13 AI Marketing Tools Every CMO Needs in 2025 (With Pricing & Reviews)

According to research by the American Marketing Association, nearly 90% of marketers are now using AI tools at work, with 71% using them weekly or more. This shows that AI has become a must-have part of marketing, not just something to try out.

Marketing leaders today face a tough challenge. They need to create more content, run better campaigns, and prove results faster than ever before. The good news is that the best AI tools for CMOs can help you do all of this without burning out your team or your budget.

In this guide, we're covering the best AI tools for CMOs that are delivering real results right now. These tools handle everything from writing blog posts in minutes to testing what works on your website. 

Some help you schedule social media across all platforms. Others bring in leads through smart chatbots and personalized emails. You'll also find tools that connect everything together and tools that organize your team's knowledge in one searchable place.

Let's get into it.

Best AI Tools for CMOs in 2025 (Categorized by Use Case)

• Content Creation: Jasper AI, Notion AI, and Elephas write blogs, ads, and social posts quickly with smart AI help.
• Marketing Automation: HubSpot Marketing Hub and Adobe Marketo handle emails, campaigns, and lead management in one platform.
• SEO Optimization: Surfer SEO shows what to include in content to rank higher on Google.
• Social Media: Metricool schedules posts and tracks results. Canva creates graphics without design skills.
• Website Testing: Optimizely tests page versions. Mutiny personalizes content for different visitors automatically.
• Lead Generation: Drift adds chatbots for visitor engagement. Smartlead sends personalized cold emails at scale.
• Automation: Zapier connects marketing tools so data moves automatically between apps.
• Knowledge Management: Elephas and Notion AI organize information, summarize documents, and help with team planning.

1. Elephas

Best for — Mac users who need smart knowledge management and AI writing help for their daily work

Elephas is a complete AI knowledge assistant built for Mac that helps professionals capture, organize, and use their information better. It brings together a personal knowledge base called Super Brain with AI writing tools, workflow automation, and multi-model AI support in one app. Elephas works entirely on your Mac and can run offline, giving you full control over your data and privacy.

This platform matters to knowledge workers because it turns scattered information into an organized system you can actually use. Elephas lets you work without an internet connection, which means your sensitive data stays on your device. Elephas supports multiple AI providers like OpenAI, Claude, and Gemini, so you can choose what works best for your needs. With workflow automation through AI agents, you can handle repetitive tasks faster and focus on more important work.

Key Features:

• Super Brain knowledge base: Build your own searchable library by adding documents, notes, web pages, and YouTube content all in one place for quick access.
• Workflow automation with agents: Create custom workflows that connect different AI agents and tools to handle multi-step tasks like summarizing files or filling PDF forms.
• Multiple AI model support: Switch between different AI providers including OpenAI, Claude, Gemini, and offline models to find the right fit for each task.
• Complete offline functionality: Work with local AI models and access your entire knowledge base without internet, keeping your data private and secure.
• Smart writing tools: Get help with rewriting content in different tones, fixing grammar, generating replies, and continuing your writing when you get stuck.

Pricing: $14.99/month

Why We Picked Elephas:

From a productivity standpoint, Elephas stands out because it puts your knowledge and AI tools directly on your Mac without sending data to the cloud. This gives professionals full control over sensitive information while still getting powerful AI assistance.

The Super Brain feature solves a real problem many CMOs have—having information spread across too many places. With Elephas, everything comes together in one searchable system. The workflow automation through AI agents is another strong point. You can build sequences that handle boring tasks like extracting data from files, creating summaries, or generating reports in your writing style.

The offline capability sets Elephas apart from other AI tools. You can keep working even without internet access, and your data never leaves your device. This matters for anyone handling confidential work or traveling frequently. The platform also gives you flexibility with multiple AI models, so you're not locked into one provider.

User Feedback:

I purchased a lifetime subscription around 2 years ago. Elephas has significantly enhanced my customer relationships by refining my tone and professionalism in written communication. The ability to swiftly outline key points and tap the Elephas button has greatly improved my writing. Elephas transforms my rants and rambles into well-crafted, friendly or professional responses, saving me a lot of time and making me seem like a nice person. (Seriously) [sensitive content hidden] always offers prompt, kind, and supportive assistance whenever I encounter issues that I've created. He might be using Elephas too ;-) The program updates have kept pace with advancements in AI. Capterra

I use the Elephas app regularly in the medical field, mainly to work with PDFs of scientific articles. The app is reliable, stable, and supports me excellently in my daily work. I especially appreciate how efficiently it helps me search and process medical content. Capterra

2. HubSpot Marketing Hub

Best for — All-in-one inbound marketing automation for growing teams

HubSpot Marketing Hub is an all-in-one AI marketing automation tool that helps CMOs execute inbound marketing campaigns at scale. It combines a CRM with email marketing, social media management, SEO tools, and analytics in one platform. HubSpot has introduced AI features like content generation and predictive lead scoring to enhance campaign planning.

This platform matters to CMOs because it provides a unified view of the customer journey and ROI. Moreover, HubSpot’s ease of use allows marketing leaders to quickly deploy campaigns without heavy technical support. It supports analytics and personalization out-of-the-box, giving marketing leaders real-time insights on what’s working.

Key Features:

• Unified CRM & marketing platform: Combines contact management, email, social, ads, and analytics in one place for a single source of truth.
• AI content assistant: Built-in AI (HubSpot Content Assistant) to generate blog outlines, marketing emails, and social posts based on prompts.
• Personalization tokens: Dynamically insert personalized content (names, company, etc.) across emails and landing pages for each lead.
• Marketing analytics dashboard: End-to-end campaign tracking with attribution reports to see which efforts drive traffic, leads, and revenue.
• Automation workflows: Visual editor to automate lead nurturing, email sequences, and internal tasks based on triggers and if/then logic.

Pricing: $15/month

Why We Picked HubSpot:

From a CMO’s perspective, HubSpot is a proven choice for AI marketing automation tools because of its holistic approach. It provides an integrated suite where all your marketing data and activities live under one roof.

This gives CMOs clear visibility into ROI across channels – from lead acquisition to deal close. HubSpot’s AI enhancements (like automated content and intelligent lead scoring) help marketing leaders plan smarter campaigns and respond faster to trends. The platform’s intuitive interface also means teams can adopt it quickly without extensive training.

Overall, HubSpot is best for marketing strategy execution when you need a bit of everything: robust analytics, content tools, and automation that scale as you grow.

User Feedback:

• “HubSpot is great for inbound marketing and client management. It centralizes everything and boosts CMO productivity by letting us automate campaign workflows. Definitely worth it for the time it saves.” – Reddit
• “It’s a powerful platform, but it is pricey as you scale. The more contacts and features you need, the more the cost climbs – something small teams need to watch.” – Reddit

3. Adobe Marketo

Best for — Enterprise marketing automation and lead management (B2B focus)

Adobe Marketo is a leading AI marketing automation platform known for its advanced lead management and email marketing capabilities. It helps CMOs orchestrate complex campaigns, from automated email nurture streams to account-based marketing, with fine-grained control. Marketo’s AI features include predictive audience segmentation and personalization algorithms to tailor content by segment.

For CMOs, Marketo is valuable because it offers deep tools for data-driven marketing – you can score leads, track multi-touch attribution, and tie campaigns to revenue. It also integrates well with CRMs like Salesforce to give a full funnel view. In 2024–2025, Adobe has infused Marketo with AI for predictive content (e.g., suggested next-best emails) and intelligent workflows. This empowers marketing leaders to optimize campaigns at scale and improve ROI visibility.

Key Features:

• Advanced lead scoring: Uses behavioral and demographic data to score leads in real time, so sales can prioritize the most engaged prospects.
• Multichannel automation: Design automated journeys across email, SMS, events, and more, with triggers and rules for each customer segment.
• Account-based marketing (ABM) tools: Target and personalize marketing to key accounts with account-level insights and tailored content.
• AI predictive content: Recommends the best content or email to send each lead based on their profile and past engagement (improves personalization).
• Revenue attribution reporting: Robust analytics that connect marketing campaigns to pipeline and revenue, helping CMOs prove ROI on marketing spend.

Pricing: Custom Pricing

Why We Picked Adobe Marketo:

We chose Marketo for this list because many marketing leaders at larger organizations rely on it for sophisticated campaign orchestration. From a CMO’s view, Marketo stands out in strategic planning and data-driven marketing: it excels at complex segmentation, nurturing, and tying marketing efforts to revenue outcomes.

The platform’s depth (and Adobe’s continuous improvements) means it can handle large-scale personalization and multi-channel outreach without breaking. Marketo gives CMOs confidence in their marketing intelligence – with its analytics, you can forecast pipeline contribution and optimize spend.

While it has a steep learning curve, its power in experienced hands is tremendous for ROI tracking and enterprise growth forecasting.

User Feedback:

• “It makes it easy for me to design campaigns and is easy to use and segment. It is the best in the work sense and especially academically. Something I really like is the advanced segmentation and personalization capability, which allows for creating very targeted and effective experiences for each type of client.” – G2
• “Marketo's automation is not very customisable compared to Hubspot. The reporting is very inefficient. The integration with other tools such as Salesforce, zoominfo, etc. has an impact on performance. In addition, the cost of Marketo is extremely high compared to other marketing automation platforms. Customer support is extremely poor and there are hardly any updates that lead to improved functionality.” – G2

4. Jasper AI

Best for — AI-assisted content creation at scale (blogs, ads, and marketing copy)

Jasper is an AI writing assistant designed to generate marketing content quickly. It uses advanced GPT-4-based language models to produce blog posts, social media captions, ad copy, emails, and more. Jasper is like a creative sidekick for your marketing team, helping brainstorm ideas and draft copy 5× faster than a human.

For CMOs focused on content marketing, Jasper matters because it allows teams to scale content output without proportional headcount increases. You can maintain brand voice by using Jasper’s style and tone settings, and even upload brand guidelines for the AI to learn. In practice, CMOs leverage Jasper to accelerate campaign production cycles – from generating initial copy to repurposing content across channels.

Key Features:

• 50+ content templates: Jasper comes with pre-built templates for things like blog post intros, Facebook ad text, SEO meta descriptions, product descriptions, and more – making it easy to get started.
• Brand voice customization: Ability to train Jasper on your company’s brand voice or specific product info. Jasper’s “Brand Voice” and memory features ensure the AI outputs align with your style and facts.
• Multilingual support: Writes in 25+ languages, enabling global marketing teams to create localized content without needing separate copywriters for each language.
• SEO mode and keyword suggestions: Integrates SEO insights (like suggested keywords or topics) as you write, which helps content rank better on search engines.
• Collaboration & integrations: Team features for sharing AI content projects, plus integrations (e.g., Jasper’s Chrome extension and ability to connect with other apps) to fit into your workflow.

Pricing: $69/month

Why We Picked Jasper:

We selected Jasper because it’s one of the best AI tools for marketing content – frequently cited by marketing leaders for its maturity and feature depth. From a CMO’s perspective, Jasper stands out for strategic content planning: it not only generates copy, but also helps maintain consistency and speed across the content pipeline.

Jasper’s ability to integrate with workflows (such as a Chrome extension to write in Google Docs or your CMS) means faster time-to-market for campaigns. Importantly, Jasper has a track record (with thousands of marketers) of improving content ROI: teams report increased productivity and content quality.

In an era where content fuels inbound strategy, Jasper gives CMOs a way to scale creative output without sacrificing brand integrity or spending too much on freelancers. Overall, it’s a conversational yet powerful AI marketing tool for content marketing that every CMO should have on their radar.

User Feedback:

• “While the platform is fantastic and one of the best AI writing tools I’ve used, what truly sets Jasper apart is its ease of use and integration. It’s easy to use, easy to integrate, and I use it daily – my team works faster without compromising quality.” – G2
• “We found that Jasper can’t keep up with the latest AI models. The output quality felt lackluster compared to ChatGPT-4, and it hasn’t evolved enough. It served some needs, but now our experience is underwhelming given emerging alternatives.” – G2

5. Optimizely

Best for — Website A/B testing and AI-driven personalization

Optimizely is a digital experience platform known for its powerful A/B testing and experimentation tools. It enables CMOs to systematically test website changes, personalized content, and new features on a subset of users – and then roll out what works. In 2025, Optimizely has infused AI into its experimentation platform: automated insights highlight winning variations, and AI can even suggest experiments or personalize content for different audiences.

For marketing leaders, Optimizely is mission-critical in optimizing conversion rates and user experiences. It’s best for marketing strategy refinement through data – you can experiment with headlines, page layouts, or offers, and rely on statistical confidence to guide decisions. Optimizely also offers a Content Management System (CMS) and personalization engine that use AI to deliver tailored experiences (e.g., showing different homepage content to different industries).

Key Features:

• Visual editor for experiments: Marketers can create A/B or multivariate tests on webpages or mobile apps without coding – simply click and edit elements in the visual interface.
• AI-powered personalization: The platform can automatically segment visitors and serve personalized content or recommendations to each segment, using machine learning to improve targeting.
• Full Stack experimentation: Optimizely Full Stack allows running experiments on any part of your tech stack (e.g., pricing algorithms, search results) through feature flags and AI, useful for product-led growth strategies.
• Real-time analytics: Detailed results dashboards that show conversion uplift, statistical significance, and revenue impact for each experiment. AI insights flag noteworthy patterns in user behavior.
• Integration ecosystem: Pre-built integrations with analytics tools (Google Analytics, Adobe Analytics), CMS, and CRM systems to unify data. Also supports API access for custom integration into your marketing stack.

Pricing: Custom Pricing

Why We Picked Optimizely:

Optimizely earned a spot on this list because marketing leaders frequently suggest it for data-driven growth. From a CMO’s vantage point, Optimizely provides confidence in decision-making: instead of guessing which campaign or landing page works best, you have statistically backed results. This leads to smarter budget allocation and higher conversion rates (a key ROI metric).

Optimizely’s robust platform also supports team collaboration – product, marketing, and engineering can work together on experiments, aligning efforts with strategic goals. The inclusion of AI recommendations and personalization ensures the tool stays cutting-edge for 2025, automating some of the heavy lifting in experience optimization.

In summary, if a CMO’s goal is to continuously improve marketing performance and deliver personalized customer experiences, Optimizely is a top choice (despite the investment) due to its proven impact on conversion and growth.

User Feedback:

• “You have absolute control over the page you are testing (it's URL-specific, copy & paste), and the results come in almost real-time. There are options at the top to inject CSS and JavaScript, which can help immensely! The Support Team is incredible with their feedback - usually taking ~24 hrs. or less! Highly recommend!.” – G2
• “Poor and out of date documentation makes it difficult to integrate across our estate and is missing key features that would allow us to have visibility (e.g. we can't integrate flags into Slack) Interface is difficult to use - teams across the business often have to ask for verification a flag is turned on or off as changing a flag is complex and not very intuitive” – G2

6. Drift

Best for — AI chatbots and conversational marketing for B2B lead generation

Drift is an AI-driven conversational marketing platform that helps companies engage website visitors in real time via chatbots and live chat. It’s like giving your website a virtual SDR (sales development rep) that greets visitors, answers questions, and books meetings for your sales team 24/7. Drift’s AI chatbots use natural language processing to qualify leads and route them appropriately – for example, offering high-value visitors a live demo or content download.

For CMOs, Drift is valuable because it shortens the marketing-to-sales cycle and improves conversion of web traffic to pipeline. Instead of static forms, an AI chatbot can capture leads interactively and even personalize the conversation using data from your CRM. Drift also integrates with email and video, creating a multi-channel chat experience.

Key Features:

• AI chatbots: Build chat playbooks that qualify visitors by asking questions, provide answers from your knowledge base, and even calendar integration to set meetings, all without human intervention.
• Account-based marketing chat: Target specific accounts (identified by IP or email) with personalized chatbot messages – e.g., greet a known prospect with a custom message about their company.
• Live chat and routing: Seamlessly hand off to human reps when needed. The system can route chats to the right sales rep based on territory or account ownership for a personal touch.
• Conversational email and AI: Drift Email uses AI to analyze email replies from leads and triage or respond automatically (e.g., out-of-office detection, auto follow-ups). This bridges email marketing with conversational AI.
• Analytics and integrations: Dashboard showing engagement metrics, qualified lead volume, and chatbot performance. Native integrations with CRMs (Salesforce, HubSpot) and marketing automation ensure chatbot data flows into your systems for full ROI tracking.

Pricing: Custom Pricing

Why We Picked Drift:

We included Drift because conversational AI is becoming a cornerstone of modern marketing, and Drift pioneered this space. From a CMO’s perspective, Drift stands out for accelerating pipeline: it generates qualified leads and meetings that might otherwise be missed, effectively boosting ROI on your web traffic. It’s also a strategic tool for CMO productivity – once the AI chat flows are set up, they operate continuously, freeing up your team from manual lead qualification.

Drift’s ability to personalize conversations at scale aligns with the CMO priority of delivering better customer experiences. Additionally, Drift provides rich insights into customer questions and objections via chat transcripts, which can inform content strategy and sales enablement.

While it’s a premium solution, many marketing leaders justify Drift’s cost through the increase in conversions and faster sales cycles it delivers. It’s a prime example of using AI tools for marketing strategy to engage customers intelligently and efficiently.

User Feedback:

• “I have used drift in 2 diffrent work places and both of which have been easy to access. It allows prospects to reach out to us with any questions and book meetings when we aren't available. Drfit also has a feature that allows us to view what companies have been using our websites and what they have been browisng, allowing us to target those companies with specific wording in mind. G2
• “Initial setup can be burdensome. The workflows, chat mappings and workflow can be difficult. It would be great to see more pre-made templates. G2

7. Surfer SEO

Best for — AI-powered SEO content optimization and strategy

Surfer SEO is an AI-driven content optimization tool that helps marketers create blog posts and pages that rank higher in search engines. It analyzes the top-performing pages for a given keyword and provides data-driven recommendations on how to improve your content – from ideal word count to semantic keywords to include.

Essentially, Surfer acts as your on-page SEO coach. For CMOs invested in content marketing and data-driven marketing tools, Surfer is incredibly useful: it bridges the gap between content creation and SEO analytics. Writers can use Surfer’s real-time content editor, which scores their draft and suggests optimizations (like adding certain terms or headings). This means content gets optimized for both quality and search performance from the get-go.

Key Features:

• Content Editor with AI suggestions: As you write, Surfer’s editor gives a content score and suggests relevant keywords, topics, and structure improvements in real time. It’s like an SEO expert looking over your shoulder.
• SERP Analyzer: Deep analysis of the top 50 search results for your target keyword, showing common patterns (e.g., average word count, keyword density, link count) so you know what’s needed to compete.
• Keyword research and clustering: Identify related keywords and questions. Surfer’s “Content Planner” groups keywords into topic clusters, helping CMOs plan a content strategy around themes.
• SEO audits: For existing pages, Surfer can audit and compare your page against competitors, highlighting gaps like missing keywords or slow page speed, along with improvement suggestions.
• Integration with writing tools: Surfer has extensions for Google Docs and WordPress, so writers can optimize content within their usual workflow. It also integrates with Jasper AI, combining AI writing with SEO guidance.

Pricing: $99/month

Why We Picked Surfer SEO:

We added Surfer SEO as it’s frequently recommended by content marketers and growth hackers (it even popped up in community discussions as a must-have tool). From a CMO’s perspective, Surfer is about making content ROI more predictable. Instead of publishing and praying, your team is using AI analytics for content to increase the likelihood of ranking success.

This means more consistent organic traffic growth – a boon for any marketing strategy in 2025 where SEO still matters. Surfer’s ability to quickly produce data-driven recommendations also speeds up training junior writers or external agencies to meet your quality standards.

We also appreciate how Surfer quantifies content improvement (via the content score), giving CMOs a way to measure content optimization efforts. In short, Surfer SEO helps marketing leaders to back their content strategy with data, helping to justify content investments through better rankings and data-driven marketing insights.

User Feedback:

• “The Content Analyzer is a simple tool that everyone may use. Simply copying and pasting or uploading a file from your computer is all that is required to enter your content into the web tool, which then rates it based on factors such as the keywords used and the importance of those terms. When it comes to optimizing your content for search engines while maintaining a natural flow for human readers, the outcomes can be highly beneficial.” – G2
• “- They are so greedy, they coninue to up the price and give less value. It's literally corporate greed at it's best. There are products like zimmwriter as well as neuronwriter that does the exact same thing at a fraction fo the cost.” - G2

8. Canva

Best for — DIY graphic design and visual content creation with AI tools

Canva is a popular online design platform that enables non-designers to create high-quality graphics, presentations, social media posts, and more through an easy drag-and-drop interface. In 2025, Canva has integrated several AI features (often branded as “Magic” tools) – such as Magic Design for auto-generating slide layouts, AI image generation, and Magic Write for copy suggestions.

For CMOs and marketing teams, Canva is a lifesaver for fast-turnaround creative content. It offers thousands of templates for everything from Instagram ads to infographics, which your team can quickly customize to fit your brand. With AI, Canva can now do things like suggest design styles based on your content or instantly remove backgrounds from images. This democratizes creative production, allowing marketing teams to produce on-brand visuals without always outsourcing to graphic designers.

Key Features:

• Extensive template library: Over 250,000 templates for social media graphics, flyers, presentations, reports, etc. – providing a starting point for almost any design need.
• Drag-and-drop editor: Intuitive tools to add text, shapes, images, and your brand assets to a canvas. No design software experience needed; everything is point-and-click.
• Brand Kit: Centralize your brand colors, fonts, and logos. Ensures that anyone creating content in Canva uses the correct brand elements for consistency.
• Magic Design & Magic Edit (AI): AI features that can auto-generate design variations and layouts, or magically edit images (for instance, replacing an object in an image via AI or generating backgrounds).
• Collaboration and publishing: Real-time collaboration for teams to work on designs together. Plus direct publishing integrations (schedule a social post from Canva, or export slides to PowerPoint, etc.).

Pricing: $12.99/month

Why We Picked Canva:

Canva makes this list because it’s widely used by marketing leaders and was explicitly mentioned in community feedback as a must-have tool. From a CMO’s perspective, Canva addresses a major content gap: the need for rapid, inexpensive visual content production. It helps your whole team (even those with no design background) to create polished visuals, which is vital in the age of visual social media and short attention spans. With new AI features, Canva keeps evolving – it can now generate unique images or suggest creative layouts automatically, saving even more time.

Essentially, Canva is a productivity tool for marketing that helps teams maintain brand aesthetics without bottlenecks. It’s also great for scalability; whether it’s a quick mockup for a strategy meeting or hundreds of social graphics for a campaign, Canva handles it.

By reducing reliance on specialized design software, CMOs can reallocate resources and move faster. In summary, Canva is picked for its blend of simplicity, power, and AI tools for brand management that benefit any marketing department.

User Feedback:

• “Canva is a great tool for social media content creation. It’s extremely user-friendly, even for beginners. We use it to whip up visuals for campaigns in minutes – the drag-and-drop and templates make designing a breeze and let us focus on strategy.” – Reddit
• “Canva’s awesome for quick graphics, but it’s not good for everything. For example, it’s not ideal for logo design or very custom work – there are limitations compared to professional design tools, and some advanced customization isn’t possible.” – Reddit

9. Notion AI

Best for — AI-powered productivity and content brainstorming for marketing teams

Notion AI is an AI assistant integrated into Notion (the popular all-in-one workspace app). It helps with generating content, summarizing notes, brainstorming ideas, and automating writing tasks inside your Notion pages. Think of it as having ChatGPT-like capabilities wherever your team’s docs and project plans live.

For marketing teams and CMOs, Notion AI can be a game-changer in planning and strategy workflows. You can ask it to create a campaign plan outline, generate draft copy for an email, or summarize a marketing report – all within the collaborative Notion environment. It’s especially handy for brainstorming sessions: e.g., generate a list of blog post ideas for a new product launch or draft a first version of a creative brief.

Key Features:

• AI writing and brainstorming: Simply hit space and ask Notion AI to write something – a blog intro, social post, or list of ideas. It uses large language models to generate surprisingly solid first drafts.
• Summarize and extract action items: It can summarize long meeting notes or research docs into key points. Great for CMOs who need quick briefs from detailed data.
• Continuity in context: Because it’s in Notion, the AI has context of your workspace. It can pull info from other pages you’ve written to tailor its outputs (staying consistent with project details).
• Editing and tone adjustments: You can highlight text and prompt AI to improve writing, fix spelling/grammar, change tone (make more friendly, professional, etc.), or translate into another language.
• Integration with tasks and databases: Use AI within Notion databases – for example, auto-generate a draft task description or fill a content calendar entry with a starting outline based on the title.

Pricing: $12/month

Why We Picked Notion AI:

We included Notion AI due to strong community buzz – many marketers have started using it for daily tasks, and it was explicitly named in “go-to tools” by marketers online. From a CMO’s view, Notion AI stands out as a CMO productivity tool. It essentially augments your team’s thinking and planning process.

Instead of staring at a blank page, your team has a helpful AI to get the ball rolling on content or strategy documents. This speeds up preparation of proposals, creative briefs, and content drafts, which means faster go-to-market. It’s also a cost-saver: you might reduce reliance on external copywriters for first drafts or on analysts for report summaries.

Importantly, because Notion AI lives where your knowledge lives, it keeps everything organized – a big plus for cross-team transparency. The integration of AI tools for marketing strategy within everyday workflows is why Notion AI deserves a spot; it exemplifies how AI can make knowledge work more efficient and help marketing leaders make smarter choices quicker.

User Feedback:

• “Why Notion's rate is so low here? It's great, all right? I use it all the time. And many people use it to organize their work and life. I can't tell how much I love it! Even if I'm using it for free, I still feel it's a very good app. It's like a digital journal. I store many cute moments in it. 5 stars for Notion!” – Trustpilot
• “they made me pay for an invoice they made 3 months ago to a service i did not use , they say they can not refund it because the invoice was made 3 months ago! again great product but horrible costumer service and a pay wall to basic features.’” – Trustpilot

10. Smartlead

Best for — Automated cold email outreach and lead generation campaigns at scale

Smartlead is an AI-powered cold email and sales outreach platform designed to automate and personalize outbound campaigns. It’s particularly useful for growth marketing and sales development teams that need to send large volumes of prospecting emails without landing in spam. Smartlead’s standout features include multi-channel sequences (email + LinkedIn), AI email writing assistance, and automatic warm-up of sending accounts.

For CMOs focusing on pipeline growth, Smartlead serves as a force multiplier: it allows a small team to reach thousands of prospects in a personalized way. The AI features can generate tailored email copy or follow-ups, and even rotate between multiple email accounts to spread out sends (avoiding email provider red flags). This means higher deliverability and better response rates.

Key Features:

• Automated multichannel sequences: Create outreach sequences that can include emails, LinkedIn messages, and more. The tool sends them on schedule and stops when a lead replies or takes action.
• Email personalization at scale: Use custom fields and even AI to insert unique snippets in each email (like referencing a prospect’s company or role). Smartlead can dynamically personalize text and even images in emails.
• Inbox rotation & warm-up: Ability to connect multiple sender email accounts and rotate sending among them (the “auto-rotation of inboxes”). Also includes automated warm-up where the system sends interactions between accounts to build reputation – a game-changer for hitting high volumes without spam issues.
• Analytics dashboard: Track opens, replies, click-through rates, and conversions in real time. It uses AI to analyze campaign performance and can suggest optimizations (best send times, etc.).
• Integrations and lead management: Integrates with CRMs and tools like Zapier, so new leads or replies can trigger workflows. It also centralizes lead responses, so your team can manage replies from multiple campaigns in one place.

Pricing: $94/month

Why We Picked Smartlead:

We chose Smartlead as one of the community-sourced tools because growth-focused marketers frequently mention it (or similar tools like Instantly) as game-changers. From a CMO perspective, Smartlead is about scalability and ROI in outbound marketing. It allows marketing and sales teams to cast a wide net with personalized messaging – something that would be impossible to do manually at scale.

Its AI and automation ensure that quality isn’t sacrificed for quantity: emails still sound human, and technical safeguards keep deliverability high. Smartlead stands out in the way it tackles a very real pain point: increasing outbound reach without getting emails blocked. By using such a tool, a CMO can rapidly test new markets or verticals with cold outreach and generate pipeline in a fairly automated way.

The platform’s analytics also give strategic insight into what messaging resonates (useful for refining value propositions). It’s a great example of an AI marketing tool for lead generation that delivers quick, measurable results, which any ROI-conscious marketing leader will appreciate.

User Feedback:

• “What I like best about Smartlead is how easy it makes running automated outreach across multiple channels. The auto-rotation of inboxes is a game-changer – it lets us send from several accounts automatically, boosting deliverability. It’s super efficient; our cold email campaigns run like a machine now.” – G2
• “ The UX is overly complicated. Very buggy. Adding variables to emails takes a long time as the UX keeps switching the cursor out as the variable is being added. Adding sequences also can be frustrating, with a known bug preventing adding new ones. G2

11. Zapier

Best for — Workflow automation between apps, integrating AI into marketing processes

Zapier is a well-known automation platform that connects over 5,000 apps without coding. Marketers often use Zapier to automate repetitive tasks and integrate their various tools. In 2025, Zapier has introduced more AI automation features – such as connecting to OpenAI’s GPT for content or data formatting within Zaps (their word for automation workflows).

For CMOs, Zapier makes all your software play nicely together. Need to send leads from Facebook Ads into your CRM, then alert the sales team on Slack? Zapier can do that automatically. Or use AI to moderate survey responses, then route results to a dashboard? Zapier does that too. Essentially, Zapier helps marketing leaders streamline operations, ensuring data flows to the right places and reducing manual work.

Key Features:

• Multi-step Zaps: Create workflows triggered by an event in one app (e.g., form submission) and then perform actions in others (e.g., send an email, update a CRM, add a spreadsheet row). Supports branching logic and conditions.
• AI integrations: Connect to OpenAI GPT-4 within a Zap to do things like automatically draft responses, categorize text, or summarize data as it moves through the workflow. This lets you add intelligence to any process (e.g., parse incoming emails for sentiment).
• Extensive app support: Zapier likely integrates with every major marketing, sales, and productivity tool – from HubSpot and Salesforce to Google Sheets, Slack, Mailchimp, and beyond. This broad support means you can automate across your entire ecosystem.
• Zapier Interfaces & Tables: Newer features where you can create lightweight apps or pages (Interfaces) and databases (Tables) to build custom marketing dashboards or mini-CRM systems with Zapier automation behind them.
• No-code simplicity: The interface is user-friendly – you pick a trigger app and action apps, fill in fields with a point-and-click UI. Marketers can set up many automations themselves without developer help.

Pricing: $30/month

Why We Picked Zapier:

Zapier is included because it underpins so many marketing tech stacks and was specifically mentioned by marketers in community threads as a must-have. From a CMO’s perspective, Zapier provides immediate productivity gains and faster time-to-value with new tools. Instead of waiting on engineering to build integrations, the marketing ops team can quickly connect systems.

This agility means marketing experiments (linking a new AI tool to a workflow, for instance) happen faster. Zapier also helps reduce errors – automating data transfer means fewer mistakes than manual copy-paste. The addition of AI actions within Zapier keeps it at the cutting edge, allowing CMOs to inject AI processing (like content generation or data enrichment) in any process seamlessly.

Ultimately, Zapier is about efficiency and making the whole marketing operation more data-driven and automated, which is crucial for scaling. It’s an unsung hero that can significantly improve a team’s output without needing additional headcount, truly a CMO productivity tool in the truest sense.

User Feedback:

• “Zapier is a must-have for any digital agency. The ability to connect over 5000 apps with each other is incredible.We use Zapier on a daily bases to process leads and support requests. Trustpilot
• “I attempted to use Zapier for my workflows, but I encountered the same problems that other users have brought up: duplicate records, inadequate support, and being locked into a plan that I never really used. They seem to have lost their ability to listen to users and have become overly inflexible. I'm glad I looked elsewhere after a while. I moved to a different automation tool that is actually responsive to feedback, much easier to set up, and much more flexible with integrations. Overall, things have gone more smoothly, and I'm not as concerned about workflows crashing in silence. I only regret not switching sooner.” Trustpilot

12. Metricool

Best for — Social media analytics, scheduling, and marketing performance tracking

Metricool is a social media management platform that consolidates content scheduling, social analytics, and even ad management in one place. Think of it as a command center for all your social media channels (plus your website and blog analytics too). For CMOs, Metricool provides a data-driven view of social performance across networks like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, TikTok, and more, alongside web metrics and even competitor benchmarking.

It also incorporates some AI-driven features for optimal scheduling and content recommendations. The tool is especially useful for marketing teams that want to plan and analyze campaigns in a cohesive way – you can schedule posts for multiple platforms on a calendar, then review how they performed with robust analytics. Metricool even tracks hashtags and can generate reports automatically, which is great for presenting to stakeholders.

Key Features:

• Unified content calendar: Plan and schedule posts across all major social networks and blogs from one calendar interface. Visualize your content plan and maintain consistent posting without juggling native apps.
• Analytics dashboard: See audience growth, engagement, clicks, and other KPIs for each platform in one dashboard. It also pulls in your website analytics (via Google Analytics) so you can correlate social efforts to site traffic.
• Competitor analysis and hashtag tracking: Monitor competitors’ social media performance and track specific hashtags or campaigns in real time. This helps CMOs benchmark and identify trends.
• Ads manager integration: Connect your Facebook Ads and Google Ads to Metricool to monitor ad campaign performance alongside organic metrics. This one-stop view is useful for ROI analysis.
• Team collaboration and reporting: Manage multiple brands or profiles, assign roles, and collaborate on content drafts. Automated PDF reporting can be scheduled – saving time when producing monthly marketing reports for the team or executives.

Pricing: $18/month

Why We Picked Metricool:

Metricool is included because it addresses the need for marketing analytics platforms for CMOs in the social and content arena. We saw it mentioned in growth marketing communities as a recommended tool for its breadth of features at a good price. From a CMO’s perspective, Metricool shines by aggregating data – something that’s often a headache when campaigns span many channels.

Having one place to measure and report social KPIs and ROI simplifies decision-making and lets you react quickly to what’s working. Its scheduling and competitor features add operational value, enabling CMOs to keep the team organized and informed about the competitive landscape. Also, the ability to generate client or exec-ready reports in a click is a big time-saver (and we know reporting is a necessary chore).

Metricool may not have the absolute depth of some specialized tools, but its all-in-one nature hits a sweet spot for many marketing leaders who need to oversee strategy at a high level without getting lost in spreadsheets. It exemplifies a data-driven marketing tool that is easy to use and implement.

User Feedback:

• “I have tried different planning apps and the best one has been metricool. I had a problem that i couldn't understand why it was happening and i asked the chat box and Rodrigo helped me out to resolve my problems. Definitely recommend.” Trustpilot
• “Our agency pays Metricool thousands of dollars per month to manage over 250 client accounts, and yet only about 1 out of every 5 scheduled posts actually gets published. This constant failure has created refund requests, client churn, and serious reputational damage to our business — all because Metricool cannot reliably deliver what it promises. Each time we reach out to support, we’re told the issue is “exceptional.” But it has happened more than 15 times, across multiple clients, months, and platforms. That’s not exceptional — it’s systemic..” – Trustpilot

13. Mutiny

Best for — AI-driven website personalization and ABM (account-based marketing) experiences

Mutiny is an AI-powered personalization platform that allows marketers to customize their website or landing page content dynamically for different audiences – all without needing to write code. It’s designed with B2B growth in mind, particularly for account-based marketing. Mutiny can identify a visitor’s industry, company size, or even specific target account (using reverse IP data and integrations) and then automatically swap out headlines, images, or CTAs to better resonate with that visitor segment.

For example, a SaaS CMO could show distinct messaging to a visitor from the tech industry vs. one from finance, highlighting the most relevant value props for each. Mutiny’s AI can also recommend what segments to personalize for and even generate content variations. For CMOs, Mutiny is a strategic tool to increase conversion rates and pipeline from existing traffic – essentially turning more of your anonymous visitors into leads by giving them a more personalized experience that feels tailored.

Key Features:

• No-code visual editor: Easily create versions of your webpage for different audiences using a point-and-click editor (change text, hide/show elements, etc.). No developer needed – deploy personalization in minutes.
• Audience identification: Mutiny integrates data sources (Clearbit, 6sense, first-party analytics) to segment visitors by firmographic and behavioral attributes. E.g., target “enterprise healthcare visitors from ABM list” or “returning SMB visitors”.
• AI recommendations: The platform’s AI suggests high-impact audience segments worth personalizing, based on your conversion data. It can also draft copy for those segments (“AI-powered content writing” for the personalized headline).
• A/B testing and analytics: Built-in conversion tracking and automatic hold-out testing. You can see lift in conversion or engagement for each personalized experience versus default, complete with statistical significance.
• Integrations and data sync: Mutiny connects with your CRM and marketing automation (to use customer data or push leads), and analytics tools. It also has webhooks and APIs to fit into custom stacks. This ensures your personalized experiences and downstream systems are in harmony.

Pricing: Custom Pricing

Why We Picked Mutiny:

We included Mutiny because personalization is a high priority for CMOs looking to improve digital ROI and marketing intelligence. It was also directly recommended by marketers in context of ABM strategies. From a CMO’s perspective, Mutiny is a way to make the most of your marketing spend – you’ve already paid to get people to your site, now the tool helps convert them by showing the right message.

In a world where generic one-size-fits-all websites underperform, Mutiny provides a scalable solution to treat different visitors uniquely, which CMOs report leads to higher conversion rates and pipeline. The fact that it’s no-code means marketing can own it, speeding up execution (a competitive edge when you can launch targeted experiences faster than competitors).

Also, Mutiny’s use of AI – recommending what to do and even doing some of the work (writing copy) – addresses resource constraints often faced by marketing teams. We see it as a cutting-edge AI marketing tool for personalization that aligns with the 2025 trend of delivering bespoke customer journeys at scale. It helps CMOs deliver on growth targets by unlocking more value from existing channels.

User Feedback:

• “Many technologies claim they are easy to implement, but Mutiny is. It's effortless to run multivariate tests and roll out personalized experiences based on Clearbit/Marketo/SFDC data integrations.” – Capterra
• “The analytics part of the platform is limited compared to what other tools typically provide. I've also occasionally come across some visual bugs but nothing major. They are still in their early stage so I'm excited to see what they'll have to offer and how the platform will evolve!.” Capterra

Conclusion:

From writing content faster with Jasper AI and Notion AI to running full campaigns with HubSpot and Adobe Marketo, these tools handle the heavy lifting so you can focus on strategy. Tools like Surfer SEO help your content rank better on Google, while Canva and Metricool make social media management simple. Drift and Smartlead bring in more leads without extra effort, and Zapier connects everything together smoothly.

The right mix of these tools depends on your team's needs and goals. Start with one or two tools that solve your biggest problems right now. As your team gets comfortable, you can add more tools to build a complete system. With nearly 90% of marketers already using AI, now is the time to pick the best AI tools for CMOs that will help your team work smarter and get better results.

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