Artificial intelligence (AI) Machine Learning, robot and human hands touching on big data network connection background, science and technology artificial intelligence, innovation and futuristic.
Artificial intelligence (AI) Machine Learning, robot and human hands touching on big data network connection background, science and technology artificial intelligence, innovation and futuristic.

Harnessing AI for Smarter Marketing: An Accounting Firm’s Roadmap to Success 

by Debra Andrews | July 9, 2025

The accounting industry is facing unprecedented challenges: Talent is scarce, large firms are merging, and private equity groups keep rolling up smaller firms into big entities with deep pockets. Staying fully staffed and competitive has never been more difficult. 

Accounting firms that expect to attract talent, grow the top line, and thrive in this environment recognize that effective marketing is one of their most powerful strategic weapons. By integrating AI into their marketing, forward-thinking firms have discovered they can out-market and outperform competitors with much larger budgets.  

From Yellow Pages to AI-Powered Search 

Remember the days when the Yellow Pages was your biggest revenue generator? Back in the ‘90s, a good yellow book ad, a basic website, and a nice brochure was all you needed to bring in new business. Accounting marketing was tactical, reactive, limited to a few channels—and entirely manageable for one in-house generalist. 

That all changed when digital marketing and inbound marketing took off. Now you could both push messaging to your ideal buyers (with emails they’d actually read) and pull them to your revenue funnel with engaging content posted online. With Google Analytics showing you exactly how your marketing was working, savvy accounting leaders realized that marketing could be a measurable, strategic growth driver. 

Then as marketing channels proliferated, the field became hyperspecialized. But most mid-sized CPA firms couldn’t staff up with a big team of marketing specialists. And they certainly didn’t need all those roles full-time. So the pendulum swung from a solo in-house generalist to a fractional marketing model. Accounting firms partnered with fractional agencies to get the exact slice of each skillset and resource they needed for effective marketing, led by a strategy-driven Fractional Chief Growth Officer or Chief Marketing Officer.  

Now AI has come along and completely up-ended how your buyers find an accounting services provider. The traditional SEO strategies (rank #1 on Google) no longer apply, because your ideal client is using AI-native platforms that serve up concise, curated answers. This zero-click behavior is causing website traffic to decline. So how are prospective clients finding you? 

Today marketing is a complex web of roles, tools, technologies, data, and evolving buyer behavior. And marketers are under greater pressure to deliver a high ROI. Even if you could afford to throw more head count at the problem, it wouldn’t generate the results you need to compete in a crowded space.  

It’s a Pivotal Time for Accounting Firm Marketing 

The next two years will be a transformative time for accounting marketing. 

While specialists in SEO, content, paid media, analytics, and many other disciplines are still at the core of your marketing function, those roles are going to change dramatically in the not-too-distant future. AI will automate tactical marketing work, supplement human efforts, alter existing roles, and inspire new ones. It will evolve the marketing function from heavy execution to a keener emphasis on strategy and creativity. It will be less about doing and significantly more about thinking.  

In turn, the accounting marketing team of the future will become leaner—staffed with a few highly strategic, AI-forward professionals who understand your business deeply and leverage technology to efficiently execute marketing that drives predictable revenue. 

Accounting firms that scale up an internal team won’t have the flexibility to adapt as traditional marketing roles shift. Yes, some roles will be able to reskill for an AI-powered world. But others will change so dramatically that many professionals won’t be able to keep up.  

That’s going to create even greater demand for the fractional marketing model: Tailor-made for middle market accounting firms and the best way to stay agile as AI reshapes the marketing roles and rewrites the marketing rules. 

A 4-Step Roadmap to AI-Powered Marketing for Accounting 

The thought of a major transformation might seem daunting, especially when it involves a crucial decision like how to staff your marketing for optimal results. These 4 manageable steps will help your accounting firm start to prepare for the AI marketing revolution

1. Reimagine Your Marketing Function 

Rather than continue with the status quo, critically assess your marketing needs, the roles you use, and whether AI could improve their work quality or empower them to do more with less. List each marketing activity you engage in (such as content creation, SEO, paid media, or analytics). Then ask yourself, “Is this a highly strategic activity? Or is it one that AI could automate?” 

The answers will provide a framework for what your marketing team really needs to look like, both now and as AI becomes more firmly entrenched. Be prepared: You’re going to find that reimagining your marketing function requires fundamental (not incremental) change.  

Most mid-sized accounting firms discover that while a solo generalist will no longer suffice, they probably won’t need a big team of specialists as AI becomes integrated into every aspect of marketing. What they WILL need is a lean team of highly strategic marketers who use AI-powered tools to augment their skills and drive effective marketing execution. 

2. Evaluate the Available AI Tools 

The 2025 Marketing Technology Landscape shows a whopping 15,000+ tech tools now at the marketer’s disposal. All this innovation is great, but it’s also overwhelming. How do you know which technologies will solve your marketing challenges, address your firm’s pain points, and deliver a strong ROI?  

If you don’t have the in-house expertise to answer that question, don’t worry. A fractional marketing partner can help you evaluate AI-powered tools that will automate and streamline your marketing and generate better results than a human-only approach.  

3. Operationalize AI in Your Accounting Marketing 

In our experience powering up growth-generating marketing for accounting and other professional services firms, there are many applications where AI can make a measurable impact on your marketing. Creating content, personalizing marketing at scale, automating routine marketing tasks, and using analytics to gain deep insights about your clients are all prime applications where AI adds tangible value.  

The key is to determine which use cases best align with your strategy and prove most fruitful for your business. Then you can integrate the optimal tools and redesign your processes to infuse AI throughout your marketing workflow.  

Questions like these will guide how you operationalize AI in your marketing and help you score some quick wins. 

  • Is social media a key component of your marketing plan? Consider using AI to generate more engaging posts that support your strategy, match your voice, and reflect best practices. 
  • Are you using email to reach your ideal client? Lean on AI to create more compelling subject lines and more personalized content, faster and more efficiently than a human marketer. 
  • Do you publish blogs to establish yourself as a thought leader and draw buyers to your revenue funnel? The right AI tool can identify the best keywords, develop a suggested outline, and even create a draft that’s optimized for the new world of search. 
  • Do you need better competitive intelligence to stand out from the crowd? An AI-powered tool can assess your competitors’ messaging, website structure, SEO strategy, and social content. With AI handling the mechanics, you’ll gain the mind space to analyze the findings and make data-driven decisions about your marketing strategy and messaging. 

4. Develop Performance Metrics  

Determine what you most hope to achieve by integrating AI into your accounting firm’s marketing, then use those goals to guide your metrics of success.  

Many firms look to AI to save time and reduce labor costs, and those are among the first gains you’ll likely see by integrating AI into your marketing. One mid-sized firm we partner with reduced content creation labor costs by 30-40 percent using the right AI tools.  

The same client is achieving better results with its AI-guided content—another important metric for most accounting firms. Leads rose by 45 percent soon after the firm implemented this tech-centric content development approach. 

When accounting firms operationalize AI within their marketing, we typically see efficiency gains within the first 30 days, higher output within 60 days, and better performance within 90 days.  

AI can truly level the playing field at a time when CPA firms are facing an extraordinary combination of heightened competition and transformative change. Accounting firms that embrace AI-powered marketing and the fractional marketing model will gain a strategic advantage—reimagining the accounting marketing department to be leaner, smarter, and better equipped to drive measurable growth. 

If you lead a growth-minded accounting firm and you’re ready to drive better marketing results, schedule a consultation with Marketri. We’ll show you how our fractional marketing for accounting and our AI-powered team will drive higher ROI for your firm.