Marketo & AI: Best Practices for Smarter Segmentation and Nurturing

You’ve got Marketo. You’ve got data. You’ve got 47 tabs open. Now what? 

If you're still building audiences with spreadsheet acrobatics and sending the same nurture email to 10,000 people hoping it lands, this one’s for you.  

Trust us when we say AI in Marketo isn’t just hype. It’s here to rescue your campaigns from mediocrity. 

Let's unpack how Marketo’s built-in AI takes your segmentation from scattershot to sharp, your nurturing from blah to brilliant. And yeah, we’ll even dip into cool stuff like OpenAI and GenAI when you’re ready to flex. Let’s roll. 

How AI Makes Segmentation and Nurturing Easy-Peasy 

Every marketing team wants the same three things: 

• Reach the right people. 

• Say the right thing. 

• Hit them at the right time. 

Simple in theory. Painful in practice. If you’ve been in the game long enough, you know how messy it gets - data everywhere, timelines shrinking, buyers changing course mid-funnel. That’s why segmentation and nurturing are everything.  

Manual lists and mass emails? That era’s done.  

AI has taken over. 

What AI does for:  

• Segmentation: AI sorts contacts, reads patterns, predicts intent, and builds smarter segments. 

• Nurturing: AI watches how people engage and serves content that feels made for them. (Because it is.) 

So instead of building lists and flows by hand, you focus on the strategy. And with Marketo Engage, you get it all built in—no extra tools, no data science degree required. 

Here’s how to make it work. Let’s talk best practices. 

Best Practice #1: Use Predictive Audiences for Smarter Segmentation 

Building better audience segments, without burning out your team? Marketo’s got you. 

Predictive Audiences, powered by Adobe Sensei, helps you move beyond static filters and create audience segments that are dynamic, data-driven, and far more precise. 

What it does: 

• Assigns scores for every lead’s Likelihood to Register, Attend, or Unsubscribe 

• Helps you build smarter invite lists or engagement segments 

• Works right inside your existing Smart Lists and campaign logic 

How to use it: 

• Layer predictive filters into your campaigns (like “Only show leads 70%+ likely to attend”) 

• Combine with your standard filters (like product interest, stage, or region) 

• Let real-time data guide your targeting. Marketo even shows you how likely you are to hit your event goals 

You can go one step further with Lookalike Audiences to find new contacts who behave like your best past performers. 

Best Practice #2: Personalize Nurturing with Predictive Content 

Sending the same content to every lead is a fast way to lose attention. 

Predictive Content fixes that by helping you deliver more personalized experiences at scale. 

What it does: 

• Auto-discovers and tags your content (think blog posts, case studies, webinars, guides) 

• Recommends content based on behavior, company size, location, and more 

• Learns what works, so your nurture streams only get smarter with time 

How to use it: 

• Let Predictive Content scan your library and recommend assets 

• Approve or reject assets for AI to use (you’re still in control) 

• Apply recommendations across emails and landing pages 

• Use built-in analytics to see what’s driving real engagement 

Best Practice #3: Keep it Simple and Strategic 

You don’t have to use every AI feature right out of the gate. Start small. Choose a clear use case. Learn what works. 

For segmentation: 

• Use Predictive Audiences to focus on the leads most likely to act 

• Avoid overcomplicating it, let the AI sort through the noise 

For nurturing: 

• Swap out generic email flows with smarter, behavior-based personalization 

• Test different content tracks based on engagement 

For both: 

• Set clear goals (more signups, higher open rates, fewer opt-outs) 

• Review performance, learn from the data, and optimize regularly 

The more you use it, the better your AI gets. 

AI in Marketo: Performance Receipts 

• Bandwidth used Predictive Audiences to tighten up their webinar invites. By focusing only on leads likely to register, they cut their list by 73% and still hit an 80% registration rate.  

• Hatch’s AI-powered web campaigns brought in 10% more leads, added $100K in new opportunities, and boosted clicks on recommended content by 18%. One standout? Their “Take a Test Flight” campaign alone generated $400K in pipeline with a third of it converting to sales.  

Advanced Practice: Use OpenAI for Custom Segmentation 

Want to take it to the next level? You can connect OpenAI’s GPT models with Marketo (via tools like Flowsteps) for even more advanced segmentation. 

Here’s an example: 

• Leads often enter job titles in random formats. With GPT, you can automatically clean and categorize them. e.g., “Sr. Mktg Mgr” becomes “Marketing.” 

• Feed that cleaned data back into Marketo to trigger personalized nurture tracks 

It’s especially useful if you: 

• Work with inconsistent or multilingual CRM data 

• Want to build custom lead scoring models 

• Need smarter, cleaner data to build from 

Yes, it takes a bit of setup, but it gives you total control. 

What Generative AI Adds to the Mix 

Segmentation and nurturing are just the start. Adobe is also building Generative AI into Marketo Engage to help you move faster across your entire marketing workflow. 

Some of the latest innovations include: 

• AI-generated emails and visuals using Adobe Firefly 

• Smart chat assistants that summarize conversations and book meetings 

• AI-enhanced webinars that auto-create chapters and FAQs 

• Attribution AI that helps you understand what’s driving ROI 

These tools are designed to save time, reduce manual work, and still keep your messaging consistent and on-brand. 

Conclusion 

What we’re seeing now with Marketo Engage is just the beginning. As it continues to evolve, marketers will spend less time fixing and more time innovating. The real opportunity is not just automation, it’s acceleration. 

The future of marketing doesn’t wear a tie, it thinks on its feet. With Adobe Sensei, OpenAI, and GenAI in the mix, the brands jumping in now are letting AI take the wheel while they focus on the big ideas. And that’s where the real edge begins. 

Now, that sounds like a good day at work, eh? 

Time to Let AI Pull Its Weight? 

At Growth Natives, we turn AI from “nice to have” into “core to how you work.” If you’re in Marketo, HubSpot, Salesforce, or some new tool your team’s just testing out, we help you connect the dots, scale what works, and skip the buzzword fluff. 

Curious? Confused? Somewhere in between? Hit us up at info@growthnatives.com & we’ll help you turn AI-powered marketing into your new normal.