10 best AI marketing agency ideas and companies in 2024

I’m not an AI expert. But, I do use AI marketing tools every day when it comes to managing work for my clients and my own media business.

As someone who’s constantly on the lookout for the next best thing in marketing, sometimes to my own detriment, I’ve been fascinated with the rise of not just new tools but emerging AI marketing agencies.

In this article, I’m going to walk you through not just 10 ideas for starting an AI marketing agency, but also give you 10 examples of real companies and agencies you can use to help build out your agency. Think of this article as both inspirational and practical steps you can take for the beginning stages of your agency.

Alright, no more rambling. I hope you’re as excited as I am to go through this list.

What is an AI marketing agency?

An AI marketing agency is a service-based company that uses AI-powered software and tools to help other businesses optimize their workflows, automate repeated tasks, and improve their marketing strategies. Essentially, these agencies focus on using AI technology to help companies be more productive without having to grow their headcount.

I’ll go over in more detail on the types of AI marketing agencies that are out there and what they do in the next section. But before we dive in, know that these examples are what we are currently seeing in 2024. As AI progresses, there will be new jobs and services that we have yet to even wrap our heads around.

The future of AI is bright, and not one that marketers or businesses should be afraid of. If you’re looking to hire an AI agency, or you’re looking to start one for yourself, the next section of ideas and real examples should help you spark some inspiration.

10 AI marketing agency ideas with real examples

Here are 10 AI marketing agency ideas from real companies:

1. AI advertising agency
2. AI content creation
3. AI analytics for agencies
4. AI website personalization
5. AI for email marketing
6. AI for lifecycle marketing
7. AI chatbot agency
8. AI ad optimization agency
9. AI copywriting agency
10. AI social media agency

Alright, let’s take a look at each example.

1. AI advertising agency

• Purpose: Ad campaign management
• Example: Albert

Gone are the days of pulling your hair out trying to manually juggle complex ad campaigns across different platforms like Facebook ads, YouTube ads, X ads, LinkedIn ads, Google ads, Instagram ads, etc. AI marketing platforms like Albert are using artificial intelligence to streamline ad campaign management.

Albert is like having a super-smart robot sidekick that takes care of all the nitty-gritty details for you. Their AI platform is a total lifesaver when it comes to marketing tasks like optimizing bids, figuring out budget allocation, and testing ad creatives. This means that agencies can focus on the big-picture stuff, like coming up with killer campaign strategies and diving deep into the results.

Pair this up with an agency management platform like Copilot and you’ll be able to manage client communication, campaign details, and ad performance data securely within Copilot. This streamlines collaboration between you and clients and makes sure everyone is on the same page.

2. AI content creation

• Purpose: Help companies create AI-assisted content
• Example: Content at Scale

When this whole AI craze started in marketing, the first thing people jumped to was creating AI-generated content. While Google has claimed that they don’t penalize AI content, one must still tread here carefully.

As of March 2024, Google released a core algorithm update that is responsible for de-indexing websites with tons of AI-generated content. It’s not to say that using AI to create content is not allowed, but rather using AI for the pure purpose of generating clicks and gaming SEO algorithms is not allowed.

Human content that is AI-assisted is the way to go. And we’ve been doing this for some time now. Just look at Grammarly — it’s an AI writing editor that helps you fix any grammar mistakes in your own original writing. This is how AI content should be approached.

And one company that is leading the charge, and helping other AI content agencies grow, is Content at Scale. The platform helps content agencies generate more content for their clients. But the company also expresses that one should not use their content at face value and that you should hire a real editor to help you optimize the AI-generated content.

Integration with Copilot: Seamlessly collaborate with clients on content briefs and revisions within Copilot. Securely share content assets and leverage Copilot's integrations with task management apps to streamline the entire content creation workflow.

3. AI analytics for agencies

• Purpose: Improve client campaign data
• Example: Akkio

One other area that is bound to be impacted by AI in the marketing world is analytics. Better attribution, better data-informed decisions, and just a better overall understanding of how well a business is doing (from website traffic to revenue generated) will be accomplished with the help of AI.

One company trying to pave the way for agencies in this space is Akkio — a platform that helps agencies find trends in their clients’ customer behavior. Everything from preparing and cleaning data to helping agencies forecast analytics for their clients can be done with Akkio.

Integration with Copilot: Leverage Copilot's secure data-sharing features to seamlessly collaborate with clients on interpreting real-time campaign data and translating insights into actionable strategies.

4. AI website personalization

• Purpose: Help companies increase website conversions through AI personalization
• Example: Mutiny

Website personalization tools have been around for some time now. Over the years, companies have realized that the more specific they can be in their landing pages the better their conversion rates. For example, Notion saw a 60% increase in signups once they started personalizing their ad landing pages — showing the power of website personalization.

And the one platform helping companies do this is Mutiny. With Mutiny, you can tailor product and content recommendations based on individual user behavior on your site. You can also optimize website layouts, calls to action, and deliver targeted messages to specific users so each website visitor has the highest likelihood of converting.

If you plan on launching an agency in this space, Mutiny is definitely a platform to look into and learn how you can partner with and leverage their personalized marketing automation technology.

5. AI for email marketing

• Purpose: Help companies send personalized outbound emails
• Example: Clay

One of the best ways to communicate, when it comes to business, is with email. Sending cold emails is how I got my dream job working in San Francisco, and later it’s how I landed my biggest clients that I have been working with for over a year.

Running email marketing campaigns to grow revenue, like for an ecommerce business, is great — and there are tons of AI content tools that can help you do that. But for this example, I think we’ll see a surge of AI email agencies that help companies generate more outbound leads.

Whether that’s helping an agency find clients, helping enterprise companies find qualified leads, or helping media companies find PR opportunities, starting an AI outbound email agency could be fruitful. And one platform leading the way right now is Clay. Using AI, Clay helps you find qualified people to reach out to, helps you find their contact information, and helps you send them highly personalized emails.

If you plan on running an agency that helps companies generate more leads from email, Clay is definitely a tool to look into.

Integration with Copilot: Integrate Copilot with Clay to create automated workflows and invite leads to their client portal. Securely share lead lists, campaign results, and other crucial data analysis within Copilot.

6. AI for lifecycle marketing

• Purpose: Help companies increase customer engagement
• Example: Appier

Besides just using email for your outbound marketing efforts, there’s also room for AI to take over areas of the customer lifecycle. When it comes to lifecycle marketing — marketing that involves understanding the entire customer journey and knowing when and what to send users — AI agencies in this space will be able to provide cutting-edge marketing services that retain users and build brand loyalty.

And given that customer journeys aren’t really linear anymore, it’s more important than ever to leverage AI-powered marketing when it comes to lifecycle efforts. From emails, in-app messages, notifications, and any other way you get in front of your users, AI will let you segment users, personalize different journeys for different people, and optimize your campaign performance.

One tool helping companies and agencies achieve this is Appier. With Appier, you can help companies completely personalize the way they interact with their different customer segments — helping them create more inclusive customer experiences.

7. AI chatbot agency

• Purpose: Help companies scale customer service operations without adding more people
• Example: Botsify

Besides creating content, optimizing ads, and leveraging AI for personalization, an open frontier for new AI marketing agencies revolves around customer service.

Every company I worked at that started to scale its user base fast ended up having a customer support issue. As in, as a company’s customer base scales, so do the resources needed to make sure those customers are successful and stick around for a long time.

For a long time, companies would hire customer service reps to help take care of their growing customer base. And while actual humans are important and necessary when it comes to customer service, there will be a lot of companies that leverage AI chatbots to help offload some repetitive support tickets.

Instead of having a human handle ecommerce returns, cancel a subscription, or just simply answer questions about a product, AI chatbots will be able to take over many of today’s customer support tasks. Instead, humans will start to moderate responses from AI chatbots and focus on customer support tickets that require more hand-holding, like showing a product demo to a potential customer.

However, many companies do not know how to implement this technology into their existing workflows — bringing an opportunity to new AI marketing agencies wanting to specialize in helping companies adopt an AI chatbot.

8. AI ad optimization agency

• Purpose: Help companies lower CPC with AI optimizations
• Example: BrightBid

In the first idea on this list, we talked about leveraging AI for campaign management. But you can also use AI to make data-driven decisions when it comes to bidding on ads. Every year, companies spend about $88B on ads. And of that $88B, at least 23% of it goes to waste.

Whether that’s from a lack of knowledge on how to use ad platforms, listening to ad reps that don’t have your best interest at heart, bad programmatic advertising strategies, or just having unamusing ad creatives, it’s no question that companies that try to scale with ad efforts end up sending more than they need to.

Platforms like BrightBid are trying to solve this issue by helping businesses run efficient Google search and shopping ads. When running an agency, it’s important to remember that when your client gets value, you also get a piece of that pie (in the sense that they’re paying you for your service). And in order to easily show a company the value of your services, you need to show them how to either make more money or how to save more money.

In this case, starting an AI ad optimization agency can be an opportunity to show companies how they can save more money and lower their overall CPCs (cost per click) and CPAs (cost per action/acquisition).

9. AI copywriting agency

• Purpose: Help companies create consistent messaging across their brand
• Example: Persado

There are tons of generative AI tools that help with content marketing and the overall content creation process. However, there aren’t a lot of tools that can help you improve your content based on what you already have.

Most AI content tools help you generate content from an idea. But tools like Persado help you create better copy on your website based on your existing customer data and content. According to the company, “Persado AI-generated language outperforms your best copy 96% of the time.“ So it’s definitely worth looking into if you plan on working with larger enterprise-level companies.

A tool like this will not just help companies write better landing page copy and headlines, but it will also allow them to create consistency across their brand messaging. If businesses don’t already have a voice and tone guide for their brand and website, this can be an opportunity for you to come in as an AI copywriting agency and provide these services.

10. AI social media agency

• Purpose: Help businesses streamline their social media workflows
• Example: Sprout Social’s AI

Last, but not least, we have the world of social media marketing and influencer marketing. With so many social media channels now — LinkedIn, Instagram, X (formerly Twitter), Reddit, Facebook, and more — companies need help managing and growing all of their accounts.

One tool that many large companies and social media agencies use for their client is Sprout Social. However, the company has added new AI capabilities that allow businesses to make AI-driven decisions, minimize manual data and content entry, and streamline their social media content strategies.

If you’re thinking about starting an AI marketing agency in the social media space, this is a tool to look into. For as long as social media platforms exist, and farm most of the attention on the internet, businesses will always be looking for ways to grow on these platforms. And with the rise of new AI tools, things will only get easier for you as an agency owner in this space.

Run your AI marketing agency on Copilot

As you can see, the rise of AI will bring tons of new agency ideas to life. In this article, I only went over 10 ideas, with examples and tools you can leverage for each agency type. However, the future of AI is still uncertain.

I don’t know what kind of services and tools will exist in the next 5 to 10 years — no one currently knows. Just as the internet brought thousands of new jobs to life, so will AI.

From helping companies create personalized experiences, leverage predictive analytics, and improve their decision-making with AI solutions, the future is bright for new AI marketing agencies.

But what I wish someone told me when I started my digital marketing agency was that the most important thing in your agency, besides the ROI you give to your clients, is how you make your clients feel. In other words, your client experience will determine if you retain your clients for the long run and how likely they are to refer you to new business.

This is why I started using Copilot to manage my agency. Copilot is essentially the backend of my entire agency — handling everything from individual client portals, contracts, invoices, messaging, and reporting.

Copilot helps you productize your services and makes your agency feel more like a SaaS (software as a service) product. I’m not going to give you a generic call to action and say sign up for Copilot’s free trial. I’m a big believer in experiencing things for yourself and making your own judgment call. So, I invite you to play around with the marketing agency client portal.

If the demo portal is a pleasing experience, and you think Copilot can help you build a strong marketing agency, be sure to create your own account and play around with it!