I’m glad you found your way to my article because this isn’t your typical post about AI tools for marketing.
Before writing this blog post, I’ve spent some time reviewing the top-ranking articles.
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 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 efforts.
Oh, and if you’re wondering whether AI-generated content can actually rank in search results, spoiler alert: it absolutely can!
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!
What can AI be used for 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!
My curated list of the best AI marketing tools
- Semrush AI Toolkit — An all-in-one online marketing tool that can analyze your brand’s presence across platforms like ChatGPT, SearchGPT, Gemini, and Perplexity.
- ContentShakeAI — A Content writing tool powered by AI that can help you automate your entire content production process, from topic selection and SEO brief creation to content writing and optimization.
- Search Atlas — A fresh, all-in-one SEO toolkit for anyone on the hunt for alternatives to Ahrefs and Semrush.
- 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’s indexability and analyze technical issues.
- Keywordly AI — Automates the content creation from keyword research and clustering to competitor keyword gap analysis, content generation, and publication.
- Writesonic — It’s an AI assistant that links with your AI marketing tools, like Ahrefs, Google Search Console, Reddit, and live SERPs, to fully automate your SEO tasks and boost search visibility using AI.
- Grammarly — It’s an AI-writing assistant and an editor to correct your grammar, spelling, and punctuation.
- ChatGPT — My top free tool for giving content a natural, human touch, digging up information, writing social media posts, and brainstorming catchy titles.
Let’s review every tool in detail.
P.S. This post includes a few affiliate links. If you decide to try any of these tools, I might earn a small commission at no extra cost to you. Just being upfront about it! I’m only recommending tools I’ve used myself and truly believe in. 🙌
1. Semrush AI Toolkit
- Best for: In-house marketing teams, agencies managing multiple websites, individual site owners, businesses willing to track their AI mentions.
- Best features: AI Insights, Areas for Improvement.
- Pricing: It costs $99/month per domain.
Semrush is an all-in-one marketing tool that’s handy for various online marketing tasks, including 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 (generating over 15k monthly visits with roughly 100 pages) and help clients with SEO content strategy.
There are many reasons why I prefer Semrush over other AI marketing tools, like Mangools or Moz, but I’ll list the key ones below:
- Free plan: You can do up to 10 daily searches 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 want to share how you can benefit from using Semrush AI Toolkit, which is an essential addition for brands willing to stay discovered in the age of AI.
The Semrush AI Toolkit automatically analyzes your company’s presence across AI platforms like ChatGPT, SearchGPT, Gemini, and Perplexity.
In a nutshell, Semrush helps you track how different AI platforms perceive your brand versus your competitors. Then, you’ll get AI-powered recommendations for your business, product, and marketing strategies that help you address user needs better and get featured in AI-generated search results.
In my opinion, it’s one of the must-use AI marketing tools for content writers and website owners.
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.
If you’ve been thinking about trying Semrush Pro, here’s a little perk:
For a limited time, Semrush is offering its AI SEO assistant for free to new Semrush Pro users.
This means you’ll get tailored tips for your site, like keyword ideas, backlink insights, competitor analysis, and more! 😊
2. ContentShake AI
- Best for: SEO content specialists, content writers, content managers, SEO content marketing agencies.
- Best features: SEO briefs generator, Content Optimizer, Topic Finder.
- Pricing: $60/monthly.
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 content marketers — 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 WriterSonic, but the advantage of this tool is that it’s powered by Semrush. This means Semrush will provide all the keyword recommendations and traffic estimates directly.
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 want to learn more about the tool, I’ve published a detailed ContentShakeAI review, sharing my experience from using the tool.
If you want to give it a try, here’s a link to a free 7-day ContentShakeAI trial.
3. Search Atlas
- Best for: SEO agencies, SEO professionals, In-house SEO teams from SMBs, and site owners.
- Best features: OTTO SEO, an automated AI marketing assistant, AI Content Writer, Site Auditor.
- Pricing: Starts at $99/month for the Starter plan with 2 user seats and 5 site projects. There’s also a Community Edition for $29/month that lets you manage one website.
Search Atlas is a new, all-in-one AI marketing tool that launched in 2024, and it’s already shaking things up as an alternative to industry giants like Semrush and Ahrefs.
With Search Atlas, you can:
- Get detailed insights on organic traffic, keywords, and backlinks for any website or URL
- See which keywords and pages drive the most traffic to your competitors
- Analyze competitor backlinks
- Find the right keywords to rank for
- Optimize content and track rankings
- Run a technical SEO audit
- Find link-building opportunities and automate outreach
- Automate SEO tasks with a WordPress plugin and SEO OTTO feature
- Speed up content creation and optimization with the SEO Content Assistant
- …and more!
No need to jump between a dozen tools—everything’s in one place.
I’ve only used it for a short time, but based on its features, it seems like a solid alternative to Ahrefs and Semrush.
Oh, and if you’re familiar with Ahrefs, the user interface (UI) might look a bit similar, with quite a few features resembling Semrush.
Here’s a look at the Site Explorer feature.
It’s also worth saying a few words about Search Atlas’ most prominent feature — OTTO SEO.
Search Atlas OTTO SEO is an AI-powered assistant for your website. If you add a small pixel to your site, OTTO will start analyzing your data, spotting technical issues, and suggesting content improvements—all in one dashboard.
It’s basically an automated way to boost your rankings and organic traffic without the usual SEO hassle.
I’ve also checked out what people say about Search Atlas on G2 and Reddit, and there’s a mix of opinions. Some mention that it takes time to get used to the tool. Others wish the support team was quicker and more helpful.
I personally think all good tools have a learning curve. Search Atlas is an all-in-one SEO platform, so it makes sense that it might take some time to figure it out. In my opinion, if you are familiar with the Ahrefs UI, you won’t experience any challenges understanding and using the tool.
Plus, Search Atlas is more affordable than Ahrefs and Semrush, starting at just $99 per month for two user seats and 5 website projects.
I’ve also published an in-depth review of Semrush and Search Atlas if you are curious about how these tools compare.
I came across this review from a Reddit user that could help you decide if it’s worth trying out.
Join the Top of Google Challenge — a 5-day live SEO training from Search Atlas starting July 21st! 🚀
For just $27, Manick Bhan, Founder of Search Atlas and expert SEO coach, will show you live how to climb to the top of Google using the Search Atlas platform.
It’s suitable for agency owners, marketers, and SEO pros who want real results—fast. See you there!
4. beehiiv
- Best for: Marketers and content creators willing to grow and monetize their audiences.
- Best features: 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 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 want to grow and monetize your audience, 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 also pretty decent. You can tweak everything from fonts to layouts to make it truly yours.
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 it has 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.
Thinking about giving beehiiv a shot and want to save some money? 🐝
Start with a 30-day free trial, and if you like it, use my code TRYBEEHIIV for 20% off your first 3 months! 🚀
5. 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 blog post review 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.
Apply this discount code to get 15% off on all Koala AI payment plans: COUPON15
6. 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!
First-time users can get 25% off any Indexly plan by using the discount code INDEXLYCOUPON at checkout.
7. Keywordly AI
- Best for: Content creators, marketing specialists, and content writers
- Best feature: Keyword clusters creation, Keyword research on Google, Reddit, Amazon, Quora, AI-powered content creation
- Pricing: Starts at $39 per month
Keywordly AI is an AI-powered tool for marketing that helps automate your content creation process. It helps you find keywords on platforms like Google, Reddit, Quora, and Amazon. It can also group similar keywords into content clusters.
Here’s what you can use it for:
- Find and analyze keywords for Google and Bing ads
- Research related and long-tail keywords
- Find relevant conversations on Reddit and Quora
- Spot keyword gaps between you and your competitors
- Find product keywords for Amazon
- Get tons of ideas from just one seed keyword (kind of like Semrush’s Keyword Magic tool)
Pretty useful, right?
Personally, I’m a fan of the Reddit keyword tool. It saves time by pulling up relevant threads and subreddits.
If you’re into Reddit marketing, it’s worth trying. (Remind me to share how I rank Reddit content sometimes, but for now, I will go back to keyword clustering.)
While you’re researching, you can save keywords to a list for later or add them one by one. It’s totally up to you.
Oh, and Keywordly can handle up to 500 keywords in one clustering session, which makes it suitable for mid-sized content projects.
Get 20% off your Keywordly subscription today! Use the code KEYWORDLY20 at checkout and start optimizing more efficiently for less.
8. Writesonic
- Best for: Content marketers, Content writers, small and mid-size businesses, SEOs.
- Best feature: SEO Checker and Optimizer, Humanizer, Botsonic to create chatbots for your website.
- Pricing: Starts at $20 per month per one user seat and one project.
Writesonic is an all-in-one tool for AI marketing, similar to ContentShake AI, but with more features to help you handle everything from topic research and writing to publishing and tracking how your content performs.
Here’s what it can do with Writesonic at every stage of your content creation process:
- Research:
There are 3 tools to help you find keywords that are likely to rank, discover what your audience is searching for, and group related topics into clusters to build out your content strategy. - Writing:
There’s a long-form AI Article Writer (up to 5,000 words!), a rewriter, and templates for everything from social posts to expert content. You can also create custom outlines. - Write in your voice:
If you want the content to sound more like you, you can upload some of your own writing. Writesonic will study your style and mimic your tone, making the AI-generated content feel more personal and “you.” - Optimize your content:
It comes with an AI SEO checker (like the one in ContentShake AI or Ahrefs) to help you see how well your content is optimized. You can run content gap analysis, add internal links automatically, and spot opportunities to improve rankings. - Publish directly:
Once you’re happy with your content, you can publish it straight to WordPress or other platforms. What I really like is that there’s no need to switch tools. - Repurpose your content:
You can turn blog posts into newsletters or social media posts using built-in templates. There’s also a “Humanizer” tool that makes AI-generated content sound more natural and less robotic. - Track performance:
You can connect Google Search Console to monitor how your content performs, including impressions, clicks, keywords, top pages.
There are other great add-ons, like tools to create AI-generated images and even voiceovers.
Another great feature is that Writesonic can help you monitor how your brand shows up in AI search results. You can see whether your brand is easy to find, what people are saying, and whether you’re showing up for the right topics.
This kind of visibility is becoming more important as AI search gains traction, so it’s great that Writesonic includes it.
You can sign up for free—no credit card needed.
The free plan includes access to all the main tools, plus a site audit for up to 100 pages. It supports over 25 languages, has a browser extension, and lets you export to WordPress with one click.
If you need more, paid plans start at just $20/month. Honestly, the free version is a great way to test the tool without spending money.
9. 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 marketing 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, though. 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 2024, Grammarly announced that it’s in the process of acquiring Coda, an all-in-one collaborative workspace, to help its users supercharge their productivity.
10. 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 for 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!
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.
Which AI tools are used in 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
5. Grammarly
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!
