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The AI marketing market is booming, and Vietnamese marketers are constantly receiving pitches from new tool vendors. The question is no longer “should we try AI or not?” but how to choose the right solution that is substantial enough to create business value, rather than chasing flashy marketing claims.
In a context where budgets increasingly have to prove their effectiveness, asking the right questions before signing a contract will help teams avoid the risk of buying the wrong tool, wasting implementation time, and running into data-related issues.
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Key points:
- Don’t ask AI vendors only about features; ask them what business problem they are solving.
- Expertise in the right industry context is what separates a tool “for” marketers from a tool merely “for” them.
- Case studies, transparency about development stage, and contract terms are important signals when assessing risk.
- Data ownership and how data is used to train the model are points that must be checked before closing the deal.
What problem does this tool actually solve?
According to MarTech, the first question should not revolve around a feature list but should go straight to the problem the tool was built to solve. If the vendor cannot clearly describe the problem, use case, and impact on business outcomes, the product may not have been designed from a real marketing team need.
What marketers need to hear is not phrases like “very powerful,” “very smart,” or “saves time,” but how the tool helps increase output, detect tracking gaps, shorten processing time, or improve a specific operational metric. More importantly, if they can provide a case study from a company similar in size or industry, that is a much more credible signal than a generic introduction.
For buyers, a tool is only worth considering when the value it creates is tied to a real goal, such as increasing productivity, reducing operational errors, or improving decision-making. If the benefit stops at “it seems convenient,” be cautious.
Does the vendor truly understand the marketer’s work context?
MarTech emphasizes that a good tool needs not only technical capability but also a deep understanding of the work context it serves. This is what separates a product built “for” marketers from one built merely “on” marketers.
In practice, a salesperson may not personally work in media buying or performance marketing, but at the very least, someone behind them should have done that work or studied the end user’s process, pressures, and pain points very carefully. Otherwise, the tool may sound compelling in a demo but be misaligned with how the team actually works.
This is also when marketers should ask more about the product’s origin story: what problem led them to build the solution, how they observed market demand, and what experience helped them keep the product grounded in reality. A platform with roots in the industry’s own pain points is often more trustworthy than a product that simply adds AI to keep up with the trend.
Is there proof of implementation and readiness for your team?
In a field that is still new and evolving quickly, case studies are essential. MarTech’s article notes that businesses need to determine whether they are entering a group of proven customers or becoming the first users of an entirely new segment.
Being an “early adopter” is not necessarily bad. It can create a competitive advantage if the tool truly becomes a growth lever. But it also comes with the risk of technical bugs, unstable processes, or having to spend a lot of time giving feedback for the product to work as expected. If you are not ready for a certain level of experimentation, the opportunity cost may be higher than the benefits received.
What matters most is transparency. For a mature vendor, ask for specific case studies with relevant numbers from businesses similar in industry, scale, or use case. For an early-stage vendor, an honest answer like “you will be one of the first customers in this vertical” is more credible than an overblown promise. If the vendor is not flexible on contract terms to reduce the buyer’s risk, that is a sign to reconsider.
Who owns my data, and how is it used?
This is a point many businesses overlook when they are too excited about AI’s capabilities. But according to MarTech, sharing data in exchange for competitive advantage can create major risks if marketers do not clarify ownership, scope of use, and how input data is used to train the model.
Before signing, businesses should clearly understand where their data is stored, whether it is used to improve the general model, who has access to it, and whether there is a mechanism to delete the data when the contract ends. This is not only a compliance issue but also a matter of protecting trade secrets, customer data, and operational advantage.
For marketing teams with a lot of campaign data, customer insights, or internal assets, this is a section that should be reviewed together with legal and information security teams. The more deeply an AI tool promises to deliver, the more carefully its data practices must be checked.
A perspective for the Vietnamese market
In Vietnam, the trend of buying AI tools for marketing is moving faster than many teams’ ability to evaluate them. Many businesses are getting caught up in the race to “have AI” without clearly defining the problem they need to solve, only to discover after implementation that the tool does not fit their actual workflow.
So instead of asking, “What AI does this tool have?”, Vietnamese marketers should ask, “What exact bottleneck does it solve in my operations, what proves it, and is my data safe?” This is the minimum set of questions needed to buy AI responsibly, especially as marketing budgets increasingly demand measurable results.
If used correctly, AI can be a powerful lever. But as MarTech suggests, the real advantage does not come from following trends; it comes from choosing the right vendor, at the right time, with the right expectations.
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This article focuses on questions for AI vendors with a perspective for the Vietnamese market.
