Can Leading AI Platforms Create A Quality Marketing Plan?

A simple search would reveal a trove of content with marketers saying how they utilize AI in their day-to-day, but with the rapid development of platforms like OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Google Gemini, one would wonder, could it match the savvy of a seasoned marketer? Can it factor in the human-level nuance that creating a marketing plan would require in today’s world? Let’s find out.

Marketers typically ask themselves in the beginning of the process “what information do I need to begin forming the marketing plan?”. Let’s find out how each platform approaches the question of “what information do you need to form a marketing plan for my business?”.

Below is a summation of what info each platform said it would need to form this plan:           

Here we see both platforms focus on essentially the same themes with slight differences in the details requested. While all this information is necessary for forming a marketing plan both platforms failed to note the need for information on the human component of the business. As many marketers know, marketing plans that can’t be realistically executed are just wish lists so for a plan to be effective it must take into account the team size, the bandwidth of that team, the expertise level the team has.

Moving forward we asked the platforms to form a marketing plan for a fictional company including basic information outlined in the previous answers with a twist. We included a mention  that the company is a 5 person start-up to see if the platforms generate plans that are realistically executable by a team with limited bandwidth.  

Below is the prompt provided to each and how they answered:

Prompt:  “I run a 5 person start-up that sells golf clubs the customers can customize with fun colors and decals for an affordable price that aims to make quality clubs accessible to people that do not want to spend an arm and a leg for clubs or would like to try golfing for a minimal initial investment. To date we have only driven sales through organic social media and word of mouth but would like to start engaging in more formal marketing. Our desired audience is adults who are interested in picking up golf as a hobby, live in the US, have some disposable income, and a taste for flair and personalization. Our competitors are large legacy golf companies that are much more well known but do not offer our level of affordability and the ability to customize their clubs. Please create a marketing plan for my business that takes into account all of the above and utilizes a $30,000 budget over the next three months with the goal of increasing brand awareness and driving club sales. Please be sure to include marketing channel recommendations, targeting recommendations for those channels, and how best to measure my desired results.”

At first glance, the marketing plans suggested by Gemini and ChatGPT are surprisingly detailed, offering a diverse channel mix, targeting recommendations, and realistic means of measuring success in a well structured format however the devil is in the details.

Let’s begin by looking at the channel and budget recommendations:

Overall, both platforms provide logical reasoning for the channels they’ve selected however neither seemed to take into account the bandwidth of a 5 person startup noting the time and potential expertise needed to effectively manage marketing across a wide swath of channels. Both recommend utilizing Google advertising, email, and social channels but divert on what social channels to use with Gemini recommending Meta and Pinterest and ChatGPT recommending Meta and Tiktok. They also failed to suggest utilizing the full power of the Google advertising suite for this business by omitting tactics that would be strong fits such as shopping ads, Youtube ads, and PMAX ads however Gemini does get a slight edge in this regard by recommending display ads in addition to just search ads.

Other interesting suggestions included pursuing local event sponsorships and utilizing influencer marketing. While these methods have been effective in driving engagement for brands, marketers who have experience working with influencers and on events know that both run the risk of being very time consuming with no guarantee of returns and may not be an ideal fit for a small company that may not be able to afford that risk and would have limited bandwidth. 

In terms of budget both platforms struggled with recommending a total allocation that did not exceed the given budget with ChatGPT going 7% over budget and Gemini going 17% over budget while also neglecting to consider the costs of creative production, website optimization and analytics platforms which are essential pieces of a workable plan. 

For the budget allocations both suggest allocating no more than 50% of the budget to social media advertising and 12% for Google advertising, which at max is $5,500 per month. This is not inherently bad however it is important to consider that search CPCs for specialized products can easily exceed $1 and that the budget may be stretched too thin for conversion campaigns to meet the sales threshold to exit a learning phase across multiple targeting groups. Because of this an experienced marketer might suggest consolidating budgets into the largest and most effective channels like Meta, Google, and email while having auxiliary options like Pinterest, Tiktok, and influencer marketing as backup options.

In addition to this neither allocated budget for testing and the seemingly large amount of budget going towards email stands out as very odd with ChatGPT suggesting $1,500 and Gemini suggesting $5,000. When questioned further about this both platforms specified that the budget is meant to cover the costs of email marketing platforms like Mailchimp and Klaviyo as well as email templates. These totals far exceed the pricing for even premium plans as provided on the Mailchimp and Klaviyo websites.

Lets take a look at the proposed targeting for the paid channels:

A good start with the keyword suggestions for search being relevant phrases that can be iterated upon with Gemini providing the superior recommendation being that it suggested experimenting with combinations of broad, phrase, and exact match.

As for the social targeting, there was much left to be desired. For demographics, ChatGPT recommended targeting the 25-45 age range while Gemini recommended targeting the 25-55 age range which is preferable as there is a subset of golfers that take up the hobby as they get closer to retirement age . In addition to that some of the interests like “DIY”, “Custom Products”, “Colorful Products”, and “Hobbyists” would likely not be suggested by a human marketer as they are likely too general to ensure relevancy. It is also of note that  both failed to consider the value of retargeting which are essential for increasing conversions.

When it comes to measuring results both platforms suggest similar metrics such as website traffic, sales, social media engagement, and brand mentions however ChatGPT also suggested tracking customer lifetime value which is an important metric for a company looking to achieve growth. 

Outside of the marketing strategy an area that both platforms shined in was providing information that could serve as time saving thought starters and helpful tips. In Gemini’s marketing plan it included a section of key considerations reminding the user that for the plan to be effective you should ensure that execution of the plan involves having high quality visual assets, testing of combinations of creative, a user friendly website experience, and an openness to iterating and adapting based on performance. ChatGPT included example creative concepts, an example execution timeline, and suggestions of tools to use for analytics and email marketing.

In conclusion, both Gemini and ChatGPT demonstrated a strong ability to identify the necessary information for creating a marketing plan but the plans that were generated highlighted distinct individual strengths and weaknesses for each platform. Gemini, for instance, provided useful key considerations and a deeper understanding of Google advertising tactics but struggled with staying within budget and accurately estimating the costs of email marketing. On the other hand, ChatGPT was superior in identifying KPIs, providing creative suggestions, and contextualizing the plan into an execution timeline but left much to be desired when it came to targeting. The biggest takeaway from this exercise is that neither platform could account for critical human-centric nuances that are paramount to a plan's success. Factors such as team size, bandwidth, and existing platform experience, which astute marketers instinctively weave into their strategies, remained outside the scope of both platforms. As marketers know, a quality marketing plan is carefully tailored to get the best results using the resources available to the business. 


Finally, let’s look at some high level takeaways of where each platform performed:

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