Email marketing is integral to any marketing strategy because it’s a great way to generate leads and convert audiences.
Whether you’re creating your first strategy or looking to modify your process, AI email marketing tools can help you save time, optimize your strategy, and meet your email goals.
In this piece, I’ll go over how AI email marketing tools work, new data about how marketers currently use AI for email marketing, and a list of tools you can leverage in your role.
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AI email marketing is a machine-learning-powered process that helps marketers create email campaigns that reach the right audiences at the right time with the right messages.
AI email marketing tools use data (like your historical performance data) to help you optimize your email strategy, automation to help you save time on repetitive tasks (like triggering an email workflow), and generative AI to help you create email content.
When using AI in email marketing, you can do things like:
Some tools have one specific function, like a generative AI email tool, while others offer multiple features.
I’ve found that the most significant benefit of using AI in email marketing is that it saves time while improving performance. The routine processes you spend time on can happen instantly, and you can launch your optimized campaigns faster.
Most AI email marketing tools are also powered by machine learning, meaning that they use data points (from your business and sometimes your industry) to help you optimize your email strategy.
You won’t be left to guess what works best because the AI can look at your past emails, and you can benchmark your performance against competitors to see where you can improve.
If you’re interested in learning more about the impact of AI on marketing, check out this Marketing Against The Grain episode about marketing opportunities that AI unlocks for business.
Of course, using AI in email marketing is not without its challenges. AI tools are still relatively new in terms of technology, so they’re not perfect.
Here are a few challenges marketers face when using AI in email marketing and how they solve those issues.
Anyone who’s asked ChatGPT to write an email for them knows the first output will usually sound formal. Tone is undoubtedly the biggest challenge marketers face when using generative AI for email marketing.
Most AI tools need to be trained to match your brand’s voice and tone, and even then, you’ll probably still need to edit it to sound exactly how you want.
Meg O’Neill, co-founder of Intuitive Marketing Collective, gets around this challenge by using clear and specific prompts.
“I want [my emails] to sound like I’m talking to a friend,” says O’Neill. “I’ve added this requirement to my prompt, and it’s helped a lot. Sometimes, I’ll give [the AI tool] the name of a famous business person and ask it to write in a similar tone.”
Whether you use AI to write the body copy of your email, generate subject line ideas, or outline an email funnel structure, the quality of the overall content isn’t going to be perfect the first time around.
“The quality is not always there,” says Jeanne Jennings, Founder and Chief Strategist for Email Optimization Shop, an email marketing consultancy.
To overcome this challenge, Jennings takes a collaborative approach by “micro-managing the AI tool at each stage to get the quality content I need. Without my collaborative approach, the output is usually junk,” she states.
Ben Schreiber, Head of ecommerce at Latico Leathers, says the biggest challenge he’s faced using AI in email marketing is data accuracy and integration.
“Good quality data is paramount to the success of using AI systems since any inaccuracies may lead to wrong output results,” says Schreiber.
“We have had issues with outdated or incomplete data, which directly affects how well or poorly our campaigns perform.”
Our State of AI in Marketing report surveyed 1,062 U.S. marketing and advertising professionals about how they’re currently using AI.
For starters, AI usage for marketing has increased significantly since 2023.
74% of marketers who responded to the survey said they use at least one AI marketing tool.
While chatbots are the most popular marketing tool used by marketers, 25% of marketers use AI through existing CRM and marketing tools with AI-enhanced features.
Here are a few specific ways marketers are using AI for email marketing.
By far, the most common use case for AI tools among marketers is content creation. Of respondents who report using AI, 43% say they use it for content creation.
While marketers use AI for everything from creating images to creating outlines, the most popular type of content to create is written content.
There’s no denying AI’s ability to generate text — both long-form and short-form — in an instant, making it a great tool for email campaigns.
In fact, 47% of marketers use AI to create email marketing content such as newsletters or campaigns.
From subject lines to body copy to design elements, testing is essential to increase engagement and ultimately improve your email marketing performance.
Of marketers, 27% say they use AI tools for brainstorming, and it’s safe to say testing email content falls into that category.
Not sure how to use AI for experimenting or brainstorming?
“Ask AI to provide you with specific testing ideas so you always have a fantastic list to choose from to continue improving your email performance,” recommends email marketer Bethany Fiocchi Root, CEO and founder of Oceanview Marketing.
Email marketing relies on data, but data collection can be a time-consuming process for busy marketers. That’s where AI comes in.
Not only can AI tools help automate data collection — decreasing time spent on these tasks significantly — they can be more precise with the information.
A majority of marketers (including those who don’t currently use AI) agree that AI can help their organizations share data more effectively.
From a leadership standpoint, 39% of marketing directors agree that AI and automation tools help employees make data-driven decisions.
And the more data you have, the more you can personalize your email marketing.
In fact, 69% of marketers agree that AI tools can help them personalize the experience their customers get.
Finally, marketers use generative AI to automate their processes. With AI, everything from scheduling email campaigns to email data entry is taken care of.
Of the marketers surveyed, 75% say using AI for automation helps them reduce time spent on manual tasks and more time on critical or creative tasks.
In other words, AI helps them focus on the aspects of the job they enjoy rather than on administrative tasks.
Click here to learn more about HubSpot AI tools.
HubSpot has multiple email marketing tools and features to leverage to drive clicks and conversions.
Price: Free tools are available. Starter plans cost $20 per month. Professional plans cost $890 per month. Enterprise plans cost $3,600 per month.
Mailchimp’s email automation software helps ecommerce businesses create automated email workflows that reach audiences at the best possible time.
Price: Free forever plans are available. Essential plans cost $13 per month. Standard plans cost $20 per month. Premium plans cost $350 per month.
Sendgrid helps you create an automated email marketing process with custom workflows and triggers.
Price: Free trials are available. Basic plans cost $15 per month. Advanced plans cost $60 per month.
Phrasee uses AI to help you create effective email campaigns and content to share with your audience.
Price: Contact for pricing.
Drift offers an AI-powered inbox management tool that helps you clean up your email lists and improve deliverability.
Price: $2,500 per month.
Use Get Response to design behavior-based email workflows to engage with audiences at key moments with content personalized to their needs.
Price: A free 30-day trial is available; paid plans start at $19 per month.
Levity’s software helps you manage your inbox, understand your email health, and save time.
Price: A 30-day free trial is available. Startup plans cost $49 per month. Business plans cost $139 per month.
Superhuman is an AI-powered inbox management tool that helps you streamline your processes. Best for teams that use Gmail or Outlook.
Price: Starter plans cost $30 per month. Growth plans cost $45 per month. Enterprise pricing is available.
Most of the tools listed above have multiple AI features, like email writing help to automated inbox sorting. Below, we’ll go over AI email marketing tools that only offer generative features.
Hive offers an easy-to-use and time-saving tool for your email marketing. Simply share a brief prompt of what you’re looking for with its Notes AI, and it’ll help you generate a perfect response.
Price: There is a free forever plan. Teams plans cost $12 per user a month. Enterprise pricing is available.
ChatGPT is a generative AI tool that you can use to write your marketing emails, and all you have to do is enter a descriptive prompt into the chat. It’s a conversational tool, so you can ask it to rewrite the email until you’re satisfied.
Price: There is a free research preview. ChatGPT Plus costs $20 per month.
Zapier runs on Zaps, automated workflows you can customize to your needs. You can create an email-based Zap to generate email copy with an API key from OpenAI.
Whenever you receive an email matching your Zaps rules, it’ll prompt GPT-3 to write an appropriate response.
Price: A free forever plan is available. Professional plans cost $19.99 per month. Team plans cost $69 per month. Contact Zapier for Enterprise pricing.
Copy.ai is an email copywriting tool you can use to create high-converting emails. It can write email content for you, suggest subject lines, and help you stay on track with suggestions to improve email quality.
Price: A free forever plan is available. Starter plans cost $36 per month. Advanced plans cost $186 per month. Enterprise pricing is available.
Compose.ai is powered by GPT-3 and helps you write personalized and on-brand emails.
Its autocomplete feature suggests how you can finish what you’re writing, and its suggestions and generations are always tone- and brand-relevant because it learns your unique brand voice.
It’s an always-free Chrome extension, so you can easily use it on your favorite sites.
Price: A free forever plan is available. Premium plans cost $9.99 per month. Ultimate plans cost $29.99 per month. Enterprise pricing is available.
Grammarly’s machine-learning copy-editing tool recognizes in-text errors and suggests how to fix them. I use this feature all the time to assist in my content writing.
GrammarlyGo extracts the context from short prompts and helps you instantly generate appropriate email replies. Leverage the tools on its website, as a Chrome extension, or within your favorite email client.
Price: A free forever plan is available. Premium plans cost $12 per month. Business plans cost $15 per month.
Jasper Commands helps you create effective marketing emails quickly with machine learning algorithms.
Use it to write entire emails or email subject lines, and its outputs always match your business’ unique writing style and tone for brand consistency.
Price: Free trial is available. Creator plans cost $39 per month. Pro plans cost $59 per month. Custom business pricing is available.
From writing copy to generating subject lines and even collecting and organizing data to improve personalization, a majority of marketers agree that using AI for email marketing makes their job easier.
When AI tools are used as just that — tools — they can improve your email marketing campaigns and give you more time to spend on creative tasks that make you better at your job.
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