I’ve Used 7 AI Marketing Tools (Paid & Free). Here’s What Works
written by
Victoria Kurichenko
posted on
January 7, 2025
So glad you found your way to my article because this isn’t your typical post about AI tools for marketing.
Before sitting down to write this blog post, I spent time checking out the top-ranking articles on the topic.
And honestly?
Most of those posts just list a ton of tools, many of which the authors likely haven’t even tried themselves. Plus, I’ve seen “AI tools” on those lists that aren’t even built for marketing!
But here’s the thing—I’m not here to give you another generic list. I’m here to share my real-world experience using AI for marketing, SEO, and content creation as a content creator and solopreneur with an SEO background.
I’ve got case studies, real-world insights, and practical tips to show you exactly how these tools work, the types of content they can create, and how they can level up your marketing game.
Oh, and if you’re wondering whether AI-generated content can actually rank in search results, spoiler alert: it absolutely can!
If you’re after practical tips from someone with hands-on experience and want to learn what AI marketing tools can really do for you, stick around — I’ve got plenty to share!
Here’s a table of contents for your convenience:
What is an AI marketing tool?
It is basically software powered by artificial intelligence that helps you save time and speed up your marketing tasks.
From what I’ve seen, these tools can handle a variety of jobs, like analyzing data, creating blog posts, crafting social media updates, editing content, tweaking tone of voice, and so much more.
I’ve written about AI SEO tools before, where I shared my experiences and results. But AI marketing solutions cover a wider range of tasks and can be helpful for an entire marketing team — whether you’re in SEO, PPC, social media, or PR.
It’s worth mentioning that AI tools aren’t capable of doing your job as a content creator or a marketer well. They are not supposed to.
After trying dozens of various solutions in 2024, I realized that the smartest (and safest for your website) way to use AI tools is as your personal assistant.
This approach lets you keep your creativity, which makes your marketing unique while leveraging AI to work smarter and more efficiently.
Below, I’m sharing my (admittedly subjective) list of the best AI marketing tools. Whether you’re a solo marketer or part of a team, these tools can help streamline your workflow.
Since I’ve personally tested all these platforms and tools, I’ll also share some of my experiences and show you how AI-generated content ranks on Google.
Let’s dive in!
My curated list of the best AI marketing tools
- Semrush —An all-in-one online marketing tools which can be used by an entire marketing team.
- beehiiv —A newsletter platform for content creators to grow and monetize their audiences and build websites code-free.
- Koala AI —An AI tool for blog post generation where you can customize an outline and the tone of voice and choose different languages for content generation.
- Indexly —An advanced but easy-to-use tool to speed up your website indexability and analyze technical issues.
- Grammarly —My go-to tool (for 5 years) to spot and fix grammar and spelling mistakes.
- Frase.io —An advanced AI tool to generate various content types and optimize content for rankings.
- ChatGPT —My top free tool for giving content a natural, human touch, digging up information, writing social media posts, and brainstorming catchy titles.
1. Semrush
- Best for: In-house marketing teams, agencies managing multiple websites, individual site owners
- Best feature: Keyword Magic Tool to generate thousands of keywords from a seed keyword, Keyword Gap Analysis Tool, ContentShake AI for content generation
- Pricing: Semrush Pro starts from $139.95. There’s a free 14-day free trial and a free plan
Semrush is an all-in-one marketing tool that’s super handy for a bunch of online tasks—SEO, link building, keyword research, paid ads, social media, competitor analysis, you name it.
As someone who’s been in the SEO game and creating content for years, I’ve relied on Semrush to grow my site and help clients with SEO content strategy.
There are many reasons why I prefer Semrush over other marketing tools, like Mangools or Moz, but I’ll list the key ones below:
- Free plan: You can do up to 10 searches a day without spending a dime.
- Massive keyword database: With over 26.3 billion keywords, it’s the largest out there, so you can find and analyze tons of keyword opportunities.
- Site audit feature: It gives you a detailed website health check for free.
- SEO recommendations: If you’re unsure where to start, it suggests specific on-page improvements.
- Versatile toolset: Whether you’re managing social media, link building, content writing, or keeping tabs on competitors, it’s got you covered—even if you’re working solo or with a team.
- Top-notch support: Their customer service is quick and super helpful (my subjective opinion)
I have written an in-depth Semrush review if you want to dive deep into the tool and its benefits.
Below, I’ll cover how I use Semrush, literally almost daily, for my marketing activities.
I’ve mentioned Semrush’s powerful keyword functionality earlier, but now I want to give you a deeper overview.
Let’s talk keywords, because that’s where Semrush really shines. If you’re looking to quickly find the right keywords to rank your site and boost organic traffic, the Keyword Magic Tool is a game-changer.
In my opinion, it’s one of the must-use AI marketing tools for content writers and website owners.
You just pop in one seed keyword—your starting idea—and it gives you thousands of keyword suggestions, complete with search volumes, intent, and metrics by country.
They’ve even added an AI-powered feature that analyzes your website and recommends keywords you actually have a shot at ranking for. How cool is that?
I use this tool a lot, especially when I’m running low on keywords to target.
But where it really shines for me is during keyword research for SEO content plans—whether it’s for my own website or my clients’. I usually dive into this process a few times a year, starting in December, so I have a solid content plan ready for the next quarter.
Here’s how it works:
- You plug in a keyword idea
- Hit “Search”
- Semrush generates a list of keyword suggestions
You can easily narrow them down using filters like search volume, keyword difficulty, search intent, and more.
For most websites that are still growing, I recommend focusing on keywords with medium or low competition. It’s a smart way to boost your chances of ranking higher in search results.
Even though Semrush has over 55 different features for various marketing purposes, I’d like to share a few more words about its latest AI tool for markets — ContentShake AI.
This is basically an AI-powered tool for:
- Content writers looking to adjust their tone of voice depending on content needs
- Editors who want a free proofreading solution (up to 15,000 characters)
- SEOs who want to speed up their content optimization process
- Site Owners who want to generate optimized content (safely) faster
This tool has a free 7-day trial but costs $60/monthly.
The pricing is relatively higher compared to other tools, like Koala Writer and Frase.io, which I’ll describe later, but the advantage of this tool is that it’s powered by Semrush. This means all the keyword recommendations and traffic estimates will be provided directly by Semrush.
In my experience, Semrush provides quite accurate performance trends, which means you’ll know when traffic spikes and drops occur and link them to certain events, such as content updates or Google algorithm updates.
If you’d like to give it a try, here’s a link to the ContentShake AI trial.
2. beehiiv
- Best for: Marketers and content creators willing to grow and monetize their audiences
- Best feature: Website Builder, Recommendations Tool, Paid Subscriptions, Boosts
- Pricing: beehiiv is free for up to 2,500 subscribers, but if you want to benefit from its powerful audience growth and monetization features, the monthly plan starts at $39. There’s a 30-day free trial
beehiiv is an easy-to-use platform that helps you create, grow, and monetize your newsletter. It’s packed with tools for writing, managing subscribers, and even earning money, all in one place!
I’ve been using beehiiv since January 2024, and honestly, I think it’s a must-have tool for solo creators and businesses looking to nail their marketing game.
Let me explain why I feel this way and share some results from running my newsletter on beehiiv for a year.
Launched in 2021 as email marketing software, beehiiv has quickly evolved into a powerhouse for audience growth. It offers features like:
- No-code website builders
- SEO features to let your website rank on Google
- A possibility to publish your newsletters as posts and optimize them for ranking
- Multiple features to incentivize people to subscribe, including Recommendation tools, a Referral Program, and Boosts
- Newsletter monetization features, including sponsored ads from brands and Boosts, payment for referring new subscribers to other creators
- Detailed analytics to track what’s working—your best-performing content, open rates, click-through rates, and how you’re acquiring subscribers
I’ve been diving deep into all these features and shared my hands-on experience in a detailed beehiiv review. If you’re curious about taking your newsletter to the next level, this could be just what you need.
Here’s a peek at what my beehiiv site looks like, complete with an opt-in form to collect email addresses!
I host my site on a subdomain, so most people don’t even realize it’s powered by beehiiv.
The customization options are awesome—you can tweak everything from fonts to layouts to make it truly yours.
One of my favorite features? Every newsletter I send gets posted on the website, so readers can catch up anytime. Plus, beehiiv includes subscriber pop-ups that make growing your audience a breeze.
I’m still a small creator, earning about $100 a month with beehiiv’s Ad Program and Boosts. But plenty of creators with larger audiences are pulling in three figures and more every month.
Just look at Steven Van, beehiiv’s product and marketing specialist—he’s been crushing it with just one of his newsletters!
There are a few more things I want you to know about beehiiv, in case you are interested.
beehiiv has a free version, so you can use it for free, but with limited functionality. If you want to benefit from its powerful features, including audience growth and monetization tools, you’ll have to upgrade to one of its paid plans.
The most affordable plan starts at $39 per month for 1,000 subscribers.
3. Koala AI
- Best for: Content writers and website owners who want to speed up creating optimized content
- Best feature: KoalaWriter, Koala Images
- Pricing: Starts at $9 monthly for 15,000 generated words, which is about three long-form articles. Plus, you can try it out by generating one article for free.
Koala AI is a super handy AI tool for marketing needs that helps you create long-form content like blog posts and automatically optimizes them for better rankings. It makes the process a lot easier.
Before you generate an article, you can adjust a bunch of settings to make sure the content fits your needs.
Here’s what you can tweak with Koala AI:
- Outline (this one’s my favorite)
- Tone of voice
- Article length
- Language (it supports 97 languages!)
You can also set a target keyword for Koala AI to include in the content. Plus, you can ask it to add an FAQ section and even pull in real-time data.
As a content creator and website owner, I mainly use Koala AI for blog posts. But it’s great for creating other types of content too, like social media posts, images, and Amazon affiliate posts.
I’ve shared my full experience using Koala AI, including some examples of posts I’ve created, in my Koala AI review.
In fact, that review post itself was created with Koala AI, and I added a few unique paragraphs to make it more helpful. It’s one of my top-performing articles, according to Ahrefs.
4. Indexly
- Best for: Technical SEO specialists, website owners willing to track website issues and get their content indexed faster
- Best feature: Bulk Indexing, Inspect Pages, Keyword Rank Tracker
- Pricing: Starts at $14 monthly for 3 websites, there’s also a 14-day free trial
Indexly is an AI-powered toolkit for marketers that started as a solely technical SEO tool to speed up indexing.
However, Indexly is much more than just an indexing tool nowadays.
Today, it’s an all-in-one marketing tool that you can use to do the following:
- Track the indexing status of all website pages in one place
- Submit multiple pages for indexing in bulk
- Inspect every page individually
- Track keyword rankings
- Set up alerts for tracking keyword position changes
- Monitor if backlinks to your website are live
- Check and track website inbound links and analyze how they impact rankings
- Analyze the performance of your website
For me, I use Indexly to keep track of my website’s indexability and quickly submit new pages for indexing.
One of the coolest features is auto-indexing. It tracks the status of all your pages in one place and automatically submits new ones for indexing, so you don’t have to worry about missing anything — it’s super convenient!
Think of it like a VIP lane for search engines to find, index, and rank your pages much faster than they normally would.
I think Indexly is a game changer, especially for new websites that can take weeks to get indexed (like mine did). It’s also great for e-commerce sites with tons of product pages that might get overlooked by crawlers.
For instance, with the Instant Indexing report, I can spot any problem pages and hit “Bulk Index” to submit them for indexing right away if I think they should rank on Google.
It’s been such a time-saver!
If you’re not keeping an eye on whether your website pages are getting indexed, it’s time to start. Trust me, you don’t want to miss out on your site’s full potential!
Here’s a quick SEO tip to help your site grow faster: After you publish a new page, inspect its URL right away. This lets you check if the page is:
- Discovered
- Crawled
- Rendered
- Indexed
You can do this with Google Search Console, but I like having everything in one spot.
That’s why I use Indexly’s Inspect Page tool to monitor all my new pages (see below).
The sooner you start tracking indexing, the fewer technical issues you’ll face, and the more pages you’ll get ranking and driving organic traffic!
5. Grammarly
- Best for: Content writers, content creators, site owners, copywriters
- Best feature: Review suggestions, Write with generative AI
- Pricing: Starts at $30 monthly, there’s a free plan, which you can use to correct your spelling and grammar mistakes
I’ve been using Grammarly since the early days of my marketing journey, long before the AI craze kicked off. My first subscription was in August 2020, and I’ve kept it ever since.
It’s been quite a ride!
Grammarly has changed a lot, especially with the addition of AI tools.
It used to be primarily a tool for content editors, but nowadays, it’s a powerful AI writing assistant for everyone consistently working with content.
I keep using Grammarly even though ChatGPT can proofread, mainly because it’s integrated into so many of my work tools. It allows me to improve my content on the go. Plus, I use the Grammarly browser extension to check if my content or anything else matches external sources or AI-generated material.
It’s not perfect – you can bypass its algorithm by rephrasing content – but it gives me a good sense of readability and uniqueness. Since I deal with a ton of content every day, this level of detail is usually enough to make quick decisions.
Recently, I heard some exciting news from Grammarly.
On December 17th, Grammarly announced that it’s in the process of acquiring Coda, an all-in-one collaborative workspace, to help its users supercharge their productivity.
This could make the platform even more versatile. I’m excited to try it out and will definitely keep you posted on how it works.
6. Frase.io
- Best for: Content writers, content creators, site owners, freelancers
- Best feature: AI Writer, Content Briefs, Content Optimization
- Pricing: Starts at $45 monthly, there’s a free plan that you can use to generate one SEO document (aka one article)
Frase is a content optimization tool for SEO, which you can use at every step of your content creation process:
- Research: Analyze competitors’ content and generate content writing briefs based on the discovered insights
- Outline: Generate and customize outlines
- Write: Generate blog intros, high-converting copywriting formulas, FAQ’s, headings, and more
- Optimize: Use automation to identify relevant keywords and optimize your content piece for rankings
I first came across Frase.io in August 2022. Back then, I really dug into the tool, tested it out, and published my detailed Frase review along with some case studies.
I admit that Frase has evolved a lot since then, but its main goal is still the same – to help content creators produce optimized content faster.
Even though I don’t use Frase.io now, I wanted to mention it in this article on AI marketing tools. That’s because Frase offers 44 free AI tools within the account.
These tools are very helpful and can be used for various marketing purposes. Here are some that I’m using:
- Call to Action (CTA) generator
- Blog Title Ideas
- Meta Description generator
- Linkedin Post generator
- More!
I definitely recommend giving Frase’s free tools a try. They can really help speed up your content creation process. You might also want to check out the AI Writer feature, which works similarly to Koala AI but gives you more options for content optimization.
7. ChatGPT
- Best for: Content creators, marketing specialists, and content writers who need a virtual assistant
- Best feature: ChatGPT doesn’t have extra features, but it really shines when it comes to analyzing search results and creating images
- Pricing: The personal plan is free to use, but the Plus version is $20 monthly
I’ve been using ChatGPT since it launched in November 2022, and I have to say, OpenAI has really improved it since then.
I remember when the AI-generated content was hard to read, robotic, and pretty much useless. But now, if you give it the right prompts, you can get some pretty good results.
These days, ChatGPT is a key part of my marketing toolkit. I use it to create, proofread, and refine my content.
Honestly, this article was also created using ChatGPT, just like many others on my website.
AI-generated content can rank if you follow Google’s EEAT guidelines (Experience, Expertise, Authority, Trust).
I’ve got a whole bunch of case studies from my experiments with ChatGPT and SEO. If you’re interested, you can dive deeper into my findings in one of my Medium libraries.
Now, a few more words about how I use ChatGPT as a content creator. Here are some tasks which it can do well based on my experience:
- Paraphrase content, keeping your tone of voice
- Make your content conversational
- Write succinct definitions
- Create FAQ section and answers
- Research sources for your content
Personally, I often use ChatGPT to clean up my rough drafts while staying true to my tone. I’m pretty impressed by how well it mimics my style—sometimes, it’s hard to believe it’s not my own writing!
FAQ on AI and Marketing
I came across a few questions about this topic, so I thought I’d jump in and share my thoughts.
Feel free to let me know if my tips and the article were helpful in the comments!
How AI will be used in marketing?
AI has already been widely used in online marketing.
According to Semrush’s AI Content Marketing Survey conducted with more than 2,600 businesses globally and across many different industries, here’s what marketers actively use AI for:
As a content creator and solopreneur, I rely on AI marketing tools to help me get things done faster and manage more tasks, especially when deadlines are tight.
Similar to Semrush’s findings, I also use AI tools primarily for rewriting and paraphrasing content. Since I know my field of expertise quite well, I occasionally use ChatGPT and similar tools to do research. I see a lot of potential and like experimenting with different prompts to speed up and improve my research process.
If you haven’t started using AI for marketing, perhaps you can start doing it this year!
Which AI tool is best for marketing?
There’s no one-size-fits-all answer to this because every business is different and has its own needs.
Since I’m running my online business solo and working on growing my website, here’s what works best for me in terms of AI marketing solutions:
1. Semrush
2. Koala Writer
3. beehiiv
4. ChatGPT
That’s my personal setup that helps me grow my business and income. If I discover new tools that help, I’ll definitely add them to this list.
But the best thing you can do for your own business is learn from others and test out a few tools. The ones that really support your needs and goals are the ones that will work best for you!
Hello there!
My name is Victoria.
I am an SEO expert, Medium top writer, solopreneur, and the founder of Self Made Millennials. I help companies create optimized content and attract potential customers through organic search results. In addition, I share how content creators can monetize their writing skills.
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