In this Article you’ll discover Top AI Marketing & Branding Tools & Strategies with Neil Patel. Now Neil is an absolute OG of digital marketing and someone I’ve followed for nearly 10 years now.

He's a major player in the digital marketing space having founded brands and tools such as Crazy Egg, Kidssmetrics and Ubersuggest… while he still actively provides direct consultation and execution services through his agency Neil Patel Digital.

I'm genuinely super excited about this one In my chat with Neil today, were diving into the world of Top AI Marketing & Branding Tools & Strategies (w/ Neil Patel).

Well cover:

What the future of marketing and branding will look like with AI

What you should never let AI replace

And Neil's favourtie AI strategies and tools for content, SEO, advertising and more

So, If you want the inside scoop on the world of AI-driven marketing and branding, from an OG in modern marketing – don’t miss this article

Top AI Marketing & Branding Tools & Strategies with Neil Patel

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Insights on the Impact of AI in Marketing and Branding

Stephen

Welcome to the Brand Master Podcast! I’m thrilled to have Neil Patel with us today. Neil, thanks for joining us. I've been following your work for over a decade, especially your SEO articles, which have taught me so much.

Today, we’ll be discussing AI in marketing and branding, a topic that's highly relevant right now. 

Recently, I spoke with Seth Godin, who said AI is the biggest innovation since electricity. What’s your take on AI, and how do you think it’s shaping the future of marketing and branding?

Neil Patel

AI is an incredible technology, but we’re still in the early stages of its potential. If we compare it to a baseball game, we’re only in the first inning, and there’s a long way to go.

While many people are excited about AI’s current capabilities, like video creation, content ideation, or answering questions, these are just surface-level examples of what it can do. In 10 years, we’ll likely look back and realize how much further AI has evolved.

It has the potential to change the world and transform many aspects of our lives.

We are still in the early stages of AI, much like a child playing with a new toy for the first time, with many people still exploring its potential. However, we’ll move past this phase quickly. It’s fascinating to watch the world grapple with AI as it develops.

Although AI has been on our radar for some time, most people's experience with it comes from movies, often portraying it in a doomsday scenario. There's fear surrounding AI, but should there be?

While I can't speak to any doomsday predictions, what I can say is that if you don’t embrace and leverage AI, there’s a real risk of being left behind or displaced in your career.

It’s not a question of if, but when.

How Agencies Can Stay Ahead in the Digital Era

Stephen

AI is simply a tool, and we have to make the best of it right now. If you don’t adapt and embrace it, you’ll quickly be left behind.

The saying goes,

AI won’t take your job, but someone using AI will

and that’s exactly where we are today, especially in the world of agencies. 

Many of our listeners are either professional brand builders running their own agencies or working on building their own brands.

What are some of the most immediate ways agencies can leverage AI, and how are you using it within your own agency? What’s your perspective on that?

Neil Patel

AI can significantly enhance various aspects of the creative and marketing process.

Whether it's generating ideas for ad campaigns, creating images, or enabling A/B testing to determine which campaigns perform best, AI proves to be a versatile tool.

It also aids in content ideation, research, and data analysis. 

For instance, AI can analyze data across multiple marketing channels in real time, helping to identify areas of waste and suggesting adjustments to improve return on investment.

The potential applications are vast, and as the technology evolves, we can expect these uses to expand dramatically over the next five years.

Challenges and Strategies AI into Business Workflows

Stephen

How have you and your team embraced AI in terms of integrating it into your workflow?

Is there a structured approach, or are you still in the process of figuring out how to make different parts of your business more efficient with AI?

Where do you currently stand in embedding AI into your operations?

Neil Patel

Like many others, we’re still figuring out how to fully integrate AI into our workflow.

While the technology is advanced and evolving, it’s not as simple as just clicking a button to have it work seamlessly and error-free. 

There's a lot of trial and error involved, with humans reviewing and adjusting results, feeding data back into the AI to help it learn and improve. 

We're still working on finding the best ways to implement it across all areas of our business, and I expect this process to change significantly as AI continues to advance.

Currently, the primary area where we leverage AI is in data and analytics. While AI is useful for creative tasks,

its real value lies in its ability to analyze data in real time. 

For companies investing heavily in marketing, this can result in saving or generating far more money than just creating a cost-effective ad campaign, which could be done without AI.

How Data and Analytics Drive Business Success With AI

Neil Patel

AI is incredibly useful for data and analytics, especially in areas like e-commerce and SaaS products. It can analyze where you're spending money on platforms like Facebook, Google, Pinterest, and Snapchat, and tell you which campaigns are delivering a return on investment and which ones aren’t performing efficiently. 

It also suggests where to reallocate your budget. 

However, it’s not flawless. For instance, if you start a new campaign on Google, the first few days or even weeks might not show strong performance because both the campaign and the system need time to learn and adjust.

AI might prematurely suggest shutting off the campaign, stating it’s losing money, when in reality, it hasn’t had enough time to optimize. 

Once it runs for a while, the AI recalculates, but it may still show the campaign isn’t performing as well compared to others simply because it hasn't been running as long.

This is one of the key limitations—while AI can provide valuable insights, it still requires human logic and oversight to avoid premature decisions. 

Over time, as we refine how we train AI, it will improve, but it’s important to remember that it’s not perfect yet.

How To Understand AI’s Limitation

Stephen

I think this is a great moment to dive into a question I had planned for later in our conversation.

Anyone who has used GPT or AI tools for content creation, especially with basic prompts, can easily notice flaws like repetition. 

However, you’re likely seeing AI’s shortcomings on a more advanced level with data and analytics. What are some of the flaws you’ve encountered in AI, and where should we be cautious about how much trust we place in it?

Neil Patel

One of the biggest flaws we see with AI is its tendency to be inaccurate in many cases.

AI scrapes the web and learns from everything available, but not all information online is accurate. 

While it's not the majority, there are bad inputs mixed in with good ones, and AI often incorporates these inaccuracies into its outputs.

As a result, AI can sometimes produce flawed or misleading results. 

This is one of the most significant challenges with current AI technology—it relies heavily on the quality of the data it learns from, and bad inputs can lead to bad outputs.

Benefits and Limitations of AI in Marketing

Stephen

That's the challenge with AI being trained on all available content—

it includes contributions from great experts but also from average content creators, so the result often lands somewhere in the middle. 

Many listeners are likely seeing the same thing. When it comes to agencies educating their clients about the benefits and limitations of AI, what would you advise? 

How would you approach conversations with clients who want you to embrace AI on their behalf, while managing their expectations around its capabilities and limitations?

Neil Patel

What we recommend to most companies is to get their teams using AI in a controlled environment. Instead of focusing on explaining its power or listing its pros and cons—since most people are already familiar with tools like ChatGPT, Gemini, or Bard.

We encourage them to have their team actively start using AI. 

While many may not know exactly how to integrate it into their business, by experimenting with AI, employees will naturally find ways to make their jobs more efficient.

We suggest holding regular sessions, maybe once or twice a week, where people from different departments share unique ways they've used AI, like GPT or Gemini, to improve their work.

This approach not only demonstrates the real value of AI but also helps the organization become more efficient.

The key is to get people to want to use it and embrace it, as simply forcing AI adoption isn’t as effective.

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Key Areas for AI Integration in Agency Workflows

Stephen

That's interesting because, at the end of the day, we're speaking with clients daily who know AI is out there, and they’re curious about how it's being used in our workflows.

They want to know that the work they’re receiving has some AI influence, as they want to stay on the cutting edge.

So, educating clients about AI’s possibilities and limitations makes sense, helping set expectations. 

Now, for a typical agency that isn’t yet using AI but wants to start by targeting the most effective areas, what would you recommend? Where in their workflow should they focus to quickly gain back, say, 25% of their time? What kind of processes would you prioritize?

Neil Patel

Let’s take the example of a digital marketing agency, specifically a Facebook ads agency.

While Facebook already offers powerful AI features for ad creation and management, the real time-saving potential isn’t necessarily in those areas.

Instead, the biggest leverage for an agency like this would be in the creative aspect—something Facebook is also working on scaling through AI—and in conversion optimization on the agency's own landing pages.

AI can analyze these pages, as well as competitor pages, and provide feedback on ways to increase conversions, suggesting adjustments to test through A/B testing.

Agencies shouldn’t only look at AI as a tool for saving time, but as a way to deliver the best results for their clients. 

Once that is achieved, they can then focus on optimizing their own workflows and margins. Additionally, while AI can help with service extensions to offer more to clients, it's crucial to have human oversight to ensure quality. 

AI should be used to help agencies deliver more within the same timeframe, improving client results while maintaining or increasing their value.

Human Touch in Business as AI Evolves

Stephen

I've been discussing the value of the human experience with my audience recently, particularly in how businesses can enhance the human aspects of their customer experience.

With AI becoming more integrated into services, many interactions may become more robotic, making genuine human connections even more valuable. 

Do you see this as an important aspect to focus on going forward—keeping and improving the human experience in business as AI continues to evolve and infiltrate so many industries?

Neil Patel

I think keeping the human experience is crucial, and I’ll give you a perfect example. I recently dealt with support from a financial organization that uses a mix of AI bots and human agents.

The AI bots were supposed to help me, but it was incredibly frustrating and felt like a waste of time.

All I wanted was to talk to an actual person. After repeatedly asking for a human representative, 

I finally got one, and they solved my issue in two minutes. 

While the automated system claimed it was using "new technology" to make things easier, the experience was terrible. 

Whether it's old or new tech, automated support solutions can sometimes create more frustration than they solve. Sometimes, you just need to talk to a real human to get things done.

Top AI Strategies and Tools for Content Creation in Marketing

Stephen

I believe human interaction, as your experience shows, leaves people with a lasting impression that makes them want to return, and I think this will only become more important as we move forward.

Now, I’d like to dive into a segment specifically for Neil Patel, called "My Favorite AI Strategies and Tools for Branding and Marketing." 

I have a few verticals I’d like to explore with you, starting with content creation, an area you're very experienced in. What are your favorite AI strategies for content at the moment?

I know you’re a big advocate of creating your own content, and you’ve mentioned that many people are trying to replace that with AI. Where do you stand on this, and how is AI currently helping you with content creation?

Neil Patel

AI has been incredibly helpful for us in a few key areas.

First, it’s great for research, and we’ve found it very useful in that aspect.

Second, it helps a lot with ideation, which has been another valuable use.

A third area we’ve been exploring over the past 90 days or so is using AI for transcription and translation of our video content. 

AI can now dub my voice in multiple languages, and we’ve been testing videos in Portuguese, Hindi, and other languages. While the results haven’t been amazing yet, they’re not terrible either. We’re still fine-tuning the process to improve outcomes and make it more effective.

How To Explore AI-Driven SEO Strategies

Stephen

The tools are definitely there, and while the technology is still young, it's improving rapidly. We're going to see a lot of changes, especially in SEO, which I know is close to your heart.

You still have Ubersuggest, so I’m curious—what are your favorite SEO strategies at the moment?

Are you incorporating any AI-driven approaches into your SEO practices?

Neil Patel

There are many effective SEO strategies out there, but a lot of them are widely known.

One of the key ways we're using AI for SEO is to handle research, especially for businesses operating in multiple cities. 

AI can conduct research on each city, create an outline, and then plug the findings into that outline. Afterward, a human steps in to modify and finalize the content. This allows for content creation at a much larger scale, which has worked quite well for us.

While we’ve tried programmatic SEO, the results haven’t been as impressive in terms of quantity. However, AI has been invaluable in analyzing competitors who are ranking above us.

It identifies gaps in our content, suggesting areas for improvement, and then humans make the necessary adjustments.

These strategies have proven to be effective when combining AI's capabilities with human input.

The Future of SEO: Is Content Creation Evolving?

Stephen

I really like those off-the-beaten-track strategies—they’re not what everyone is doing right now, which makes them even more valuable.

While we’re on the topic of SEO, what are your thoughts on where it stands at the moment?

The way people search is clearly changing, and I’ve noticed shifts in my own habits and behaviors, although I’m just one part of the market.

This raises the question: Is content creation going to be the same as it was, or what does the future look like for SEO as we’ve known it in the past?

Neil Patel

There are roughly 4.6 billion pieces of content published daily on the internet. In just two days, more content is produced than there are humans in the world.

This content isn’t just text-based—it includes videos, short forms, and images, with images being the largest category. 

Many people believe that dominating SEO requires focusing solely on text-based content. However, if you look at Google’s recent algorithm updates, they’re increasingly prioritizing videos, short-form content, and images. Our analysis shows that when a video appears above the fold, people are far more likely to click it than anything else.

Content creation remains crucial, but as more people turn to AI, there will likely be a growing demand for authentic, human-created content. 

To succeed in SEO today, it’s not just about text, audio, or video—it's about a combination of all formats. Google now ranks all types of content, and with advances in technology, even podcasts can be ranked based on their content. SEO is no longer just about optimizing text; it requires a multi-format, omnichannel approach to stay competitive.

Best AI-Based Strategies for Advertising Success

Stephen

Absolutely, I think you're spot on about the gap being created with human-produced content.

When you read an article generated by AI, it doesn't take long to recognize the patterns, even subconsciously. 

Personally, I prefer content where you can tell a human has written it, and I know you share the same sentiment from reading many of your articles. 

I believe the immediate shift toward AI-generated content will create a gap and a longing for the authenticity of human-created work, and we may see things come full circle in that regard.

Shifting gears to advertising, what are your favorite AI-based strategies in that space? You've already covered data analytics and content creation, but what AI strategies are you seeing deliver the best results in advertising right now?

Neil Patel

The biggest leverage point we're seeing in advertising is in the creative aspect. Interestingly, human-created content still outperforms AI-generated content.

However, when you take the winning variations from human creatives and have AI generate multiple variations based on what's working, AI can actually outperform humans.

The combination of both human creativity and AI-driven optimization is producing the best results from a conversion standpoint. 

While many platforms, like Google’s PMAX, have had AI for a long time, there’s often a "black box" element, where you don't always know exactly where your ads are being placed. As for advertising tools, while I’ve seen a few interesting ones, I try not to get too invested. Historically, platforms like Marin Software helped manage paid ads, but what happened to them? 

Major platforms make so much revenue from their ads that if any tools provide a better experience or help advertisers, they will likely develop and release their own solutions—often for free.

So, I tend to rely more on the platforms themselves, as they continually adapt and offer new tools directly to advertisers.

Neil Patel's Top 3 Strategies 

Stephen

If you were plugged into a new startup, let’s say a SaaS company, and stripped of your Neil Patel title—no contacts, no following—just starting fresh as a rugged startup, what would be the first three things you’d do to put that startup on the map?

Neil Patel

The first thing I would do is analyze everything the startup has done in the past to see what worked and what didn’t. 

I’d review experiments, conversion tests, social campaigns, SEO, and which platforms have been effective. This analysis provides valuable insight into what’s working. 

The second step would be to double down on the strategies that are successful and fine-tune them. 

Often, people focus on trying new things instead of fully leveraging what already works, especially when it comes to digital channels. Many channels have untapped potential that can be maximized. 

Lastly, I’d revisit the channels that didn’t work and run drastically different experiments, perhaps trying the opposite of what was done before. 

Just because a channel hasn’t worked yet doesn’t mean it can’t be successful—it’s working for others, so experimenting with new approaches could yield results. It’s important to consistently test and optimize across all channels over time to truly put the brand on the map.