How Small Businesses Can Future-Proof Their Marketing Strategy with AI and Data
- Annabel Ausmus
- Oct 20
- 6 min read
Insights from the MarTech Conference (Sept 2025)
The MarTech Conference (September 2025) brought together marketing, data and AI experts from around the world to discuss how AI is reshaping marketing strategy and execution – and not just for large enterprises but also for small teams operating with tighter budgets and fewer resources.
Here’s our key takeaways that SMB marketers can apply to their own marketing strategy.
1. Manage AI like a team member, not just a tool
AI is becoming a genuine team player, capable of assisting with research, content, analysis and automation. But, as AJ Sedlak (Ford Motor Company) and Ali Schwanke (Simple Strat) pointed out, that doesn’t mean 'set and forget'.
As AI becomes more embedded into our daily work routines and is given more responsibility, and autonomy, to conduct tasks on behalf of the brand, businesses need to consider how to manage AI like they would a human employee.
Consider:
What marketing tasks should AI own or support?
Is the quality and accuracy of AI’s work up to scratch?
How are we measuring AI’s performance against defined KPIs?
How are we measuring a ROI?
“There’s almost a need to have the corollary to employee reviews and one-on-ones where there’s actual accountability to what decisions these [AI agents] are making... And can we, as people who are now leading these virtual employees, feel comfortable with their level of work and the quality of it?” AJ Sedlak (Ford Motor Company)
The Benefits: Managing AI like a team member helps maintain brand authenticity while improving your team's productivity and marketing impact.
2. Keep humans in the loop
Despite all the automation hype, the message was clear: AI needs human oversight. Without it, you risk bias, poor judgement and mistakes which can cause reputational damage and distrust that can cost significantly more to fix.
Jonathan Moran (SAS) warned that fully autonomous AI marketing should be treated with “extreme scepticism”. Even the best systems need checkpoints, review processes and escalation paths to keep outputs aligned with brand values.
The Benefits: A 'human‑in‑the‑loop' approach keeps ethics, empathy and brand integrity intact – all critical to small businesses where every customer interaction counts.
3. Start small and stay specific
Several panels cautioned that it’s easy to get overwhelmed by AI’s endless possibilities. Instead, marketers should start with one clearly defined use case that solves a specific problem.
“I see organisations spend months building something in the hopes that it’s going to solve everything, but then overlook the small baby steps they need to take to fix one specific customer issue versus trying to have a whole transformation program that takes multiple years.” Jiaxi Zhu (Google)
For small businesses, this means focus. Choose one challenge or repeatable process - like email copy, blog ideation or data tagging. Establish your benchmarks, implement an AI automation, measure its performance, build from there. Incremental improvements build confidence and minimise wasted resources.
The Benefits: You’ll learn faster, waste less time and prove AI’s value (or not) along the way.
4. Let your customers define their journey
The traditional sales funnel is a thing of the past. According to Colleen Harris (Dealeron), there are now dozens of touchpoints before purchase - sometimes more than 65 in complex sales cycles. For travel brands, this means acknowledging that the traveller’s journey isn’t linear.
“We need to stop pretending attribution is a straight line.” Colleen Harris (Dealeron)
Customers bounce between devices, platforms and moments of intent. Your job isn’t to control their path but to show up consistently and meaningfully wherever they are - whether that’s search, social, email or review sites. Utilise the right mix of AI tools to analyse your customer engagement data, then build and customise campaigns for the right mix of channels and messaging.
The Benefits: Focus your content and creative efforts consistently across multiple channels to build recognition, trust and conversions - wherever your customers are.
5. Choose the right tools, not the most tools
“More tools don’t mean better marketing." Annette Franz (CX Journey Inc.)
Modern martech stacks aren’t monuments - they’re modular systems that should evolve as fast as your customers do. That’s good news for SMBs who may lack the budget and resources for traditional enterprise CRM or marketing automation systems. Instead, opt for lightweight, interoperable tools that can scale as you grow. You're existing tech stack might present more capabilities than you know.
Conduct a tech stack audit:
Which tools are actually helping you drive brand visibility, leads or bookings?
Which could you simplify or consolidate?
Are you leveraging each tool’s integration capabilities to build a more holistic view of your customers?
The Benefits: Save time and budget by using fewer, smarter tools that streamline marketing workflows, solve high-volume / low-value tasks, and scale with your business.
6. Data quality matters - but perfection isn’t required
Your marketing AI is only as strong as your data - but chasing perfect data is unrealistic.
In an audience poll, most respondents said the state of their data was “a work in progress”. Panel experts warned against chasing purity for its own sake, noting that at some some point the cost of more data cleanliness won't move the needle for most businesses.
“Perfect data doesn’t exist. But AI magnifies whatever it’s given.” Ali Schwanke (Simple Strat)
Schwanke introduced the “Three Cs” framework to help determine when data is “good enough”:
Context: What is the data being used for?
Consequence: What happens if it’s wrong?
Confidence: How will you validate accuracy?
Data clarity and consistency matter more than complexity for small business marketers - so focus on what data you have, what you can easily gather, and what you can control.
The Benefits: Make faster, more confident marketing decisions with clear, reliable and accessible data.
7. Unlock underused data
One of the biggest takeaways for SMBs: you already have more data than you might think. And some of the richest insights often come from unstructured and overlooked sources, such as:
· CRM notes
· Customer reviews and call transcripts
· Direct web traffic and social comments
Integrating these small but valuable datasets help smaller teams see a fuller picture of the customer journey and make more confident, data-driven decisions.
The Benefits: Discover hidden customer insights from existing data sources to uncover customer opportunities, trends and pain points, while improving targeting, personalisation and campaign ROI.
8. The Roadmap to ROI
The MarTech “Roadmap to ROI” outlined five practical steps any organisation, however big or small, can adopt to turn AI ambitions into measurable results:
Purpose: Define the business problem you want AI to solve.
People: Identify who’s involved and who owns decisions.
Process: Document current workflows before automating them.
Platform: Use existing tools where possible before buying new ones.
Performance: Set clear success metrics; time saved, cost reduced, engagement lifted.
The Benefits: For lean marketing teams, these steps help avoid AI overwhelm and instead focus on tangible, revenue-related outcomes.
· AI is a partner, not a replacement - manage it, monitor it and measure it.
· Begin with one measurable use case, not a massive overhaul.
· Human oversight keeps ethics and brand authenticity intact.
· Customers now dictate their own journeys - be agile and omnichannel.
· Quality data beats perfect data - follow the 3 Cs to decide when you’re data is AI-ready.
· Build a modular martech stack that evolves with your business.
Need help bringing these initiatives to life in your business? Contact Amplifly today to get there faster.
FAQs: AI & Small Marketing Teams
Q: Where should a small marketing team start with AI?
Start with a simple, repeatable task - like social media scheduling, blog ideation, or data cleanup - and track the outcome before scaling up.
Q: How can small businesses ensure AI accuracy?
Treat AI as a collaborator. Review all outputs, use human checkpoints and continuously refine prompts and training data.
Q: Do small businesses need multiple AI tools?
No. Use fewer tools that serve multiple purposes. Many marketing platforms now include AI features within affordable packages.
Q: What data should small businesses prioritise first?
Begin with customer-facing data such as CRM insights, website analytics and online reviews. Use the “Three Cs” framework to decide what data is good enough to act on.
Q: How can AI help small companies compete with larger brands?
AI can help level the playing field by automating repetitive work, analysing unstructured data for greater customer insights, and helping teams create more personalised marketing without enterprise budgets.
Q: What mistakes should SMBs avoid with AI?
Avoid chasing trends or buying every new tool. Stay focused on strategy, measurable outcomes and customer experience.
