustrating when your budget dictates how many potential customers you can reach. But with the right approach, you can create an effective free advertising plan.

Table of Contents

• How to Advertise Your Business for Free
• Free Local Business Advertising Ideas
• How to Advertise on Google for Free

1. Write guest posts for other blogs.

Guest-writing for a well-established blog is one of my favorite free advertising methods. It can connect you to that blog’s audience and establish you as an industry thought leader.

You’ll get access to an established audience and high domain authority, which can sometimes be more beneficial than posting to your own blog.

Plus, you can link back to your website from your article, giving you an inbound link that boosts your domain authority and can increase your own website’s ranking in search engines.

I’ve found that guest posting not only drives traffic to my site but also helps build valuable relationships within my industry. One guest post I wrote led to a partnership that doubled my client base in just six months.

Pro tip: Before you reach out, think about the perspective or data that differentiates you from the crowd. When you pitch other blogs, position your expertise as something their audiences can’t get anywhere else.

2. Answer Quora questions.

Writing content for Quora can expose your business to a large audience: in 2024, Quora reported a worldwide audience of 400 million monthly visitors.

Besides the large built-in audience, your business can answer direct questions from prospective customers. This lets you interact with high-quality potential leads and establish yourself as an expert in the subjects that matter most in your industry.

Here’s an example:

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3. Stay active in industry-specific discussions and forums.

Want to get free advertising and position yourself as an expert in the field? If so, industry-specific forums and threads could be for you.

Many industry organizations will have online forums or blogs that allow you to answer questions or offer advice.

One example is real estate investing organization Bigger Pockets, which has its own forum where industry professionals and newbies can share ideas.

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If you‘re not sure where to start, try browsing topics on Reddit to see if there’s an existing discussion or topic related to your area of expertise. Just be sure to offer genuine, valuable feedback so you don’t come off as too salesy.

4. Publish content on LinkedIn.

According to Statista, 44% of B2B marketers said that LinkedIn was the most important social platform. The next most important one was Facebook, lagging behind at 33%.

In other words, if you’re a B2B marketer, don’t sleep on LinkedIn!

LinkedIn’s blogging platform lets you demonstrate your expertise within your industry. Every time connections and other LinkedIn members engage with and share your posts, you’re getting free promotion.

You can even use LinkedIn’s native newsletter tool, like Andrew McCaskill has done. He publishes the monthly LinkedIn newsletter “The Black Guy in Marketing” and has over 15k subscribers:

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5. Offer to do interviews on business podcasts.

To figure out which platforms your team should prioritize, it’s important to diversify your promotion platforms to discover where your audience is already consuming content.

Some of your audience might prefer listening to podcasts over reading articles. To reach those people, contact a few businesses with podcasts and pitch interview ideas.

6. Promote your website in your email signature.

With all the emails you send every day, it’s a shame if you aren’t taking advantage of the promotional potential of your email signature. Here’s one I made for a fictional pet-sitting business using our free email signature generator:

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Your email signature can also be an unexpected property to promote a sale, contest, event, or even a new blog post.

You should also add a link to your business’ website on your Facebook, X, and Instagram profiles.

7. Send email newsletters.

An email newsletter can be a useful vehicle for promoting content, sharing business-related news, and building deeper relationships with potential and existing customers. There are plenty of free tools out there — like our very own free newsletter builder — that assist you in designing, sending, and optimizing your newsletter.

With the right time investment, an email newsletter can be the perfect place to share quality content with leads and potential consumers, establishing your brand as helpful and informative.

If you’re new to newsletters, give our data-backed guide to newsletter strategy a read.

8. Create YouTube videos.

According to a Wyzowl study, 87% of people have been persuaded to buy a product or service after watching a video. And 83% want to see more videos from brands in 2025. So what are you waiting for?

Creating engaging, informative, and shareable YouTube videos is one of the most efficient ways to sell your brand. If done right, your YouTube videos will entertain viewers enough to share your content and seek out your website.

Pro tip: Optimize your YouTube video titles, descriptions, and tags with relevant keywords to improve discoverability in both YouTube and Google searches.

9. Encourage happy customers to give online reviews.

Word-of-mouth is still one of the best ways to market your product. Consumers trust the opinions of other consumers, especially when there are many great testimonials.

If you have happy customers, encourage them to write a review about their experience on popular review platforms like Google, Facebook, and Yelp.

Kate Harding, who owns Jarvis Square Books in Chicago, suggests a frictionless approach: She keeps a QR code by the register that sends customers straight to her Google reviews page, where she’s racking up the five-star reviews. If you don’t have a brick-and-mortar store, you can still place a QR code or link near the end of your buyers’ journey to take advantage of happy customers.

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If you want great reviews on Facebook, be sure to create a Facebook Business page.

10. Leverage existing customers for referrals.

As mentioned above, word-of-mouth is a powerful marketing tool. Tap into the value of your existing customers by asking them for referrals.

As an incentive, you can offer a discount or other reward to encourage them to get the word out.

11. Take advantage of your partnerships.

Partnerships are an opportunity to offer supplementary services that you don’t provide.

For example, a web design company and a copywriting agency might partner, so when a client requires written content for her web pages, the web design company can offer copywriting services from its partner.

This increases consumer satisfaction and provides exceptional advertising opportunities. When your partner’s consumers need your services, your partner will point them in your direction.

12. Post on social media.

Nowadays, social media is crucial to most marketing strategies. Luckily, most types of social media platforms and posts are free — even to businesses.

Pick the platforms that best suit your audience. Then, post links, photos, videos, or text posts about your company, product launches, or any other occurrence that you’d like to promote.

Facebook, X, and LinkedIn are suitable places to start for most businesses.

They all offer a way to share video, text, photos, and link-based posts and have large user bases. To learn more about other forms of social media, check out this post.

Pro tip: Use a social media management tool to schedule posts in advance. This allows you to maintain a consistent presence without spending hours each day on social platforms.

13. Engage with followers on social platforms.

It‘s not enough to post. For your social media efforts to be successful, you’ll want two-way communication.

When customers comment on your posts, respond to and Like their comments. Not only does it keep the banter and engagement up on your content, but it also humanizes your brand.

14. Leverage user-generated content.

Since we’re talking about engaging with followers, using user-generated content (UGC) for your advertising can get the word out even on a tight budget.

Encourage your customers to create and share content related to your brand. This can be in the form of testimonials, reviews, or even user-created videos. It helps build social proof and can reach a wider audience.

Pro tip: Create a branded hashtag for your business and encourage customers to use it when sharing content related to your products or services. Using a branded hashtag makes it easier to find and share user-generated content.

15. Create highly shareable content.

Additionally, you’ll want to create enticing content that your audience will be motivated to share. Start by building a strong online presence.

Optimize your website and social media profiles to ensure they are user-friendly, visually appealing, and provide relevant information. Update your platforms with fresh content regularly and continue to engage with your audience through comments and messages.

If you don’t know where to start, check out HubSpot’s free Campaign Assistant, which can help you build every aspect of a great marketing campaign.

16. Make sure you’re listed in online directories.

Google My Business isn’t the only game in town. List your business in the local Yellow Pages, Yelp, TripAdvisor, Angi, local professional organizations, or another relevant directory.

This increases your chances of being discovered by potential customers who search for businesses like yours.

If your industry has a directory, you should be on it. Your local chamber of commerce is also a great place to start.

17. Offer valuable content like an ebook or tool.

One of the simplest ways to attract new customers and retain new ones is to provide value. This could be in the form of solving a common issue in your field or making a mundane or difficult task easier by providing a tool.

In the real estate industry, housing search sites often provide free mortgage calculators. Similarly, Smart Asset offers an array of handy tax and paycheck calculators that help visitors figure out roughly how much their income would change moving from one state to another.

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If there are common obstacles or pain points in your industry that can be remedied by offering a tool, ebook, or helpful video content, offer those resources on your site. It will help establish your brand as a trusted industry export.

18. Don’t forget about SEO.

One of the key factors in free advertising is to make sure potential customers can actually find your business.

You can have the greatest products or services, but your growth will be stunted if you don’t show up in search engines.

Along with Google My Business, taking advantage of free SEO strategies can also help your website rise higher in search results. These tactics can be simple and easy to work into blogging, web design, or other processes.

19. Offer a free trial or consultation.

One obstacle that can prevent potential customers from making a purchase is trust. Offering a free trial of your product or service or a free consultation can help break the ice and eliminate that barrier.

It‘s also a good way to get the word out. If a visitor uses your product with a free trial and enjoys the experience, they’re likely to tell others. As we’ve mentioned previously, word of mouth is a powerful advertising method.

20. Experiment with photo and video platforms.

While Facebook, X, and LinkedIn could be great platforms to start on, expanding to platforms like Instagram or Pinterest will give you more opportunities to show product shots or embrace the heavily visual strategy of influencer marketing.

Aside from spreading awareness with free images of your product or service, most social platforms, including Facebook, offer live video and story features that allow you to create video promotions related to your products.

For example, you might use Instagram Stories or TikTok as an outlet to publish tutorials on how to use your products.

Because these videos and photos are on social, you can boost their shareability by hashtagging them, creating interesting captions, and encouraging fans to react with Likes or comments.

21. Write useful press releases.

A press release is not advertising just by itself. To garner interest from media outlets and journalists, what you’re announcing needs to be newsworthy.

Making a press release that sounds too promotional can get it rejected by media outlets. Like your customers, you‘ll need to offer media outlets something of value. Did you run a survey or study that yielded some interesting insights that would be of interest to your industry?

That’s what you should include in a press release, and it increases the odds of the information being picked up by outlets. This could be about emerging industry trends or interesting statistics you found.

Once you have newsworthy information to share, submit your press release to industry publications, media outlets, and online press release distribution sites.

This will help build a buzz around your brand.

1. Use Google My Business to optimize for local search.

One of the most powerful free local business advertising methods is Google My Business, which enables companies to manage their presence on Google Search and Google Maps. The tool can bolster your rankings in local search results.

Plus, if you rank high in local search, more consumers will choose your business over a competitor’s. In today’s fast-paced world, convenience is key.

Google is the most popular site used to evaluate local businesses, according to consumers who participated in a 2023 Statista survey — 87% of respondents used Google, compared to just 48% who preferred Yelp.

Pro tip: Regularly update your Google My Business profile with fresh content, such as new photos or posts about special offers. This activity signals to Google that your business is active and relevant, potentially boosting your local search rankings.

To truly leverage the power of local search and track your performance, consider using a robust marketing analytics tool like HubSpot’s Marketing Analytics.

It can help you measure the impact of your Google My Business efforts and other local SEO strategies on your overall marketing performance.

2. Attend networking events and mixers.

Connecting with fellow professionals at industry networking events is a great opportunity to meet potential consumers in a place where they are eager to discuss your business.

The niche topics of networking events ensure you’re meeting high-qualified leads.

For example, an event for best tech startups will primarily attract participants who are interested in — you guessed it — technology and startups.

Particularly for small businesses looking to make their first connections, networking is a chance to get your name out there, meet potential partners, and find growth opportunities. Plus, it’ll keep you up-to-date on trends in your industry.

3. Speak at an association or industry event.

Speaking at an event about a topic related to your industry is another way to exhibit your expertise.

Giving a thought-provoking and powerful speech will draw attention to you and, by association, your business, which can increase brand awareness and prove your business is qualified to tackle consumer challenges.

To start, brainstorm different topics and volunteer at various upcoming networking events and trade association conventions.

If you’re afraid of public speaking (don’t worry, many of us are), you could enroll in a local Toastmasters chapter to improve your game.

4. Offer locals-only promotions.

One way to build loyalty and camaraderie among your audience is to offer a discount to locals only. Exclusive offers create the impression that your audience is getting something tailor-made for them.

For example, my local coffee shop offers a small discount for customers who live in the neighborhood. It doesn’t have to be much, just a token of your appreciation for their continued support of your business.

This kind gesture will encourage them to return and bring you even more business.

5. Be active in your community.

Similar to the networking suggestion, stay on top of local events in your area, even non-industry-related ones.

From fundraisers and charity events to local sports and community meetings — it’s an opportunity to make real connections with those in your community and build rapport.

You never know where those connections will take you. Choose something that suits your interests to make it more fun. Being active in your community will make it easier for potential customers to put a face to your business.

6. Partner with complementary local businesses.

This strategy will require a bit of research and legwork, but familiarizing yourself with other local business owners and their specialties can be very valuable if you leverage your connections.

Let’s say you own a local yoga or fitness studio. You could partner with an athletic brand in your area — running a contest where completing a certain number of classes gets them free merch. In return, you could allow the brand space to sell its clothing in your studio.

Harding, the Chicago bookstore owner, joined forces with dozens of other local bookstore owners for the Chicagoland Bookstore Crawl, which promoted her own business and introduced her to peers across the city.

7. Put up brochures or flyers.

Putting up brochures or flyer templates in local libraries, coffee shops, and businesses is a unique way to market to offline locations where people spend a good deal of their time.

You can create free brochures and flyers on PowerPoint or Canva.

Depending on your industry, it might even help you reach an ideal clientele. If you’re a physical therapist, for example, perhaps you could hand out brochures to local gyms or nearby hospitals.

How to Advertise on Google for Free

As mentioned above, you can create a free page on Google My Business, which can help you rank higher or first in search results. Here’s how it works.

1. Create your Google My Business account.

First, you‘ll want to create a Gmail account for your business. Then, you’ll want to register for Google My Business with that account.

Google will first ask you to enter the name of your business. Then, you’ll be asked to select a “Delivery Area.” In this form, note the mileage and area where your target audience lives.

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2. Optimize your business page.

After your setup process is complete, you can fill out your profile. As you do this, you ideally want to include all the requested info for the best search optimization.

A few key things you’ll want to include will be:

• Your address.
• A phone number, email address, and other contact information.
• Your website.
• Hours of operation.
• Photos of your business and products.
• A detailed description of what your business offers.
• Pricing or menu information.
• The year your company opened.
• Other business attributes, such as “free Wi-Fi.”

The above items are things locals might search specifically for.

For example, if someone searches for a “cheap Mexican restaurant open after 8 p.m.,” Google will examine the details in a business profile and prioritize your restaurant if it seems like a great match.

Here’s an example of what it looks like when a Google business fills out all its information:

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3. Verify and monitor your business page.

Once you‘ve created your Google My Business profile, verify your listing so Google knows it’s a real, legitimate business. There are a few ways to do this, including email, postcard, and phone verification.

You can also download the GMB app to monitor how your business is doing from your phone.

You Don’t Have to Blow Your Budget to Get Results

My favorite free advertising method? It’s a tie between content marketing through guest posting and leveraging Google My Business. Both have provided consistent returns in terms of increased visibility and customer acquisition.

What started as a necessity due to budget constraints has become a core part of my marketing strategy. I’ve found that combining these free methods with strategic paid advertising yields the best results.

Effective advertising is about creativity and persistence more than it is about budget. With the right approach, even a small business can make a big impact.

Editor’s note: This post was originally published in March 2018 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.

Facebook ads can be incredibly powerful — when they’re done right. Most marketers say it consistently delivers a better ROI than any other social media platform.

Facebook ads can be incredibly powerful — when they’re done right. Most marketers say it consistently delivers a better ROI than any other social media platform.

There’s just one catch — you need a solid Facebook ad strategy in place before you dive in. Otherwise, Meta’s evolving algorithms, changing audience expectations, and the nuance of different ad types can make things expensive fast.

I work with clients every day who use Facebook ads and rely heavily on ad experts who stay current on best practices. To help you develop a smarter, more effective Facebook ad strategy, I’ve connected with several pros and am sharing their insights in this article.

Table of Contents

• Are Facebook ads worth pursuing in 2025?
• What to Know Before Setting Up Your Facebook Ads
• 11 Facebook Ads Strategy Tips

Are Facebook ads worth pursuing in 2025?

Short answer — yes. Over 10 million businesses are actively using Facebook advertising to reach billions of active users.

Clearly, something is working:

• 43% of marketers we surveyed plan to maintain the same investment in Facebook in 2025 as last year.
• 25% plan to increase their investment in 2025.
• More marketers plan to invest the most in Facebook in 2025 than in any other social media channel.

“Facebook is still the most efficient, scalable ad network for businesses of all sizes. The real question isn’t whether it works — it’s whether you’re committed to doing what it takes to make it work,” says Zachary Murray, founder of Foreplay.co, a creative collaboration and ad inspiration platform for marketers and creative teams.

Which brings me to the longer answer — Facebook ads may or may not be the perfect fit for every business. Before you invest time, money, and energy into them, I always recommend asking three questions:

1. Why are you running Facebook ads?
2. What results are you hoping to achieve?
3. What else needs to be in place for your ads to be effective?

Some background here: I first started playing with Facebook ads in 2012 when it was still the Wild West. You could throw $20 behind a post and see real traction — without knowing much about targeting or creativity.

Today, the platform is considerably more sophisticated, so you’ve got to have your ducks in a row and a Facebook ad strategy designed for your goals.

I share that not to scare you off but to ensure you’re thinking things through. After all, according to Nicole Morton, marketing operations manager at Keystone Click, a digital marketing agency, “Facebook remains one of the largest social platforms and provides diverse ad formats, robust targeting options, and the potential to reach a wide audience.”

So the real question isn’t should you advertise on Facebook — it should be, “How do I make sure it’s worth my time and money?”

And if you want to make sure you’re picking the best Meta channel for your social media strategy, we’ve compared them here to help you make an informed decision.

What to Know Before Setting Up Your Facebook Ads

Based on the questions I shared above, you’ve probably guessed that you need to take a step back before you even think about opening Ads Manager, creating a Meta ad account, or developing creative assets.

Here are four things you need to know to create your first Facebook ad strategy.

1. Know your audience better than they know themselves.

If you want to reach the right people, you need to know who they are and what makes them want to click. Not all marketers subscribe to buyer personas or customer avatars, but in my experience, having them is invaluable before you do any kind of marketing — not just ads. (HubSpot has a handy tool you can use to get started.)

Demographics (age, career, income, location, etc.) are a good place to start — and absolutely necessary for targeting.

As Catherine Wilson, founder of Eviva Media, explains, “The platform allows precise targeting based on location, interests, and demographics, making it ideal for reaching your ideal customers even on a small budget.”

But to ensure your ads can really perform and drive conversions, you’ve got to dig deeper:

• What do they care about most right now?
• What’s going on in their lives that they need your solution?
• What motivates their decisions?

According to our 2025 survey, most marketers have access to the following information about their target audience:

• Basic demographics (35.46%).
• Shopping habits (34.57%).
• Past purchase history (32.08%).
• Interests and hobbies (29.04%).

Only 19.71% of marketers have access to audience pain points, so this is your opportunity to shine for the best possible ad targeting.

Better yet, by speaking directly to their mindset, you can ensure your ads feel less salesy and more like a solution. That’s what makes people stop scrolling.

2. Map your average customer journey.

Facebook ads are part of a bigger conversation that starts with what’s happening in their mind and continues based on what your customers’ next move is likely to be — both in their lives and within the context of your business.

That means understanding the steps they take as they:

• Recognize they have a problem.
• Identify what that problem is.
• Discover potential solutions.
• Become aware of me as an option.
• Choose to purchase my product.

While I often find this journey to be slightly different for each customer, most buyers generally fall into three categories, each of which needs slightly different messaging, offers, and CTAs.

• Awareness Phase (top of the funnel). Focus your ad content on the problem your audience is facing.
• Consideration Phase (middle of the funnel). Try out ads that show your solution in action.
• Decision Phase (bottom of the funnel). Offer urgency like limited-time offers, bonuses, or even something showing the benefit of getting your solution in place now.

By tailoring your ads to each stage of your customer journey, you meet your audience where they are, which makes it easier for them to say yes.

As Morton explains, “Don’t rely on a single ad to carry the success of your Facebook campaign. It should be part of a larger strategy that guides your prospects from awareness to consideration to conversion.”

Want to see this in action?

Let’s say I want to run ads for a fitness tracker. In the awareness phase, I’ll create a short, engaging video of the everyday challenges of maintaining fitness, like busy work schedules and lack of motivation.

For the consideration phase, I can create carousel ads showcasing the tracker’s features and benefits. These may include heart rate monitoring, step tracking, and sleep analysis. I can also include customer testimonials and quick illustrations of how the product integrates seamlessly into daily life.

In the decision phase, I’ll run a series of ads offering a limited-time discount on the fitness tracker and highlight the ease of purchase. I will also include a clear CTA to drive urgency and encourage immediate action.

After nailing down the customer journey, I begin segmenting my audience.

3. Segment your audience.

Grouping customers based on where they are in the customer journey helps me target people with the right offers at the appropriate time.

Here are a few examples of my potential audience segments:

• New customers. They enter my funnel as warm leads because they’re interested in my product.
• Lukewarm leads. Those who visited my website but didn’t engage. I can use retargeting ads to remind them that I have the solution to their problems.
• Engaged blog readers. Those who like my content and keep coming back for more. They’re more likely to share my posts on Facebook or make a purchase.
• Landing page visitors. They typically come to a specific landing page and are probably interested in a particular product.
• Shopping cart abandoners. They were close to buying an item, but something stopped them. So, I may need to gently push them to finish their purchase.
• Return customers. They love my brand. They’ve already purchased from me in the past and come back for more. They’re brand advocates who praise and recommend my product to their friends.

Jeremy Bogdanowicz, founder and CEO of JTB Studios, segments his audience based on their interests, which he says is always effective on Facebook because “The algorithm allows Facebook users to find content according to their interests. If they like a post or page, they will see similar posts or pages on their Facebook timelines. Thus, I find people whose interests align with our brand’s services. Afterward, I leave the rest to Facebook.”

I agree with Jeremy. Audience targeting based on their interests is a smart strategy. It ensures my ads reach people who are more likely to engage with my content, increasing their chances of opening the ads.

4. Install your Meta pixel.

Meta Pixel (formerly Facebook Pixel) is a piece of code you embed into your website to track visitors’ actions. It’s a must — no exceptions.

Pixel data delivers insights that allow you to:

• See which ads are driving results beyond clicks (whether or not your audience converts).
• Retarget people who didn’t convert.
• Optimize your campaigns.
• Create lookalike audiences and expand your reach.

I recommend checking out Meta’s step-by-step instructions to help you install Meta Pixel on your website.

Pro tip: Download our free Facebook Advertising Checklist. It will guide you through every step of setting up and optimizing your Facebook ads.

11 Facebook Ads Strategy Tips

Once you know your audience, map the journey, segment your list, and install your Pixel, it’s time to put that knowledge into action.

Now that we’ve gone over the basics, I’ll share some of my top tips for creating effective Facebook ad campaigns that can help you maximize your return on investment (ROI).

1. Combine Facebook ads with content marketing.

Running Facebook ads doesn’t mean you should stop creating helpful, relevant content — in fact, the two work better together.

One mistake I go out of my way to avoid is targeting my warm leads with ads designed to turn them into paying customers. Since warm leads aren’t ready to buy from me yet, instead of turning them off with straight sales offers, I offer them helpful content that answers their questions and solves their pain points.

Kurt Uhlir, chief marketing officer at EZ Home Search, follows the same pattern with a two-fold strategy: “First, we provide information that addresses both the emotional and logical queries pertinent to their [audience] customer journey. Secondly, we share success stories where our clients are the superheroes, not just beneficiaries, of their success.”

This approach positions his company as a valuable resource and showcases the tangible impact of their solutions through relatable narratives.

Here’s how I typically see Facebook ads work alongside content marketing:

• Create a valuable blog post, guide, or video tailored to a specific stage in the journey.
• Share it organically on Facebook.
• Boost it to reach more of your ideal audience.
• Retarget engaged viewers later with a more focused offer.

2. Collaborate with influencers who align with your brand values.

One thing I’ve realized in my experience with Facebook ads is that influencers can add a layer of authenticity you can’t get from traditional ads.

In fact, 63% of consumers are more likely to buy if an influencer they trust shares your product.

Here’s where it gets even more interesting. According to our 2025 survey of marketers:

• Only 14% report using influencers in their overall marketing strategy.
• 88% plan to invest the same or more with influencers in 2025.
• 24% see influencers as one of the biggest changes to the marketing industry.
• And 10% are trying out influencer marketing for the first time.

Momentum is clearly building here, which means influencer marketing could be a huge opportunity for you. Especially when you consider that today’s consumers want authentic content.

However, that doesn’t mean just any influencer can have this effect on your business. In fact, 28% of marketers are focusing more energy on creating content that reflects their brand values, and this likely extends to their channel partners.

With that in mind, I recommend choosing influencers who align with your brand values to ensure the partnership feels natural.

3. Use lead ads to build up your marketing list.

Having a huge Facebook following is awesome. However, you and I know that Meta “owns” our contacts. If they decide to change their algorithm or shut down, we’d lose access to those people. Not to mention what happens if people decide to leave Facebook.

To protect yourself here, I always recommend building your own marketing list. When I do this, I create a lead magnet, such as a free ebook or course, and run a lead ad. This way, my followers can give me their email addresses directly on Facebook.

That said, I’m generally cautious with this approach. I never add any steps that may cause friction for users trying to access my gift. Otherwise, I may end up losing them.

Once I have their email, I add it to my marketing list and include them in my email marketing campaigns.

A few tips here to make this effective and seamless:

• Keep the form short.
• Remove unnecessary steps.
• Follow up right away via email.
• Make sure the handoff between ad and experience feels consistent.

4. Incorporate video ads.

Videos are a powerful tool for boosting conversions and sales. Our 2024 Marketing Statistics show that 96% of people watch explainer videos to learn more about a product. Even better, 89% say these videos have convinced them to purchase.

Marketers concur. Our 2025 survey shows that product demonstrations and tutorials perform better on social media than any other type of content.

These stats clearly prove my point. That’s a huge opportunity.

Morton agrees. “We’re anticipating a greater emphasis on video and interactive content. Features like Stories, Reels, and interactive ads will become more impactful.”

And, in my experience, clients who lean into short, engaging videos see higher engagement and lower cost-per-click. Here’s what I’ve noticed tends to work best — for clients and content I’m likely to engage with:

• Keep it under 30 seconds.
• Get your hook in early — the first three seconds are best.
• Use captions so you connect with people whose sound is off.
• Focus on one simple idea per video.

And since 28% of marketers we surveyed in 2025 are already using short-form video, why not start using the videos you’ve already developed in your ads?

Or, if you’re like the 17% using long-form video, consider repurposing longer content into short clips for Facebook.

Lastly, your video doesn’t need to be super polished. In fact, behind-the-scenes-style content often performs better because it feels more authentic. Whatever you do, aim to tell a story.

Wilson shared that this approach is working really well for her clients. “When we shifted a concrete coating company’s strategy from sharing before and afters to focus on storytelling, we saw a measurable increase in both the quantity and quality of leads. People connected emotionally with the story, saw the possibilities for themselves, and were more motivated to reach out. It’s about connection, not just promotion.”

5. Create Facebook and Google ads.

While many marketers see Facebook and Google as picking one or the other, I see them as platforms that can complement each other quite nicely.

As I said earlier, my strategy always depends on my campaign objectives and the audience segment I’d like to target. So, I often choose different ad types that align with my customers’ current stage in the buyer’s journey.

For example, if I’m promoting my new fitness tracker to warm leads, Facebook ads might be the better option. I can target them with helpful content to create brand awareness, as they may not yet be ready to buy my product.

Conversely, Google ads would be more effective if I’m marketing a new computer to a returning customer. Such a person is often ready to purchase and research their options. By using the right keywords and creating targeted Google ads, I can reach them at the exact moment they’re considering buying, making it more likely they’ll choose my product.

6. Use giveaways and contests.

Something I’ve noticed when creating my social media campaigns is that Facebook contests don’t always need to focus on sales. Instead, I offer high-value prizes to increase brand awareness, which will pay off in the long run by bringing new leads into my conversion funnel.

Kelly Sullivan, the owner of Kokomo Botanical Resort, shares the impressive results he got when he offered customers a chance to win an all-expenses-paid trip to Hawaii for sharing a Facebook ad about their travel company.

According to Sullivan, “The contest spread like wildfire, increasing our Facebook page likes by over 50% and reducing our CPC (cost-per-click) by 40% within a month.”

Besides high-value prizes, I also find that partnering with brands that have similar audience personas to mine can be effective.

Amelia Munday, social media marketing specialist at Custom Neon, agrees and notes that “By partnering with other brands and posting in a ‘collaboration style’ post with other accounts, the giveaway is mutually beneficial to both brands because it allows you to garner exposure to each other’s audience and therefore increase your following and impressions!”

Note: Before creating any contests or giveaways on Facebook, review Meta’s policies to make sure you aren’t violating any of their rules.

7. Use Facebook mobile ads.

When I think about Facebook ads, one of the first things that comes to mind is the immense potential of mobile ads. Most people on social media prefer using their smartphones to desktops.

Our statistics show that 62% of Millennials and 80% of Gen Z primarily use their phones to search for what they want.

That means your ads, landing pages, and checkout flows need to load quickly, look great on a small screen, and be thumb-friendly from top to bottom.

Here’s what I recommend:

• Use vertical or square video and images — they take up more screen real estate.
• Keep headlines and copy tight and scannable.
• Test your landing pages on mobile before you run any traffic.

An otherwise “perfect” ad can flop if the mobile experience on the other side is clunky or slow. When every second counts, you’ve got to make sure everything is working right.

8. Use AI strategically to create your Facebook ads.

AI is here to stay, so this is your chance to use it to your advantage for your Facebook ad strategy.

Our Social Media Trends report shows that 48% of social media marketers use AI tools to generate text for their copy, while another 41% use AI assistants like Microsoft Copilot to automate repetitive tasks and improve productivity.

Chris Stones, strategic and operations director at Mitchell & Stones, says AI helps him serve ads in multiple languages and gives him a more accurate translation than Google Translate.

As a content curator, AI helps me save at least three hours on every piece of ad copy I create. Personally, I use HubSpot’s AI-powered content tools to:

• Turn a single blog post into multiple content formats.
• Write engaging copy for my social media posts.
• Create consistent on-brand content.

That said, AI is still far from perfect. Use it to complement your creative efforts rather than relying on it entirely.

9. Keep optimizing your ads.

Morton offers a word of caution. “Facebook ads are rarely a ‘set-and-forget’ tactic. They require ongoing monitoring, budget adjustments, fresh creative, and audience updates.”

To keep your campaigns effective, you need to keep testing, learning, and refining.

“Everything is testable,” says Murray.

Our 2025 survey of marketers shows that this is one of the biggest ways the marketing industry is changing —18% agree that actively testing new marketing channels and formats became more important over the last year.

That means it’s important to play around with new ideas and pay attention to content trends. In doing so, you’re not just reacting when something underperforms; you’re proactively looking for ways to stay ahead.

Wilson sees this in action, too. Instead of turning on an ad and hoping for the best, she advises clients to “Test different versions and scale up what performs best.”

10. Build a system that works.

Your system isn’t limited to building out an ecosystem that moves your audience smoothly through the customer journey, although this is extremely important.

Wilson explains, “Follow up with leads quickly. The businesses that respond within minutes are the ones that close the most deals.”

When I asked Murray something he wished every business knew about creating a Facebook ads strategy, he was quick to respond. “I wish more people understood just how much effort goes into making Facebook ads work. The real question shouldn’t be ‘Do we have the budget to spend on Facebook?’ — it should be ‘Do we have the capacity to create, iterate, and test consistently?’ Winning on Facebook isn’t about a single perfect ad. It’s about building a system that helps you find that ad through experimentation.”

With that in mind, you also need processes that help you:

• Test creative regularly.
• Track and compare results.
• Adjust targeting based on behavior.
• Iterate without starting from scratch every time.

11. Obsess over your creative.

At the end of the day, targeting only gets you so far. It’s your creative — the message, the hook, the visual, the vibe — that grabs attention and moves people to act.

“As ad platforms mature — just like TV and radio before them — the only lever that continues to matter is the creative itself,” Murray says. “Your job is to make something that’s worth watching, and ideally, worth sharing.”

That’s why creative fatigue is real. Even great ads lose steam over time. You need a steady stream of fresh, scroll-stopping content that aligns with your audience’s mindset and the moment they’re in.

Morton echoes this as well. “We start with a data-driven approach. Experiment with different ad creatives, messaging, and audience segments to dial in your campaign. Then use that data to iterate and refine your strategy.”

If you’re not putting as much energy into your ad creative as your budget, you’re missing the lever that matters most.

Create Effective Facebook Ads Today

If you take one thing away from this article, I hope it’s that Facebook ads can still work incredibly well as long as you don’t expect them to work on autopilot or in a vacuum.

My experience creating Facebook ad strategies has taught me that nothing will work if I don’t know who my message is meant for.

With that in mind, you need a Facebook ads strategy that factors in how you meet your audience’s needs and your systems for creating, testing, and refining those ads, as well as following up with them.

If you’re ready to dive in, be sure to consider the questions and strategies I’ve shared here to drive higher engagement and boost your conversion rates.

Editor’s note: This post was originally published in January 2022 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.

I know the impact of ignoring buyer’s journey keywords all too well. Early in my SEO career, I generated two million clicks for an ecommerce store. The client and I were thrilled. The graph on Google Search Console was trending strongly up.

I know the impact of ignoring buyer’s journey keywords all too well. Early in my SEO career, I generated two million clicks for an ecommerce store. The client and I were thrilled. The graph on Google Search Console was trending strongly up.

The problem? I couldn’t quantify a single sale from two million visitors. I had no idea how to generate a keyword strategy for buyers.

I learned my lesson the hard way. Now, everything I do in SEO is centered around the buyer and the end goal: a sale. Using buyer journey keywords, I can better quantify the value of my work. I know which landing page converts and which keywords influence sales, and I can quantify the monetary contribution articles had on sales. Keep reading to learn how.

Table of Contents

• The Role of the Buyer’s Journey in Keyword Research
• Keyword Intents for Each Buyer’s Journey Stage
• How to Do Keyword Research for Each Stage of the Buyer’s Journey
• Tips for Doing Keyword Research Aligned With the Buyer’s Journey

The Role of the Buyer’s Journey in Keyword Research

Source

The buyer’s journey includes the steps a potential buyer will take before they purchase. SEOs who want to serve buyers and sell products or services need to understand the buyer journey to effectively strategize content.

Generally, the buyer journey will have three stages:

• Identification = pain and problem awareness
• Consideration = solution awareness
• Decision = provider aware

Sometimes, it’s represented in a funnel, known as the marketing or conversion funnel. I’ve placed an image of one below. You may also know these stages as:

• Awareness = Top of Funnel (ToFu)
• Consideration = Middle of Funnel (MoFu)
• Conversion = Bottom of Funnel (BoFu)

Understanding buyer’s journey keywords will pivot your SEO strategy from clicks to revenue, which matters for every business. Google is serving more of your potential buyers with AI overviews, which appear in 47% of results. Now, people can just read the AIO without clicking a link. So, SEOs must be tactical to win clicks and conversions.

Keyword Intents for Each Buyer’s Journey Stage

Each buyer journey stage has a separate need that you need to meet by matching the right keywords to the right stage. Meeting the buyer at different stages on their journey isn’t always about sealing the deal but building relationships.

In the State of Marketing survey, HubSpot found that marketers believe that building connections across the buyer’s journey and developing relationships at scale introduces new operational needs.

Awareness

The buyer has identified a problem but doesn’t fully understand it or doesn’t know a solution exists. They are seeking general information or education to clarify the issue. This stage is about discovery and research.

This stage of the buyer journey needs helpful, educational content to better understand the problem or opportunity.

Keywords for this buyer journey will be problem-based and question-driven, such as “how to,” “why does,” or “what is.” These terms align with the buyer’s intent to learn and explore their situation without feeling sold to.

Here’s an example of a buyer in the awareness stage and the keywords to support them.

Consider that a buyer in the awareness stage is using keywords about a problem. For example, a sales manager might research:

• Why doesn’t my team follow up with leads?
• How to motivate a sales team.
• Processes to manage leads.

During this stage, content wants to educate the buyer. While this top-of-funnel content might not seem the most impactful for sales, according to Hubspot’s State of Marketing survey, the website and blog are some of the most effective channels for ROI.

Consideration

The buyer understands the problem and is exploring different approaches or solutions. They are actively researching options and comparing them.

This stage of the buyer journey needs solutions and guidance on which route might be best for them.

Keywords for this buyer journey will be comparison and solution-oriented keywords like “best tools for,” “top strategies,” “[solution] versus [solution]” or “solution to [problem].” These help your content show up when the buyer is evaluating ways to solve their issue.

Here’s an example of a buyer in the consideration stage and the keywords to support them.

Let’s stick with the example of a buyer looking for a CRM. In the consideration stage, they will know what their options are, and they might be overwhelmed. They are looking for support and want help weighing up solutions.

Conversion

The buyer is ready to make a decision and take action. They’ve narrowed down their options and are looking for reassurance, offers, or reasons to choose your product or service.

This stage of the buyer journey needs to reassure the buyer’s confidence in your solution and make conversion easy and tempting.

Keywords for this buyer journey will be targeted, intent-driven keywords like “buy,” “get a quote,” “pricing,” or “

near me.” These align with transactional searches and indicate the buyer is close to making a purchase.

Here’s an example of a buyer in the conversion stage.

If looking for a CRM, the buyer is ready to click “Start Free Trial.”

The key things to understand are:

• Every buyer goes through a series of stages before they buy.
• Not every buyer starts at the awareness phase.
• The three stages above could be considered broad stages, and each has its own nuance, varying by industry, business, customer, and more. You need to understand your buyer’s journey before you can serve them.
• At each stage, buyers have different needs.

How to Do Keyword Research for Each Stage of the Buyer’s Journey

Now you understand the context of the buyer journey, each phase, and some ideas of keywords, I’ll walk you through a step-by-step process of how I do keyword research for each stage of the buyer’s journey.

When doing keyword research, it’s tempting to start from the top with the awareness stage, but I reverse this process and start at the bottom buyer journey stage, conversion. I start with conversion for two main reasons:

1. Conversion-driven keywords are the most important.
2. Starting with conversion keywords keeps me focused. You can quickly become overwhelmed by the content opportunities starting ToFu.

Stick with me as I share the complete guide.

Step 1: Prepare a Google document.

I love to record my buyer journey keyword strategy on Google Sheets. For now, you don’t need to do anything fancy.

Simply set up a document and save it somewhere safe. You will use this document to import all your keyword research.

Step 2: Identify your bottom-funnel keyword.

There are many ways to gather bottom-funnel keywords. If you have a strong and well-managed ads account, start there.

Use Google Ads to identify buyer journey keywords for bottom-funnel keywords.

To find keywords that convert, follow these steps:

1. Sign in to Google Ads.
2. Click “Insights and Reports,” then “Search Terms.”
3. Filter the table by the highest conversions.

The screenshot above shows a redacted Ads account for one of my clients. It shows the steps you take to find the keywords.

I want to note that not all keywords in the ads account work. The highest-converting keyword is excluded because although it received conversions, it didn’t get sales. The ads manager excluded this keyword, so SEO should likely exclude it, too.

Top tip: Many of the highest-converting keywords will include your brand name. You will be ranking for these anyway, so don’t focus on them. Choose keywords that you need to work on to increase rankings.

Research buyer journey keywords using SEO tools.

SEO tools such as Semrush offer insights into keywords, volumes, and intent. There are many on the market, but my favorite is Semrush, so I’ll demonstrate this stage using Semrush’s Keyword Magic Tool.

On your chosen keyword research tool, add your head keyword. Your head keyword will be the product or service you are selling.

For this example, I’ve chosen “CRM.” Many keyword research tools allow you to filter results, including “transactional” keywords, which are likely to convert.

You need to:

1. Identify your head keyword.
2. Search it in your keyword tool.
3. Filter results by “transactional” intent keywords.
4. Manually review keywords, choosing the keywords that work for your business.

Top tip: Don’t worry too much about search volume and keyword difficulty. Generally, conversion keywords are the most difficult to rank for and often have lower search volumes. Remember the funnel from earlier? The smallest section is at the bottom, as users at this point in the buyer journey reduce.

Research buyer journey keywords using Google Search Console and G4.

Google Search Console is not the easiest way of identifying buyer journey keywords, but it is free, so I’ve included it.

To determine whether a keyword is helping you make sales, you need to understand how users engage with the pages the keyword drives traffic to.

First, let’s find pages that convert.

1. Log in to G4.
2. Navigate to Reports
3. Navigate to Life Cycle > Engagement> Landing Page Report
4. Filter by revenue

Take your highest-performing pages and analyze the URL in Google Search Console (GSC).

1. Log in to Google Search Console.
2. Go to Search Results.
3. Click “Add Filter.”
4. Add a page.
5. Add the URL.

GSC will filter all keywords generating clicks for the page input. Review the keywords and identify if keywords are likely to result in a sale.

Top tip: Google Search Console won’t tell you which keywords are converting, so you’ll need to use some common sense.

Step 3: Conduct keyword research for middle funnel (consideration) buyer journey keywords.

From the stage above, you should have a list of keywords that you’d love to rank for. These are your bottom-funnel or conversion keywords.

Generally, these keywords are used on:

• Product pages
• Service pages
• Conversion-driven landing pages

Later, I’ll discuss keyword mapping so you know exactly where to place your keywords.

Before creating more content, though, I like to ensure I have the content available to support bottom-funnel pages in a way that builds E-E-A-T. I like to start with the next most important item, which is content that fits the middle-funnel buyer’s journey: Consideration.

The type of content we can use for keyword research includes:

• Case studies.
• Reviews.
• Some articles.

You likely already have these pages on your website. I might take these pages and put them into Google Search Console to see if I can find any relevant keywords. To do this, use the steps above for keyword research and filter by page.

Important note: Your review keywords are really important and often missed by brands. I see too many websites that lack a review page and therefore give clicks away to review sites or even social media. You want a page on your website that showcases your reviews and manages your brand narrative.

Top tip: If you don’t find much in terms of keywords and search volume, don’t worry too much. Not every piece of content for the buyer journey has to be for SEO. Some content can be shared with other marketing departments via email, for example.

Step 4: Conduct keyword research for top funnel (awareness) buyer journey keywords.

Finally, I identify keywords for the awareness buyer journey stage.

Visualize the funnel from earlier. The funnel shape provides a visual for the traffic volumes at each stage of the buyer journey. Awareness is at the largest point of the funnel because it has the most searches, keywords, and users. As you get further down the funnel, it narrows because the audience gets smaller.

To do keyword research for this phase, I go back to Semrush, following the steps above, and navigate to the Keyword Magic Tool. I remove filters for the intent and look at Questions as well as keywords to see which keywords inspire content.

Important note: The tools do a fantastic job of providing keyword inspiration, but there is no replacement for talking to customers and your peers. Ask sales what types of questions people ask. Find out exactly who your target audience is and what they need from you. It’s very easy to get distracted at this stage. You must create content that your audience needs.

Creating the right content and targeting the keywords your audience needs has never been more important. With the rise of AI, top-funnel keywords get far fewer clicks as AI overviews serve the buyer. You need every click to count.

Step 5: Understand search intent and SERP analysis.

These next two steps are my favorites.

You might already have an idea of where you’re going to use your keywords. Bottom-funnel keywords are generally pretty self-explanatory. “Demo CRM,” for example, clearly needs to go to a page where a CRM can be demoed.

Many keywords won’t be as self-explanatory, though.

I like to use Google in private browsing, so the search engine results pages (SERPs) are not tailored to my usual search history.

Let’s Google “best CRM for sales and marketing teams,” and I’ll show you how I analyze the SERPs.

Here’s what I’m thinking when I look at these SERPs:

• Which pages are ranking? Looking at the organic listings, all pages, bar the top result, are product pages with “demo” or “free” in the URL and or title tag.
• Which SERP features are available? I can see People Also Ask, videos, and review snippets.
• Priority is given to the Zapier round-up article and videos.

From this information, you can gather:

• The type of page you need to rank (a product page).
• Components to include on the page (video, questions, aggregateRatings schema).
• Videos are a high priority and should be added.

What you’re doing here is using Google’s “understanding” of the searcher’s needs to determine what they want and what you’ll create to meet it.

Google has a complex algorithm dedicated to providing helpful content to its users. Google’s success in being helpful and providing quality information is paramount to its success as a search engine. It’s fairly safe to assume Google has search intent right.

Mimic the content Google is prioritizing (but do it in your own way), and you’ll likely meet user needs.

Step 6: Map keywords to pages.

As an extension of the step above, correctly map buyer journey keywords to the right content. This is called keyword mapping. You assign keywords to the page that have the highest possible chance of ranking.

Once you’ve done the first step, you need to correctly identify your supporting keywords.

A good example to illustrate this point is People Also Ask. I often see websites that see each FAQ as its own page or article, but this isn’t always the most efficient way to map keywords.

For the search “road bike for women,” People Also Ask provides the following questions:

• What is the best road bike for ladies?
• What size road bike do I need for a woman?
• Which bike is best for females?
• Are road bikes good for weight loss?

It would be a mistake to use the keywords “What is the best road bike for ladies?” and “Which bike is best for females?” as keywords for the same article.

You can see this in your SERP analysis. When Googled, you can see the ranking articles.

There is one commonality, but the rest of the articles are different. The keyword “What is the best road bike for ladies?” is more nuanced, bringing up results that mention “road,” whereas the other keyword is more general.

Important note: Although this search is an excellent guide, sometimes you need to use common sense and do what is right by your values and business. For example, if you only sell road bikes, you might choose to cluster those keywords together.

I like to record my buyer journey keyword map in Google Sheets. Here’s what my sheet looks like:

I record a draft title, the page’s focus keyword, and supporting keywords. This way, when I write the content, I know where the keywords are mapped.

If you want more support with SEO content writing, HubSpot’s SEO Marketing Software allows you to optimize your content within one easy-to-use-tool.

Tips for Doing Keyword Research Aligned With the Buyer’s Journey

Finally, here are some final tips to help you feel confident about keyword research aligned with the buyer journey.

Ask customers what they searched to find you.

This tip is easy to implement, especially in B2B, because the person on the other end of the phone likely understands. If you work in marketing, there’s a good chance the buyer will also respect your diligence.

Once you’ve built a good rapport with the prospect, ask them what they searched for to find you.

This information will give you exactly the type of keyword your buyers are searching for.

Start with buyer needs.

If you follow my process for buyer journey keyword research detailed above, you’ll do this, but I can’t stress enough the importance of starting with buyer needs. It’s very tempting to go to the tools and start finding keywords, but you really want to hone in on conversions and scale back from there, discovering impactful keywords that actually help your buyer.

Talk to sales and customer service representatives.

No one knows your customers like sales and customer service. Ask them which questions buyers ask frequently and what you can do in content to address common apprehensions and build trust.

Remember to repurpose content.

Although keywords and SEO are incredibly important, it takes time to rank in the top spots of Google. In the meantime, get content out to your users through other means: ads, emails, social media, etc.

Refer to Google Search Console regularly.

Google Search Console (GSC) data updates frequently. Keep a close eye on keywords you search, clicks, and impressions. Look for new opportunities to add more keywords to your content.

I like to look at high impressions and low clicks to spot keywords people are searching for.

Feeling conflicted about SERPs? Do the integral thing.

Sometimes, you’ll encounter a keyword map or SERP analysis that doesn’t quite feel right. You should always do what’s right for your buyer and business.

I always say that you should do the integral thing first. You might be surprised at what you can rank, even if the SERPs aren’t quite in line with what you want to create. You can always come back and compromise later.

Buyer Journey Keyword Strategy Helps You Qualify Content’s Role

SEO is notorious for being tricky in tracking its contribution to sales. It’s not like ads where you have keywords with sales assigned. Instead, you can only really assign click quantities.

However, there is a major benefit to buyer journey keywords: you know that not everything is created to convert. Some keywords are used on pages that convert, and others are there to build awareness. This means you can alter your tracking accordingly.

• For ToFu pieces, track clicks, impressions, newsletter signups, and return visitors.
• Use segment gap analysis to establish content (and therefore keywords) that contribute to the buyer journey and sales. You can create two segments: purchasers and users who viewed an article and bought it after X time. This helps show the role of content and keywords on the buyer journey..
• Track sales from bottom-funnel pages gaining clicks from bottom-funnel keywords.
• Monitor pages that are generating revenue and ranking only for non-brand keywords.
• Use ad data to determine SEO’s impact. If something converts in ads, then it likely converts organically, too.

Turn Your SEO Strategy Into a Revenue-Generating Machine With Buyer Journey Keywords

Since using buyer journey keywords and building a strategy from the bottom-funnel keyword, I’ve felt much happier with my SEO.

Upward trending graphs are still deeply fulfilling and exciting, but the benefit of generating revenue (and being able to prove it) is far superior.

As a former digital journalist and now a content creator at HubSpot, I’ve designed everything from breaking news graphics to viral memes — but infographics are where real impact happens.

As a former digital journalist and now a content creator at HubSpot, I’ve designed everything from breaking news graphics to viral memes — but infographics are where real impact happens.

Whether it’s a marketing funnel breakdown or a customer journey map, a great infographic makes complex ideas simple and shareable.

Honestly, I prefer Canva for quick design, but in this guide, I’ll walk you through how to create an infographic in PowerPoint. I’ve been using it since my college days and know all these little hacks to make it look nice, flow smoothly, and, of course — stick in people’s minds.

Even better, I’ll throw in some helpful tips and give you examples of different types you can work with using our 15 fabulous infographic templates for free within PowerPoint.

Table of Contents

• How to Create an Infographic in PowerPoint
• Marketing Use Cases for PowerPoint Infographics
• PowerPoint Infographic Tips
• Are PowerPoint infographics useful for marketers?
• PowerPoint Infographic Examples

Marketing Use Cases for PowerPoint Infographics

PowerPoint infographics are a powerful tool to present data-heavy information in an accessible, digestible format — no matter if you plan to disseminate the infographic digitally or in person.

You can also simply use PowerPoint as an infographic maker if it’s your preferred design software.

Here are some of the ways I like to use PowerPoint infographics:

1. Presenting a Case Study

I briefly had to write case studies at previous jobs, and let me tell you — they are the bane of my existence.

Writing a beautiful, readable case study is far from easy, so I suggest creating a PowerPoint infographic showcasing the key facts of your case study.

You can include crucial information such as the problem your customer experienced, the solution you served, and the outcome.

You can include aesthetically pleasing graphics and dynamic typography — something you may not be able to include in a traditional, one-page case study.

2. Presenting Research

Since I write for HubSpot’s Marketing Blog, I often present data, trends, and research in my content.

If you‘re in the same boat, you’ll be happy to know you can use all the data visualization options PowerPoint offers to present your data in a digestible way.

Since the infographic will be larger than a typical slide, you can be as descriptive as you want. However, if you’d like to reuse the same information, you only need to copy it into a new presentation.

Pro tip: HubSpot’s Content Hub is all-in-one, AI-powered content marketing software that helps marketers create and manage content. You can start for free here.

3. Presenting a Pitch

You can use PowerPoint infographics to present a pitch to stakeholders or potential buyers.

In this case, your infographics can include data points, testimonials, expected results, and even descriptions of the prospect’s problem to emphasize the importance of purchasing your solution.

Images and graphics can be more effective than just words, and since you’re in PowerPoint, you can create an infographic of any size, including the horizontal 16:9 dimensions.

Want to create sales presentations that actually sell?

HubSpot’s free sales training lesson shows you how to answer prospects’ questions, focus on their needs, and motivate them to buy.

4. Presenting a Multi-Step Process

Whether you’re onboarding a new team or informing stakeholders on a new process, a PowerPoint infographic is an effective medium to communicate your message.

PowerPoint comes packed with plenty of “process” graphics, such as text-filled arrows, cascading charts, and grids.

5. Presenting an Announcement

A complicated company announcement — with many moving parts or components — merits an infographic to make it easier for stakeholders to read and understand.

You can create one right in your PowerPoint presentation and include all pertinent information in one convenient slide.

Alternatively, you can use PowerPoint as a design tool and simply download your infographic for easy saving and sharing.

Did you know you can upload your PowerPoint presentations to HubSpot?

Just head to Library > Files, click Upload files, and select your PowerPoint from your computer – or simply drag and drop it in. Once uploaded, you can add it as a downloadable link in emails, landing pages, or blog posts.

Keep in mind that files are public by default, so if needed, you can adjust the visibility settings in HubSpot.

Okay, now you know the different uses for PowerPoint infographics — time for me to show you what you’re here for.

For better comprehension, I’m going to walk you through how to make a simple timeline infographic in PowerPoint.

1. In the Design tab, adjust the Slide Size to best fit your infographic.

To begin making an infographic from scratch, you have to readjust the size of the PowerPoint Slide to give you more space to work with.

Begin by opening a new PowerPoint. In the top navigation bar, click on Design and select Slide Size.

Then, in the drop-down menu, select either one of the predetermined sizes or click Page Setup.

Input your preferred width and height dimensions and click OK.

2. Select SmartArt from the PowerPoint navigation bar.

To make a timeline graphic in PowerPoint, suitable for any infographic, open PowerPoint and click Insert from the top navigation bar.

Then, select the SmartArt icon beneath the navigation bar, where you’ll find several categories of graphics to choose from.

3. Find a graphic that fits your data.

Once you click on SmartArt, you’ll find the options from lists to pictures. I picked the Matrix one for my needs:

4. Add or remove data points, time stamps, or other key information.

Once you’ve inserted this graphic into your first PowerPoint slide, you can add or remove icons to match the types of data and inputs you’re presenting.

5. Insert your data into the graphic.

At this point, the size of your graphic should match the amount of data you have.

Begin to fill your graph with the information you plan to report and explore PowerPoint’s excellent drag-and-drop features to help arrange graphics as necessary.

6. Edit the text and imagery of your SmartArt graphic.

As with the other graphics available in PowerPoint’s SmartArt, you can edit the text and the images associated with your timeline to your liking.

I’ve added four words to represent each part of the SWOT analysis.

To insert images into my Matrix graphic, I right-clicked the square landscape icon and selected “Format Shape.”

Then I chose “Format Picture” → “Picture or texture fill” and uploaded one image to each of the rounded squares.

Here’s how it looked once I uploaded all of them and highlighted the text.

To show you what you can do further, I decided to create another slide. I made up a brand called Green Fairy for this purpose, pretending I wanted to highlight its strengths for SWOT analysis.

HubSpot’s SWOT Analysis Template helps you assess strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats — plus, it includes a step-by-step guide, a real-world example, and a customizable worksheet to turn insights into action.

Get it now to save time on designing.

7. Adjust the color scheme to match your story.

I went to SmartArt again, but this time, I chose the Vertical Curved List.

Since the original had only three fields, and I needed two more, I added them by right-clicking → Add Shape → Add Shape After.

Then I added text to each box, so it initially looked like this:

Honestly, I didn’t like it. Something felt off. So, I right-clicked, went to Format Shape → Fill, and switched it to green.

8. Use numbering to improve visual flow.

At this point, I wanted to add numbers to the circles, so I went to Insert → WordArt and picked a style I liked.

Now, it was looking better, but I didn’t like the blue color of the curved lines and circles, so I decided to change them to match the rest. I selected the object, right-clicked → Format Shape → Line, and picked a new color.

9. Add finishing touches and polish the layout.

It was almost perfect, but I still wanted to fine-tune it because the left side felt empty and disconnected. I tested how it would look with some text there.

I went with WordArt again, picked a font I liked, and added the word “Strengths” on the left to tie everything together.

Basically, you can design your infographic however you want – adding background colors, more visuals, or other elements to make it stand out. This was just a basic example, but there are many ways to refine it and make it look even better, more interactive, and more catchy.

If these “design” things are not your cup of tea, you can download our infographic templates that open directly in PowerPoint so you can start creating faster and easier.

PowerPoint Infographic Tips

1. Keep your infographics simple.

I’m a very wordy person in general. I tend to overexplain in regular conversation, and sometimes, I have to remind myself not to use so many unnecessary words to explain simple concepts in my writing.

So, naturally, my infographics were muddled with too much information, photos, and long sentences when I first started making them early into my career. Eventually, I learned the value of K.I.S.S. (Keep It Simple Sweetheart).

When designing your infographics, keep sentences short and only include the most crucial information. Imagery is helpful, but don’t go overboard. Ask yourself if this image or icon helps illustrate your point or if it is just distracting.

2. Use complementary colors.

Use a color scheme that incorporates more than 3-4 colors that complement each other. Even better, stick to your brand‘s colors so your infographic fits with your organization’s aesthetic.

Avoid too many colors or ones that clash. Otherwise, your infographic will look too busy and will distract away from the information you’re trying to convey.

3. Jazz it up with icons, borders, and fonts.

I know I said to keep it simple, and you should, but that doesn‘t mean you can’t have a little fun with icons, borders, and fonts.

You still want your image to stand out, so consider incorporating these elements (sparingly) to leave a lasting impression on your audience.

See how effective these lines are on the category slide in District #1’s presentation.

4. Emphasize numbers.

If you‘re presenting quantitative data, use your color scheme to emphasize crucial numbers. Use the boldest and/or brightest colors to draw viewers’ eyes to the numbers.

You may also want to use shapes like circles or squares to further highlight the information.

Are PowerPoint infographics useful for marketers?

Absolutely. A well-designed infographic in PowerPoint can make a huge difference in how marketing data is received.

From experience, visuals help a lot with these three things:

1. Presenting Results & Pitching

A clear, data-driven infographic makes budget requests simpler to understand – and more likely to get approved.

Actually, people are 30 times more likely to initiate payment when prompted by visuals.

Also, when pitching clients and sending proposals, a compelling visual story often wins over long blocks of text. DemandSage research shows that people remember 65% of info when paired with a relevant infographic.

2. Aligning Teams on Strategy

Infographics keep marketing plans from getting lost in translation across departments. Speaking from experience – laying out a strategy without visuals or a solid presentation is a waste of breath. People hear it, nod, and forget five minutes later.

And if we take into account that our brains process images up to 60,000 times faster than text, it’s easy to see why infographics are such a powerful tool for communication and better understanding.

Plus, when the team hits a roadblock or blanks on something, they can always re-open this presentation and quickly find what they need without back-and-forth.

3. Internal Training & Onboarding

A quick visual guide can be more effective than a lengthy document when training new team members.

Dr. John Medina says we forget 90% of what we hear after three days. But throw in a picture, and suddenly, we remember 65%.

Source

Want to generate even more leads with visuals and other marketing tools? Try out HubSpot Marketing Hub — a leading AI-powered marketing software and drive revenue with memorable campaigns.

PowerPoint Infographic Examples

1. Data-Centric Infographic Example

We’ve loaded this template with a variety of different charts and graphs, which you can easily update with your own data. (Just right-click on a graph, choose Edit Data, and you’ll be able to customize the values in an Excel spreadsheet.)

What to Add to a Data-Centric Infographic

• Column chart: Use for comparing different categories or for showing changes over time (from left to right).
• Pie chart: Use for making part-to-whole comparisons. (Note: They work best with small data sets.)
• Line graph: Use this visualization to show data that changes continuously over time. Ideal for displaying volatility, trends, acceleration, or deceleration.
• Doughnut chart: Use a pie chart. This stylistic variation allows you to put a number, graphic, or other visual in the center of the chart.
• Bar chart: Use a column chart. (The horizontal bars make it easier to display long category names.)

What I like: I love this infographic because while it highlights a lot of qualitative data, everything ties perfectly together thanks to its color scheme. It sticks to just three colors, keeping the infographic clean and uncluttered.

When to use: I strongly suggest using an infographic like the one above when you need to present a hefty amount of crucial data as part of a cohesive, visual narrative.

2. Timeline Infographic

Telling the history of a particular industry, product, brand, trend, or tactic can be a great topic for an infographic.

While there are a variety of different ways that you can visualize time — including in a circle, which is what we did with our Google algorithm updates infographic — the timeline is by far the most common and easiest design method to use.

Timeline Infographic Best Practices

• Research. Research. Research: The best timeline infographics aren’t just beautifully designed — they also tell a great story based on extensive research. So, before you start the design phase of your infographic, put in the time to surface the best information possible.
• Narrow the scope: Timelines that cover hundreds or thousands of years can certainly be interesting, but they can also require weeks or months of research. To keep your sanity, stick with shorter time periods.
• Keep your copy concise: Infographics are supposed to be visual. If you find yourself writing 100+ words for each date on your timeline, a blog post may be the better content format.

Why I like it: Clearly marked spots for text and images make it easy to customize the infographic. Clean lines, a consistent color scheme, and a balanced layout give it a polished, professional look.

When to use: If you’re looking to explain the history of a topic or predictions for the future, a timeline infographic can be a great illustrative tool

3. Modern Design Infographic

Here, we focused more on making the design feel dynamic instead of sticking to strict straight lines.

We didn’t add any charts except for three circles in each section, but there’s plenty of space if you want to add your own. Just go to Insert > Chart and pick the style you like.

Modern Design Infographic Best Practices

• Experiment with new color palettes. There are tons of free color palettes online. Do a Google image search for “Color Palette.” When you find a palette you like, drag the image directly into your PowerPoint presentation.
• Next, select the Color Fill bucket, choose More Colors, and click on the eyedropper icon. With the eyedropper tool, you can select colors from your palette and use them for elements in your infographic.
• Take the time to manipulate shapes. PowerPoint has an extensive library of shapes — including banners, ribbons, and arrows — that you can use in your infographic design.

By clicking and dragging on the little yellow diamonds that appear on these shapes, you can customize them. For example, you can make the pointy ends of a ribbon longer or shorter. You can also make the body of an arrow thinner or thicker.

What I like: This modern design is sleek, easy to follow, and leads your eyes perfectly through the infographic to digest the information. Plus, there’s more room for creativity here.

When to use: If your infographic is an equal mix of quantitative data and text, this modern design can help you display both types of information seamlessly.

4. Flowchart Infographic

On the surface, a flowchart infographic may appear simple and fun. But I assure you, a lot of thought and planning needs to go into ensuring the different sections logically flow into each other.

In our flowchart PowerPoint template, we created a basic flowchart structure, with positive responses guiding viewers to a conclusion at the bottom left of the infographic.

There are also negative responses guiding viewers to a separate conclusion at the bottom right of the infographic.

Flowchart Infographic Best Practices

• Draw out the branches beforehand. Before you dive into PowerPoint, get out a pen and paper and do a rough outline of your flowchart. Test for weaknesses in your logic by answering questions in every possible combination and seeing where you end up.

For best results, have a friend or coworker run through the flowchart, too.

• The smaller the scope, the easier the execution. The more questions or stages you add to your flowchart, the more difficult it will be to create (and the harder it will likely be for viewers to understand). So, try to narrow the focus of your flowchart.

What I like: Colors and shapes are strategically used to differentiate between positive and negative conclusions of the flow chart. Notice the green circles used for “Yes” and red circles used for “No”.

When to use: I suggest using flowcharts to map out different outcomes and conclusions to your audience to help them follow/understand processes and workflows.

5. Side-By-Side Comparison Infographic

We know sometimes you need an infographic to demonstrate a comparison. That’s why we created the side-by-side comparison infographic template to make it easy for you to compare and contrast two different things.

Side-By-Side Comparison Infographic Best Practices

• Use appropriate data. It’s best to use data that can easily be described in a chart. Use pie charts, graphs, or other data points to clearly and fairly compare and contrast.
• Use borders. Adding borders to your images will help make them feel like their part of a cohesive design. In PowerPoint, you can control the size, style, and color of borders under the Format Picture tab.
• Save your infographic as a PNG file. This is a best practice for all infographics but is particularly relevant when publishing an infographic that contains photographs. The PNG extension offers better quality than other options. To save your finished infographic as a PNG file, you simply need to choose File > Save As … and select PNG from the dropdown.

Ready to create your own side-by-side comparison infographic? Download 15 free infographic PowerPoint templates to get started.

What I like: Both sides of the infographic use complementary colors, which makes it even more appealing by inverting the color scheme in both sections.

When to use: This infographic template is great for comparing different categories, ideas, or results, and since you don‘t need to create or customize a lot of shapes, it’s a lot less work.

Make your slides speak louder than words.

PowerPoint is packed with so many features that help you present ideas in the best way possible. My advice? Always choose the right template. It’ll save you time and effort since you won’t have to build everything from scratch.

But if you prefer to start from zero, at least try to visualize your concept in your head or, even better, sketch it out on paper. This way, you won’t end up with cluttered slides that say a lot yet communicate nothing.

Remember: Nobody wants to sit through a presentation that looks like a bad Wikipedia page. PowerPoint infographics exist for a reason — to keep things smooth, snappy, and actually memorable.

So, if you’ve been pitching ideas or explaining strategies with just words and boring docs, it’s time for a change. Make it visual, make it engaging, and for the love of all things good — make it make sense.

Editor’s note: This article was originally published in March 2013 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.

It’s no secret that content is king. And with more and more channels to keep up with — each requiring unique formats for your creative content — AI tools aimed at social media are stepping in to do some of the heavy lifting.

It’s no secret that content is king. And with more and more channels to keep up with — each requiring unique formats for your creative content — AI tools aimed at social media are stepping in to do some of the heavy lifting.

In this post, I’ll introduce you to 15 cutting-edge AI tools for social that can help you optimize your strategy, boost productivity, and drive positive ROI. While I admit I was intimidated by some of them at first (or the whole idea of implementing AI), once I saw what these tools could pull off — not as a stand-alone content creator, but as an adept and much-needed assistant — I quickly changed my mind.

Whether you’re trying out AI-powered content creation for the first time or just want to add some variety to your current content repurposing routines, I rounded up marketers who have already put these tools to the test and asked them what they recommend. They had many opinions to share, in addition to stories about how AI has transformed their social media strategies.

So, if you’re ready, let’s dive in and discover how innovative AI tools can transform your content strategy.

Table of Contents

• Top Social Media Trends
• 3 Ways to Implement AI in Your Social Media Strategy
• The 15 Best Social Media AI Tools

Top Social Media Trends

According to HubSpot’s 2025 Social Media Trends Report, marketers’ reliance on AI continues to increase. At the same time, they’re hiring for content-related roles, due to changing and increasing content needs.

Visual Storytelling

One of the major additions for 2025 is the importance of visual storytelling across all mediums. Short-form video, images, and live-streaming were among the most common in 2024, but in 2025 this trend is accelerating. This makes sense given that all three formats were reported as some of the highest ROI last year.

As you can imagine, this shift is especially felt in social media strategy, with YouTube, Instagram, and TikTok seeing increased investment at higher rates than other channels.

Micro-Influencer Partnerships

Another key trend is partnering with small-scale influencers (audiences smaller than 100K) in the context of a shift to brand-led strategies. When asked the biggest benefit of working with this group, almost half of marketers (45.63%) responded that small influencers are more trusted by their followers, with 40.18% believing that small-scale creators give you access to a more niche and tight-knit community. Also, it tends to be less expensive.

Evolving Data Analysis

Lastly, while data remains important, the current adverse data landscape has meant that marketers are changing their relationship to it, in terms of what data is collected and how it’s analyzed. Measuring and tracking campaigns has become a primary way to demonstrate ROI by understanding how various strategies are performing relative to one another. This is in contrast to using data to understand a target audience, since consumers are increasingly cautious with their personal data.

So, what does all this mean for AI?

With increased content creation, AI usage among marketers is rising at a staggering rate just to keep up.

Source

And yet, roughly half of all marketers are unsure of their ability to use AI effectively and measure the ROI of using AI to assist their marketing efforts.

If that describes you, the list of tools below aims to give you some inspiration and ideas when it comes to implementing AI in your social strategies so you can go forward with confidence.

3 Ways to Implement AI in Your Social Media Strategy

Social media marketers are creatives, analysts, and expert advertisers, which is a lot of roles to fill at once. Rather than replacing any of those roles, or the people who occupy them, AI can help augment your work in each space and free up time to do what you do best.

1. Use AI to create post content.

Marketers who embrace AI are seeing better results across content creation, engagement,

and audience growth. And as platform-native AI tools become more widely available, marketers are integrating AI into their processes to stay ahead of the competition.

While many of us know about ChatGPT and its capacity to write full-length blog posts, there’s an abundance of choices when it comes to AI tools that can help social media marketers create the content they share — many of which are targeted to social media specifically.

Currently, 43% of marketers are using generative AI to write copy, create images, and even ideate, according to HubSpot’s 2025 Social Trends Report. And it’s no longer reserved for text or static images. AI video tools that can automatically clip or create are making a big splash, as marketers shave hours off creation time.

2. Monitor and analyze your social media channels with AI.

Generating content is only half the battle. A huge portion of social media marketing is managing and monitoring social channels before or after content is released.

Here’s another place where AI can shoulder the burden. Handing off data-heavy tasks can help you make better marketing decisions, as AI tools collect information from millions of posts at scale and use that data to identify patterns, predict new ones, and create posts.

And with the above-mentioned trend of partnering with lesser-known influencers, there are even tools to help you monitor, track, and discover those that would be the best fit for your brand (see Emplifi below, for example).

3. Create, optimize, and manage paid social media advertising.

Social posts aren’t the only thing that AI can help you create. Ad copy, directed at different audiences, is also only a click away with some of the AI tools below. Plus, the ads can be optimized for clicks and conversions using predictive analytics, meaning they’re likely to perform better.

If you’re interested in trying this out for yourself, read on.

The 15 Best Social Media AI Tools

1. Lately

Source

Lately makes generating social posts easy by repurposing long-form content. If you’ve got lengthy videos or wordy reports, this tool can grab ahold of bits and pieces and churn out a number of clips ready to go with captions.

Plus, it analyzes engagement with prior posts, so that the newly generated social posts are likely to perform well, and then recommends the best posting schedules across channels.

And if you manage more than one brand, it offers a hierarchy system that lets you distribute everything from one place.

Best for: Generating content.

What I like: Lately’s AI features let you quickly and easily generate social posts by repurposing long-form content, which is a big time saver.

Pricing: Lately offers two plans, Growth and Enterprise. Plans start at $199 per month billed annually for growing businesses.

Lately Case Study

Abhishek Shah, founder of Testlify, used Lately to successfully launch a new enterprise software feature as part of his company’s offering.

“We transformed a technical whitepaper into 50+ tailored social posts targeted for different platforms and audience segments. The campaign generated 340% more engagement than our previous launch, with LinkedIn posts specifically seeing a 27% higher click-through rate.”

He tells me that, using Lately over time, the most impressive feature is its ability to match the brand’s voice. “It gets better at mimicking our specific tone with each iteration.”

2. Sprout Social

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If you use your social platforms for community management, Sprout Social’s automated technology can help you reply to fans, customers, or followers.

The dashboard allows you to see and respond to posts through a unified inbox, which uses AI-enhanced agent replies and automated routing.

In both the dashboard and direct message view, Sprout analyzes the wording and sentiment of a message and suggests a response (which is up to you to approve or edit).

Best for: Managing customer messages.

What I like: Sprout Social’s Social Listening solution is a great feature that leverages the power of AI technology to uncover customer and competitor insights to enhance your strategy.

Pricing: Sprout Social offers four plans: Standard ($199), Professional ($299), Advanced ($399), and Enterprise (custom), which are priced per seat/month. Prices increase if billed monthly rather than annually.

Sprout Social Case Study

Goally, a company that offers skill-building tools on e-tablets for neurodiverse children, experienced success with Sprout Social’s Smart Inbox for message management.

By leveraging the personalized customer care and engagement features of Smart Inbox, Goally grew 254% in followers month over month and reached a 100% action rate on TikTok comments, ensuring a high level of responsiveness and satisfaction among their target audience.

3. HubSpot’s Content Hub

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HubSpot’s Content Hub is an AI-powered marketing software built for marketers to create and manage content. Using generative AI to create personalized content, it tracks performance, gives SEO recommendations, and captures leads, all powered by Breeze.

One of the highlights is its content repurposing tool, Content Remix, which can take a single piece of content and transform it into multiple marketing assets across channels — all in a matter of seconds. Not only will it turn that long blog article into social posts, it will also optimize the content for each platform, thus saving time while increasing output and reach.

Best for: Remixing and repurposing content.

What I like: HubSpot’s Content Remix tool

Pricing: HubSpot’s Marketing Hub pricing starts with free tools and then varies depending on how many users you have and which features you want to access. To begin with Content Hub features, you’ll want the Starter Customer Platform, at a minimum, which starts at $15/month.

HubSpot Case Study

Adrian Iorga, founder and president of Stairhopper Movers, leans on Content Hub’s remix feature “because there’s more pressure than ever to maintain a presence on more platforms,” he tells me.

“We used it to create a few social post variations from a blog post and test them from different angles. We were able to see what our audience engaged with most, which meant better content and a 10% lift in overall referral traffic from social media to our website that month.”

“It’s one of the best AI products I’ve seen in the last five years,” he says, adding that “it’s incredibly good at analyzing and using brand tone and voice.”

4. Copy.ai

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Writing the perfect copy with the right word count for each platform can take hours of your day. Copy.ai helps automate the process of ideating and writing custom posts by generating hundreds of social posts in just a few clicks.

With Copy.ai you can automate captions, descriptions, short-form video scripts, and also generate and repurpose content, and then integrate it with more than 2,000 tools that you might already be using.

Best for: Writing custom content.

What I like: Copy.ai lets you generate multiple versions of copy, creating personalized posts in seconds.

Pricing: Plans begin with a free version, increasing to Starter ($49), Advanced ($249), and Enterprise (custom) billed monthly. But you can save 20% by paying annually.

Copy.ai Case Study

Andrew Lokenauth, founder of the site Fluent in Finance, uses Copy.ai as his go-to tool for social posts, noting “it saved me about 15+ hours each week on content creation.”

As an example, he says, “Last month, my team generated over 200 social posts using Copy.ai, and our engagement rates jumped by 47%. The tool learns from your brand voice over time, which means less editing on my end. Plus, the analytics integration helps me track which AI-generated content performs best.”

5. Canva

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Canva is a well-rounded design platform that does a lot more than social posts, but its suite of “magic” features, which use AI to generate visuals and text, are great tools to complement the scalable selections on this list.

Magic Write generates and refines text, while Magic Design produces a collection of on-brand designs to choose from when you feed it a prompt (it can be as simple as “Instagram story for a fitness influencer’s workout routine”). You can also use the Magic Design feature to create videos and reels.

Magic Switch takes you from generation to transformation through resizing, translating, and reformatting your posts. This helps with workflows in multichannel campaigns.

For modifying visuals that already exist, Magic Grab lets you reposition and resize objects within an image, and Background Remover amazingly erases existing objects like they were never there.

Best for: Designing visually stunning posts.

What I like: Canva is easy to use with a wide variety of templates to start from. The AI features up the game on an already impressive design tool.

Pricing: While some of the AI features are available in the free plan, if you want to use Magic Design, you’ll need to upgrade to Canva Pro (for individuals) or Canva Teams. Plans start at $15/month or $120/year per person.

Canva Case Study

Co-CEO of Viva Executive Assistants, Fineas Tatar, explains that creating and editing content feels like the last thing on your list “when you’re building a startup and trying to manage time as efficiently as possible.” In order to repurpose images for social, he encourages his teams to use tools like Background Remover or Magic Write to draft posts quickly using existing content.

“Using these tools to get time-consuming work out of the way and free up more mental energy for strategic thinking can mean better outcomes for everyone,” he says.

6. Narrato

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Narrato offers a host of AI tools for content creation and marketing, but the one I like best is AI Content Genie. After adding a website URL and a few content themes, the tool will continue to generate social media posts automatically each week, with no further inputs required.

In addition, Narrato offers AI Content Assistant to quickly create content using over one hundred tools and templates. You can also create your own templates using chat prompts, as well as use AI to generate images, edit, and tailor to your brand voice.

Best for: Automating content creation, scheduling, and publishing.

What I like: Narrato supports all stages of social media content production, from planning to publishing, making it a good all-in-one platform for social media marketing.

Pricing: Narrato has three plans, starting at $36 per month. The Pro and Business plans come with four user seats, while the Enterprise plan comes with 10.

Narrato Case Study

Safe Systems, a technology company serving community banks, faced challenges in content production due to a small marketing team and high outsourcing costs. By switching to Narrato’s AI and automation tools, they saved $90,000 annually and increased content efficiency.

Narrato’s platform is helping Safe Systems meet content demands with SEO tools and content repurposing features, allowing them to produce diverse content types, including social media posts, with ease.

According to the CMO of Safe Systems, Christine Ray, “Using Narrato has enabled us to increase our social media posts by 300%, driving more brand impressions and engagement.”

7. Jasper

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A generative AI platform for marketing, Jasper integrates AI into workflows and apps. For social, use Jasper to write captions, share insights, or generate ad copy. It also features a content rewriter and a background remover for images.

The company boasts an AI document editor that’s trained in marketing best practices, alongside a marketing-trained chat assistant that moves you through ideation to execution. You can also configure Jasper to adhere to your brand’s voice and internal style guide, cutting down on editing time.

Best for: Automating end-to-end marketing workflows.

What I like: Jasper can match brand voice consistently, but also help you stay on top of locality-based differences in your content to match each market.

Pricing: Jasper has Creator ($39), Pro ($59), and Business (custom) plans that are priced per month and per seat.

Jasper Case Study

QliqQliq, a digital marketing agency based in Toronto, uses Jasper for copywriting to generate “rich high-quality captivating content tailored to different audience segments,” says digital marketer and founder Anton Kovalchuk. The tool ensures they maintain the same tone and messaging on everything they put out.

For a campaign with a yoga brand that aimed to draw in client interaction and build leads, the team used social listening to learn about holistic health. When they heard about specific stress-relieving techniques, they “asked Jasper to create articulately and convincingly well-researched, content-rich articles addressing trending wellness topics.” They then coupled this with Canva for infographics and carousel posts.

“Three months later, the result was a 40% increase in engagement for our customer, 25% more leads, and a surge in visits to the website through social channels.”

8. Emplifi

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Emplifi is an AI-driven social media management platform that provides advanced audience insights through a unified analytics dashboard, content feed, and smart scheduling tools.

Emplifis’ AI-driven influencer management dashboard streamlines the processes of finding, vetting, and keeping up relationships with influencers in order to build awareness and track campaign performance. With over 30 million influencers in their database, partnering and building connections is simplified through AI filters that allow you to match based on interest, language, or hashtag.

Best for: Finding influencers to work with.

What I like: Emplifi Social Marketing Cloud allows you to generate custom reports to uncover actionable insights that drive business results.

Pricing: Emplifi Social Marketing Cloud costs $200 per month, billed annually, with a 10-profile limit. For all plans, contact the company for a demo and pricing estimate.

Emplifi Case Study

Organix, the UK’s premier baby and toddler finger food brand, collaborated with influencers for their WonderDen campaign. The goal was to establish authentic and trustworthy connections between the brand and its community.

To manage the campaign, Organix leveraged the powerful Emplifi Social Marketing Cloud. The software allowed the brand to track content performance across all social media touchpoints, including both influencer and brand-generated content.

As a result, Organix achieved a remarkable 34x engagement efficiency.

9. Brandwatch

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With historical and real-time consumer data, Brandwatch lets you filter millions of posts, comments, and conversations to see what’s relevant to your brand. You can then categorize conversations by complaints, opinions, or feedback, and use AI to spot patterns in the data and generate insights.

Image analysis allows for searches of objects, actions, and logos to dig even deeper into understanding consumers. Using machine learning, the data will then automatically be classified to suit your needs.

Best for: Sentiment analysis.

What I like: Data going all the way back to 2010 allows you to spot trends over time to see how opinions on your industry have changed and how it’s viewed minute to minute.

Pricing: Plans are available for Social Media Managers and Influencer Marketers and both require contacting the company for pricing to suit your needs.

Brandwatch Case Study

Oppizi, a New York startup offering data-driven offline marketing technology, has found success with Brandwatch as a sentiment analysis tool.

They tested it on a campaign in Australia to track how people were responding to a flyer distribution campaign with a digital promotion. “By tracking social mentions and gauging sentiment before and after launch, we could see the offline push translate into online conversation,” says marketing expert and CRO specialist Nicolas de Resbecq.

“There was a clear spike of activity after a week of distribution, and that was enough for us to be justified in continuing the campaign.”

10. Hootsuite

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Built for social listening, Hootsuite uses AI for sentiment analysis, summarized insights, and real-time media monitoring. Plus, with AI image recognition, you can track your logo across video, memes, and GIFs.

AI-powered insights are delivered in real time, and you can automatically generate briefs based on the metrics you care about. As you track positive and negative feelings around your brand, you’ll also be able to hop into conversations as they happen (for example, to react to misinformation).

Best for: Social listening.

What I like: You can schedule, monitor, engage, and analyze all from a single dashboard, saving time and simplifying the process.

Pricing: Plans include Professional ($99), Team ($249), and Enterprise (request a demo), priced monthly and billed annually. The non-enterprise plans both offer a 30-day free trial.

Hootsuite Case Study

Luke Chapman, senior SEO strategist at Simpro Group, relies heavily on Hootsuite for social media marketing. “It provides real-time data on social trends and customer sentiment, which is crucial for tailoring content to what our audience is talking about at that moment. Being able to track and respond to these conversations is key to staying relevant and engaging with the community,” he tells me.

“A specific success we had using Hootsuite Insights was when we were able to identify a growing trend around sustainability that aligned with our brand’s mission. By using this tool to monitor social conversations, we quickly pivoted our content strategy to include eco-friendly messaging, leading to a 30% increase in engagement across our social channels in just a couple of weeks.”

11. Vizard

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Vizard uses AI to turn long-form video into short clips, ready for social channels. In a single click, the tool can produce more than 30 clips from one video. The AI “magic” part of it is that it automatically locates engaging or emotionally charged parts and retains those for the clips.

In addition, it can resize, reformat, and reframe around faces or important objects in your videos. And then, to make sure the clips are ready to post, AI can add captions, emojis, or hashtags to match what performs best.

Best for: Turning long-form video into short clips.

What I like: Video editing can be taxing when it requires continual rewatching, and Vizard can save hours of time by automating the task.

Pricing: Vizard has a free version, which includes 60 upload minutes per month. Its Creator and Business plans start at $14.50 and $19.50 per month, respectively, with annual billing.

Vizard Case Study

“I have tried many AI tools, but the best one I have used is Vizard,” says Spencer Romenco, chief growth strategist at Growth Spurt, a video marketing agency. “It tracks things like facial cues, voice tone, even posture, and flags moments that hit hardest with an audience.”

“We used it with a DTC fitness brand that had a backlog of over 20 hours of user-submitted workout videos,” he tells me. “After training Vizard to detect specific moments such as first-time lifts, personal records, and raw emotional reactions, we were able to process the entire backlog in under two months. The result was over 120 short-form clips, fully formatted for TikTok, Reels, and Stories.”

“One content batch alone drove a 41% jump in Instagram Story conversions. It worked because the edits kept the energy of the original footage intact, without heavy post-production or forced polish.”

12. Jacquard

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Jacquard (which was Phrasee until June 2024) is focused on brand messaging. In half a minute, it can generate up to 2,500 curated message variants for all major channels and predict top-performing variants.

Boasting content generation at scale, it curates and optimizes large volumes of on-brand content by testing and adapting in real time. It’s also a way to personalize communication at scale, with just as many messaging variants.

Best for: Analyzing language patterns to find exactly what works.

What I like: Jacquard analyzes the language structure of posts that were successful with your audience and then matches its variants to them in order to replicate that success.

Pricing: Prices are available upon request.

Jacquard Case Study

Tracie Crites, CMO of Heavy Equipment Appraisal, explains why she stands by Jacquard.

“We used it during a campaign aimed at equipment owners ahead of the insurance renewal season, which is a topic that usually gets low interaction. [Jacquard] produced multiple caption variations built around behavioral patterns from past campaigns. One version, ‘3 valuation mistakes that delay your insurance payout,’ lifted Facebook click-through rates by 6.3% and tripled LinkedIn comment activity.”

She concludes, “That jump didn’t happen because of a new visual or offer. It came from phrasing designed to trigger curiosity and action, using patterns that had already proven effective with our audience.”

13. Synthesia

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Synthesia is an AI video generator that uses avatars and voiceovers in 140 languages to create video content. You start by creating a script, then customize your video with an avatar, and finally share your video with a link.

While the avatars are pre-made, there are over 230 to choose from, along with video templates and the option to use AI to generate ideas for scripts.

Best for: Creating videos at scale.

What I like: If you’re creating many informational videos that need to go out fast and often, this tool can help.

Pricing: Synthesia has Starter ($18), Creator ($64), and Enterprise (custom) levels, which are billed yearly.

Synthesia Case Study

Sharecat Data Services started using Synthesia when they needed a way to explain a big SaaS upgrade without filming an entire production.

“I work closely with our social media and content team, and getting high-quality video done fast — without flying people in or booking studios — was a real challenge,” says Data Services Director Kristine Fossbakk.

“Synthesia let us create simple, clean videos with voiceovers and avatars, in multiple languages, and we did it all in about two weeks. We made 12 versions for different regions. That alone saved us nearly $18,000 compared to the usual route. More importantly, we reached over 40,000 people between LinkedIn and email, and the reactions were really positive.”

After sticking with the approach for internal training and investor updates, she adds that “It’s cut our content turnaround time by about 40%.”

14. Predis.ai

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Predis.ai is focused on AI ad creatives and social posts to meet your brand guidelines. Type in a few words of what your ad is about and its AI tool will generate ad content with text, visuals, or video. You can also generate headlines, captions, and copy — and in more than 18 languages.

The same goes for other social posts, whether you’re making a meme or a product post from your ecommerce cataloge. To make sharing easy, Predis.ai connects to all major social platforms, so you can create, schedule, publish, and even continue to edit, all from one location.

Beyond that, this tool can help with competitor analysis by digging into the competition’s content patterns. AI features then analyze what’s working and what’s not, so you can get a leg up on what might work similarly for you.

Best for: Competitor analysis.

What I like: Predis.ai offers a simple site and list of features that offer both content creation and insights into the competition.

Pricing: There are four plans available: Free, Lite ($27), Premium ($36), and Enterprise ($212) billed monthly.

Predis.ai Case Study

Daniel Vasilevski, owner and director of Bright Force Electrical, who also handles the social accounts for the 24/7 residential and commercial electrical services provider, says that fewer people talk about Predis.ai, but it’s his most reliable tool for analyzing the competition and predicting industry trends.

“I used it before the summer season last year to plan a campaign promoting our emergency electrical services. The tool identified that short, problem/solution-style reels with captions like ‘No AC in a heatwave? Here’s what to check before calling us’ performed best. I followed its recommendations and saw a 37% increase in engagement within two weeks. More importantly, those posts drove a 20% uptick in emergency service calls during what’s normally a slower period.”

In addition, the tool’s competitor analysis gave him information about the gaps in how other electricians were positioning their services. “So, I adjusted our messaging to highlight 24/7 availability more prominently,” he says. “If you’re in a trade business, this is the kind of tool that helps you stop guessing and start posting what actually converts.”

15. OpusClip

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An AI video clipping tool, OpusClip turns long videos into shorts and then publishes them directly to all your channels. Using AI to identify the most compelling extracts, it then cuts and arranges those extracts into curated short-form content of its own.

While other tools on this list do the same, this one stands out from “the other ones I have used since it can analyze speech patterns, audience retention cues, and even background music to predict viral-worthy moments, which is something most basic clipping tools miss,” says Robbin Schuchmann, co-founder of EOR Overview.

AI also reframes videos to adjust for various aspect ratios, detecting speakers and moving objects. And if you want to add animated captions, the tool can do this automatically with various templates to choose from. Within its platform, you can also schedule, analyze, and collaborate to streamline your workflows.

Best for: Quickly clipping long-form videos into shorts.

What I like: It leverages big data to analyze video content in relation to the latest social media trends, enabling it to highlight moments in your video that are most likely to go viral.

Pricing: OpusClip has three plan levels (Starter, Pro, and Business) above its free forever level.

OpusClip Case Study

Schuchmann, who also manages the company’s social strategy and content direction around global employment topics, says OpusClip is the tool he considers best and uses most regularly.

“Last quarter, we repurposed a 45-minute webinar on global hiring compliance into short clips using OpusClip. The tool identified a 12-second segment where our speaker broke down a common payroll mistake in Germany.”

“That clip alone generated 3x more engagement than our usual posts and drove a 20% increase in sign-ups for our compliance guide. The best part was that it took minutes, not hours, to find and edit that moment.”

AI for Every Social Media Marketer

If AI still seems like an overwhelming subject, don’t worry. You’re not alone. But what I learned while talking to marketers who worked with these tools is that the point of AI is actually the opposite: to ease the overwhelm.

Instead of feeling like competition, AI tools for social end up feeling like assistants — ones that are super competent in taking over the routine, repetitive, or time-consuming tasks that were keeping us underwater in the first place.

Editor’s note: This post was originally published in November 2019 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.

Those who know me know that I have a healthy obsession with travel. So, I often pore over travel blogs looking for the best way to plan a trip and the best activities to do in a given place. One tool that will always help me find what I need is content aggregation.

Those who know me know that I have a healthy obsession with travel. So, I often pore over travel blogs looking for the best way to plan a trip and the best activities to do in a given place. One tool that will always help me find what I need is content aggregation.

Since they’re not solely for travel sites, content aggregator sites can be a useful strategy. Marketers can reach new audiences, and consumers can find relevant resources.

In this post, you’ll learn what content aggregation is and discover high-quality sites.

Table of Contents

• What is a content aggregator?
• How Content Aggregators Can Help Marketers
• How to Pick the Right Aggregator Service
• Aggregation vs. Creation vs. Curation
• Content Aggregation Tools

These sites can collect things like:

• News articles.
• Social media posts.
• Images.
• Videos.
• And more.

Essentially, content aggregator sites collect and repost content so viewers can see articles from various sources all in one place. Usually, these sites are set up to aggregate content through RSS feeds automatically.

So, now that we know more about content aggregation, see how you can get started.

How Content Aggregators Can Help Marketers

Content aggregation can help marketers distribute content on multiple platforms, making it easier for people to find you.

The major benefits that content aggregator sites have for marketers include:

• Expanded reach and visibility — likely in front of the right audience — since users rely on content aggregators to surface content that matches their interests (see example section below).
• Referral traffic from pieces on aggregator sites that pique the interest of users. If you manage to secure a feature, traffic should increase significantly.
• SEO benefits due to the link from a high-authority, relevant site.
• Content inspiration because aggregator sites allow you to see trending topics.

The more platforms you’re on, the more exposure you have to a variety of audiences. Given this, content aggregation is a tactic you could include in a brand awareness strategy.

Additionally, using content aggregators to distribute your business content can help you become involved in your community, especially if you encourage interaction. For example, people can leave comments, have discussions, and also have conversations with you.

Before you get started, it’s essential to understand how to pick a content aggregation site.

How to Pick the Right Aggregator Service

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When it comes to picking the right aggregator service for your business, the most critical question is the type of content you’re hoping to share on it.

For example, there are specific sites for news stories, others for blogs, and others focused entirely on social media content — you want to pick the one that aligns most with your needs (our list below will help).

In addition, some aggregators cost money. If you have a strict budget, you’ll want to visit the pricing pages of services to see if there are any fees.

However, many services are free of cost and are curated by editors or algorithms, so your choice depends on your business needs.

Want to write content faster with AI? Try HubSpot’s free AI Content Writer.

Aggregation vs. Creation vs. Curation

There are a variety of ways you can provide valuable content to your audience. It’s important to understand which approach (or combination of approaches) best suits your business goals and your audience’s interests.

Content creation is the process of developing topic ideas and content for your target audience through written and visual products. This information is made available through blogs, videos, infographics, and other digital formats.

Top tip: If you need help creating content, you can use HubSpot’s content creation templates.

Content curation is a bit closer to content aggregation in that it is not original content. Instead, it is content that is curated and presented to the target audience.

The content is manually collected, organized, and annotated, so it often includes commentary and/or context.

Content Curation vs. Aggregation

As I previously explained, content aggregation is different from both content creation and curation in that it’s automatic and collects information based on keywords.

The content is gathered from different sources online and put together in one easy-to-find place.

This tool allows your audience to derive a lot of value from your distribution and aggregation with minimal and efficient effort on your end.

Each of these methods can offer a way to expand your marketing strategy and are worth your consideration. However, in this article I’m focusing on digital content aggregators.

Content Aggregation Tools

Now, let’s go over some different high-quality content aggregation tools that can be valuable to you.

Blog Aggregators

As implied in the name, blog aggregator sites focus on blog websites. They can contain general blog posts or more niche-focused aggregators, such as a travel blog aggregator that’s focused on travel blogging content.

1. Travel Blogger Community

Travel Blogger Community is a content aggregation site that I use when searching for travel blog content. You can request to have your content featured, and it is curated by editors.

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Pro tip: Travel Blogger Community is a great example of a niche site that may also exist within your industry, so be sure to do some research if you’re going to implement a content aggregation strategy.

2. Flipboard

Flipboard is a popular blog aggregator that allows users to create a custom feed based on their interests.

What I like: Personalization allows you to create a profile, submit an RSS feed, and share your content. You can also create a personal storyboard with content related to your business and link to it on your website via social buttons.

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3. The Web List

The Web List is a single-page content aggregator with original content from a variety of sources. It highlights the most popular items of the day at the top, then organizes other articles by source.

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News Aggregators

News aggregator sites compile content from various high-quality news sources. These sites can be for general news, location-specific news, or industry happenings.

4. Google News

Google News displays the top news stories for the day, saving users a trip to their search engine.

You can’t submit your content to the site as it is curated based on search history and location, but if your site gains traction, you increase your chances of being featured.

Best for: Customization. Users can customize their feed by “following” specific topics, sources, or searches.

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5. AllTop

AllTop aggregates content from various topics and sources, such as top news sites and social media forums.

Users can search for topics of interest and get the top stories or just browse through the homepage.

Pro tip: AllTop sometimes accepts site submissions, so be sure to check back periodically if you want to feature your content.

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6. Pocket

Pocket is an aggregation site that features a wide variety of content that users can customize to meet their interests by clicking a “Follow” button. You can also bookmark content to read on the go on your mobile devices — hence Pocket.

Best for: Anyone! There is a wide range of categories, from tech to finance to travel.

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7. WP News Desk

WP News Desk is a unique aggregator site that focuses on content related to the WordPress community.

You can’t submit your own content to be featured, but if you run a high-quality WordPress blog that is informative for users, you may find your site featured on the aggregator.

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8. Feedly

Feedly is a content aggregation site that’s focused on helping users create their own feed, so they aren’t overwhelmed with information overload.

Pro tip: The site has both free and paid plans, so users can aggregate content from as many sources as they want and across any niche.

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9. Techmeme

Techeme is a niche news aggregator site that provides readers with the top news stories about technology-related topics, curated by editors.

In addition to the homepage, which features the day’s top stories, you can also choose the River view to see live updates or the Leaderboard view to find articles by topic.

Pro tip: You can pay to have your content, event, or job listing posted on Techmeme, so if you’re in the tech business, this may be a great resource to tap into.

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Information Aggregator Websites

Information aggregator websites contain exactly that — information. This can include blog posts, news stories, links to social media content, and any information that users can benefit from.

10. Upstract

Upstract is a popular information aggregator. It allows users to choose the platforms they want information from to create a custom feed.

What I like: The crazy variety — it pulls from Reddit, Huffington Post, The Verge, Google News, Wired, and even TikTok, setting them all side-by-side.

While you can’t submit your site to be included in this aggregator, it’s nevertheless a powerful platform to be aware of if you’re going to start using content aggregation.

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11. Panda

Panda offers both a website and a Chrome extension specifically curated for developers, designers, or just anyone who identifies as an entrepreneur.

It allows you to stay up to date with industry news from sources such as Hacker News, TechCrunch, and GitHub.

What I like: It is presented in an easy-to-use and aesthetically pleasing manner, making it the perfect content aggregator for anyone in the industry.

However, keep in mind that Panda doesn’t allow user submissions. Therefore, your feature may just come about if your content rises to the top of any of these notable news sites.

12. Reddit

Reddit is a household name, and if it isn’t in your home, then you must be living under a rock. However, it is also one of the most popular information aggregator sites.

It features trending topics from all different areas of interest while also providing a forum where people can comment and discuss the latest news.

Pro tip: As I’m sure you know, members of the site can submit content such as text posts, images, and links. Therefore, it’s a great tool for marketers to spread their word further.

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Social Media Aggregators

Social media aggregators compile high-quality content from sources such as Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, and TikTok. Most social media aggregators help markets find user-generated content to share with their audience to build brand trust.

13. TaggBox

TaggBox is a social media aggregator focused on helping marketers develop brand trust and engagement through user-generated content.

You create an account, select the tags that are relevant to your business, and you’re shown posts across different social media platforms that your audience has made about you.

Pro tip: You also have the option to create a social feed of user-generated content to display on your own website, helping site visitors see your content in action and generate trust from other consumers.

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14. Tagembed

Tagembed collects and curates engaging social media content related to your business that you can then display on your website.

What I like: You can generate a social feed from multiple sites and share the custom content within your site for all users to see.

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15. Curator

You can draw posts from the most popular social media sites to create and share your own feed on your business’ website.

You can choose whether the posts automatically appear on your site or whether you manually approve each one first. Curator offers free and paid plans.

Best for: Building brand trust by sharing customer posts with prospects and site visitors.

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While it may not make up the core of your marketing plan, content aggregators are a unique and exciting tool for marketers to use to share their content and gain exposure while simultaneously becoming involved with your community.

Start Using Content Aggregators in Marketing

If you’re creating content in marketing, then you might consider making content aggregator submissions a part of your process.

As a marketer and a blog writer, I make sure I submit to content aggregators when I’ve created a piece of content that will work for an aggregator. I suggest creating a sheet using Google Docs. Then, pull all the relevant examples from above, plus a note for those you can manually submit to, then make submitting the content a part of the process, as natural as writing it!

Editor’s note: This post was originally published in March 2020 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.