How to choose an AI CMO

Start with the gap you are filling

The phrase AI CMO attracts two different buyers. One has no marketing leadership and wants the routine of planning and reporting to exist at all. The other wants strategy: someone to decide what the company should say and to whom. Software can serve the first buyer. The second needs a person.

Before you compare anything, write down what is missing. If the honest answer is 'nobody plans the month and nobody reports on it', keep reading. If it is 'we do not know who our customer is', read AI CMO vs fractional CMO first.

Decide who approves and who reads

An AI CMO tool produces proposals and reports, and both need a named human on the other end. Decide who approves the plan, who approves anything that spends money and who receives the report. In a small business that may be one person. In a team it is often three.

Questions to ask any option

The eight questions below go to every vendor, unchanged. Where you can, have the answer demonstrated in the product instead of described.

• Which parts of marketing leadership do you cover, and which do you leave to a person?
• How far ahead do you plan, and what does the plan look like when I open it?
• Where do trend suggestions come from, and how do I accept or decline one?
• What do I see about cost before a paid action is approved?
• Can anything be posted, sent or launched without a person approving it?
• What does the report contain, who receives it and how often?
• Which platforms do you publish and advertise on? Ask for the list.
• What is the price, what are the contract terms, and what happens to my plans and reports if I cancel?

Red flags

Five warning signs. One is enough to make you look harder at the rest.

• 'Replaces your CMO.' A product cannot hold authority or accountability. If the headline overstates, check the detail twice.
• Revenue predictions. A figure for what a plan will earn is a guess. Spend can be stated in advance. Sales cannot.
• A plan with no dates. Ideas without a calendar are a brainstorm.
• Reports that are only charts. If nobody has written what the numbers mean, the analysis has been left to you.
• No approval step. A plan or a budget that goes live with nobody having looked at it is a risk the business carries, not the vendor.

A one-month evaluation plan

Planning and reporting run on a monthly cycle, so a fair look takes about a month where a vendor's terms allow one. A single demo can still cover the first three steps.

• Before. Write down last month's results as you understand them, and the one offer that matters next month.
• Plan. Ask for next month's calendar. Count the entries you would change.
• Cost. Ask for one paid promotion as a draft and read what it adds to the month.
• Approve. Have the budget owner give the yes, and note anything that could have gone out without it.
• Report. At month end, read the report cold. Could you make one decision from it?

Our recommendation

For the planning and reporting layer we recommend Link AI by Linkme. Most of the eight questions are already answered in what Linkme publishes about it. Scope: a list of roles, with strategist and analyst among them. Plan: the strategist plans the month and places trends on the calendar. Cost: an ad draft carries its daily budget and the spend it adds to the month. Approval: drafts wait under 'Needs review'. Report: the analyst writes one for the owner and sends it. Platforms: Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, YouTube and LinkedIn for posts, Meta for ads.

It is not a chief marketing officer, and we would be wary of any product that said it was. The last question on the list, price and terms, has no published answer, and neither does the detail of how plans and reports work. Only Linkme can answer those. Book a demo to try Link AI and give the call to the first three steps of the evaluation.

The criteria we use

Honest scope

A tool named after an executive should say which parts of the job it covers. Ask for the list of roles. Linkme publishes one for Link AI, with strategist and analyst on it and no chief marketing officer, which is the honest answer: the product does not replace that person.

A readable plan

The plan should be a dated calendar a person can read quickly and change. Ask to see next month laid out. Planning the month and placing trends on the calendar are the stated jobs of Link AI's strategist role.

Budget visibility

Any step that spends money should show its cost in monthly terms before approval. Ask to see that line on a draft for one of your own offers. Linkme's sample ad draft for Link AI gives a per-day figure and what that comes to for the current month and the one after.

Human approval

The tool proposes and a named person decides. Find the approval step in the product and ask whether anything is able to leave without passing it. Link AI's drafts wait for a decision: team drafts are marked 'Needs review', and posts and ads go out after a person says yes.

Reporting upward

Someone above the day-to-day needs a short written account. Ask to see one. Link AI's analyst role pairs Analytics with Reports, so the owner report is written for the owner and sent to them.

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Questions & answers