Using GenAI RAG techniques to support marketing strategy development
Since I’ve been involved in digital marketing from when we used to call it Internet Marketing, I’ve always been keen to help businesses use a more strategic approach. I believe it’s essential since digital marketing is complex, and it’s vital that it’s aligned with marketing strategy and not just treated as tactical, as it often is. So, in my consulting, training, books and on Smart Insights, how to use a strategic approach to digital marketing has always been a big part of my recommendations.
The recent growth in adoption of GenAI has been fascinating for me, since although it can be used in a tactical way to support copywriting for digital channels, it has also been enthusiastically adopted for marketing and digital marketing strategy and planning as our research on digital marketing trends shows.
46% reported that they had already used AI for…
Our compilation of the latest social media statistics of consumer adoption and usage of social networking platforms
Social networks have transformed marketing and, as this post shows, their popularity is still growing in our latest global social media statistics research summary for 2025.
Research by Global WebIndex that we reference in this article shows that globally,
63.9% of the world's population uses social media. The average daily usage is 2 hours and 21minutes (February 2025).
Since it's the start of the year, we have included the most recent research from the end of the previous year, but will update this compilation of research through 2025. We include the lastest figures for the fast growing social networks such as Threads and Bluesky which has recently announced dramatic growth as many people switch from X / Twitter.
We'll keep this post updated during 2024 as the latest statistics are published drawing on our recommended …
6 Trends and the latest practical innovations which will change marketing in the year(s) ahead
We all now know that Generative AI (Gen AI) has already made a huge impact on marketing and the wider world. Yet it will grow dramatically more in the future since, as we will see, many businesses have been surprisingly slow in adapting and adopting it. Plus there are some amazing innovations as we move towards AGI - Artificial General Intelligence where AI will possess the ability to understand, learn, and complete tasks at a level comparable to or exceeding that of a human being.
In this post, I'll cover trends covering both AI strategy and how the GenAI tools are developing.
Those of use who have enthusiastically adopted AI in our marketing have become used to the incredible ability of GenAI to create compelling copy, visuals and code when provided with sufficiently detailed prompts. However, we’re also…
Dr Dave Chaffey’s practical review of the marketing trends that will matter for B2C and B2B marketers in 2025
October 2025 update
My latest annual post recommending digital marketing trends to watch is now live, covering the new techniques and opportunities to look forward to in the year ahead. ✨ 🔮 📈 🚀
View my post on the top 2026 digital marketing trends.
Of course AI is the main game in town, but which aspects of AI should you be taking a look at from a strategic POV? I cover 5 top-level use-cases of using AI to support marketing.
But AI isn't the only game in town and I also look at the latest Gartner hype cycle, our updated Martech tools wheel and other opportunities to improve marketing across our RACE framework.
I’ve been writing reviews of the latest digital marketing innovations for well over 10 years now; spurred on since they seem to be…
E-commerce conversion rate and lead generation landing page stats for desktop and mobile devices for benchmarking averages across different industries
As you will know, conversion rates are often used as a KPI to review the effectiveness of e-commerce sites. Naturally, all site managers and owners want to know the benchmarks - "how do our conversion rates compare?". As consumer and business confidence falls, it's more important than ever to audit and optimize your marketing success metrics.
In this post, I have compiled different free industry sources focusing on retail e-commerce conversion. At the end of this article, we also feature an analysis of landing page lead generation conversion rates by industry sector towards the end of the post. We keep this compilation updated as new conversion data is published in 2024.
E-commerce conversion funnel
This funnel-based view of the conversion process is a useful starting point since as well as the typical average basket…
