What HubSpot’s “The Loop” Means for AI Marketing

The world of marketing is changing fast. HubSpot has introduced a new concept called “The Loop” (also known as Loop Marketing) to help marketers succeed in the new AI era. But what exactly is it, and how will it affect AI marketing? Let’s break it down.

For many years, marketers used the funnel model: first attract attention, then engage interest, then convert. But that model is breaking.

• Around 60% of Google searches end without a click — meaning people often get answers from AI tools or search snippets without visiting a website.
• People are spending time in apps, on social media, in communities, and listening to podcasts — so they may never pass through your “top of funnel.”
• Because AI and large language models (LLMs) answer questions instantly, marketers have to be ready to be discovered and persuasive in new ways.

Given this shift, HubSpot argues we need a new model — one built for AI, constant learning, and a more fluid customer journey.

HubSpot’s “The Loop” is a new playbook for growth in the AI era. It replaces (or evolves) the funnel with a continuous cycle where marketers and AI work together to express, tailor, amplify, and evolve.

Instead of pushing people linearly from awareness to purchase, the Loop is always learning, always adapting, always iterating.

Here are its four stages:

Stage What it means Why it matters Express Define your brand’s voice, tone, and ideas. Use AI to help with research, but set the identity first. If your brand voice is clear, AI-generated content will feel more human and unique. Tailor Personalize each message using data. Use AI + unified customer data to deliver relevant content. Personalized experiences build trust and conversion more than generic ones. Amplify Spread your message across channels — social media, video, podcasts, search, and AI engines. Your audience is scattered. To meet them, you need to go where they are. Evolve Use AI and analytics to learn and improve. Iterate campaigns quickly. Fast feedback means your next loop will perform even better.

Because it’s a loop, once you finish “Evolve,” you feed those learnings back into Express again, and repeat.

Here are the big shifts AI marketers should expect or plan for because of The Loop:

1. Humans + AI, not AI replacing humans

The Loop assumes that people and AI should each do what they do best. Humans bring creativity, judgment, and storytelling. AI brings scale, speed, and data insights.

If marketers try to let AI do everything, messaging becomes bland or generic. If they ignore AI, they’ll fall behind in speed and scale.

2. Brand identity becomes more important

Because so much content will be generated or guided by AI, your brand’s distinct identity becomes essential. Your voice, tone, values must guide the AI. That’s why the Express stage is first.

In other words: don’t let AI define you. You define AI’s style.

3. Contextual personalization at scale

Tailoring now isn’t just “Dear {FirstName}” — it’s about using behavior signals, CRM data, intent data, and context to deliver what each person needs.

That is harder, but it’s what consumers expect in 2025 and beyond.

4. Your content must be AI-friendly

Because people are getting answers via AI tools, your content has to be discoverable not only in SEO, but in AI engine optimization (AEO) — i.e. how LLMs and AI assistants surface content.

You need to think: “How would an AI assistant find or use this content to answer a question?”

5. Speed and iteration matter more

In the past, marketers might have run six-month campaigns and called that “good.” In The Loop, you want to test, learn, and adapt weekly or monthly. That means your tools, processes, and teams must support fast change.

Each loop should make the next one better.

• Data quality and integration: Tailoring relies on clean, unified data. If your CRM, website, analytics, etc. aren’t well connected or have bad data, AI will make poor guesses.
• Too much AI, too little human oversight: If you push out AI content blindly, it can feel robotic, repetitive, or off-brand. Always have a human review.
• Resource strain: Constant iteration demands time, tools, and agility. Some teams may struggle to keep pace.
• Channel overload: It’s tempting to be everywhere. But not every channel is equally useful for your audience. Be strategic in amplify.
• Privacy, ethics, transparency: When you personalize deeply, you need to be mindful of user privacy, data usage rules, and clear about how you use AI.

Here’s a simple roadmap you could follow:

1. 1.
   Audit your brand voice: Create a guide: tone, values, style, messaging pillars. Use this to train AI.
2. 2.
   Pick a test campaign: Choose a product, service, or topic. Run that through the Loop: Express → Tailor → Amplify → Evolve.
3. 3.
   Set up your data pipelines: Make sure your CRM, website analytics, behavior tracking, and other sources feed into a unified system the AI can use.
4. 4.
   Use AI tools wisely: Use AI for content drafts, segmentation, personalization, but always layer human review.
5. 5.
   Measure and iterate: Track what’s working and what’s not. Use that feedback to refine your next loop.
6. 6.
   Scale gradually: Once your test loop works well, expand to more campaigns, channels, or use cases.

Imagine a small online clothing brand:

• Express: They define a bold brand voice — “fun, sustainable, bold.” They feed into AI a style guide so that when AI writes blog posts or social captions, it matches their brand.
• Tailor: They use AI to segment customers: people who visited “summer dresses,” people who abandoned carts, people who bought basics. The AI crafts emails or shows landing pages specific to each group.
• Amplify: They publish their best content not just on their blog, but on social media, send it to creators, optimize it so that AI engines can pull from it, and place microcontent on TikTok or YouTube clips.
• Evolve: They watch real-time metrics: email opens, engagement, conversion. They test small tweaks, like subject lines or image choices. Then feed those learnings back into their next Express stage for the next campaign.

Over time, their messaging gets sharper, and campaigns become more effective — each loop builds on the last.

• If you're doing AI marketing now (or planning to), The Loop gives you a framework. It helps prevent random AI adoption and turns it into a strategic cycle.
• It helps you stay relevant in a world where AI answers questions without users clicking.
• It raises the bar: generic content won’t compete. Distinct identity + smart personalization does.
• It forces agility: the marketers who can pivot fast will outperform the slow ones.

HubSpot’s “The Loop” is more than a catchy phrase. It’s a shift — from linear marketing to adaptive, feedback-driven, AI-powered cycles. It doesn’t throw away what we know about inbound marketing. It builds on it, updated for a world where AI changes how people discover, decide, and engage.

If you adopt The Loop, your marketing doesn’t end at conversion. It continues, improves, and compounds — loop after loop. And in an AI-driven future, that kind of adaptability might be the key to staying competitive.