AI Use in Marketing - Up to 35% of all Marketing-Budgets will be Saved in the Future!

What results were generated?

General results

• Almost 90% see a high demand for the use of AI tools and solutions in marketing.
• Medium-sized and owner-managed companies in particular rate the importance of AI solutions in marketing highly.
• While the general assessment of the use of AI in marketing was classified as fundamentally important, 76% of respondents rated the use of AI as relevant for their own company.
• Reservations, fears and a lack of access to AI tools in marketing were cited as the most common reasons for a generally lower probability of use in oral surveys.

Previous Experience of AI in Marketing

• 83% of all respondents have no previous experience with AI in marketing. They do not use AI applications for marketing-relevant tasks.
• A lack of access to AI tools and a lack of experience were cited as the main factors for the low level of use.
• Only 12% have initial experience of AI in marketing. AI tools are primarily used to generate (social media) content and prepare photos and data.  
• Just under 5% of respondents rate the use of AI tools as highly relevant and focus on intensive experience.
• The intensive usage behavior was preceded by long search phases and training with AI consultants and specialists. Only 4 respondents mentioned their own interest and independent training.

Areas of Use for AI in marketing

• Overall, the use of AI is still restrained and rather cautious across all marketing areas.
• The use of AI in marketing is mainly focused on the areas of communication, consumer insights and customer service.
• AI is used in these areas to generate written and visual content, evaluate large amounts of data and analyze trends, as well as for personalized messages and the use of chatbots.
• According to marketing managers, strategic marketing planning, sales and the improvement of marketing processes will remain in human hands.
• The increasing automation of marketing controlling processes with the help of AI is a trend-setting development. Initial experience from the field of data analysis is being used here.

Benefits of AI in Marketing

• Among all respondents, the use of AI in marketing is mainly associated with efficiency benefits and time and cost savings.
• The quality benefits resulting from AI and the increase in marketing performance were rated as comparatively lower across all respondents.
• A breakdown of the groups showed that the greater the level of experience and intensive use of AI, the greater the understanding of the qualitative benefits of AI in marketing.
• According to the test subjects, this is not least due to the fact that learning effects in dealing with AI tools have led to improved and more targeted use via corresponding prompts.

Reallocation of Services in Marketing

• Consumer Insights / Mafo and communication services are classic agency and contract work for external service providers that are commissioned with the help of marketing budgets.
• The respondents surveyed rated the use of AI applications in these areas as particularly efficient, cost-effective and fast.
• Marketing managers who are familiar with AI tools already rate the advantages of faster and more cost-effective in-house development positively.
• Reduced briefing and set-up times, fewer approval processes and budget savings are cited as the main reasons for increasing in-house processing.
• In the future, the marketers surveyed see a redistribution towards in-house and thus away from traditional agency and service provider structures.
• Traditional communication agencies will be more affected than consumer insights service providers.
• In future, companies will therefore commission more creativity and less implementation from traditional communications agencies.

Cost-saving Potential of AI in Marketing

• For marketing managers, the use of AI represents a process innovation that can be used both to reduce costs and to improve quality in marketing.
• The survey results show that the savings potential achievable with AI today is mainly seen in the areas of communication and consumer insights.
• The savings potential clearly shows that up to 20% can be saved today.
• It is interesting to note that respondents who have used AI intensively tend to assume lower savings potential, while inexperienced marketers rate the savings potential as higher.
• The initial euphoria for AI applications clearly shows that the potential is rated higher by non-experts.
• The assessment of the future savings potential shows that up to 35% can be saved in the area of communication.
• It is interesting to note that the ratio of the reduction in services of just under 60% is not directly associated with savings effects in the same proportion in the future.
• This result can be explained by the additional establishment of an internal task force and prompt engineers, which in turn reduce the cost advantage through the use of AI.
• The assessment of the savings areas is converging among current laypersons and experts for future consideration.