AI has a huge application in digital marketing. In the following lines, we will understand how AI can help generate profits through innovative strategies. We will look at how artificial intelligence automates small, mechanical tasks, how it helps marketing teams be more productive, and how it stimulates the creativity of individual team members.
Artificial intelligence is rapidly gaining ground and is now a leading tool in almost every digital industry and beyond. Recent statistics show that modern AI technologies can increase business productivity by up to 40%.
It is obvious that companies that have AI and are willing to develop it will have a better chance of gaining a significant edge over their competitors in many different aspects. More and more companies are investing in AI marketing – an effective, yet still considered complex tool that will certainly change the way companies promote themselves.
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What is AI marketing?
First, we need to clarify what exactly artificial intelligence (AI) is.
AI is a combination of many different technologies that are capable of performing discrete tasks that require knowledge and logic. When applied to everyday business activities, these technologies can “learn,” act, and perform tasks with intelligence and approach similar to humans. It is used to simulate human reactions and behavior in machines, saving us a lot of time and money.
There are four different requirements placed on AI:
- to think like a human;
- to act like a human being;
- to always build rational judgments;
- to act rationally for the benefit of the people.
According to the United States Patent Office (USPTO), technologies that relate to AI include machine learning, data processing, AI hardware, language models, evolutionary computation, computer vision, speech recognition, and planning/control.
What is artificial intelligence marketing?
AI marketing is a method that uses technology to collect data, communicate with customers, predict their next steps, and make automated decisions that impact marketing efforts. AI is typically used in situations where speed is of the essence. Its main goal is to increase the company's return on investment (ROI).
With the help of AI, marketers can gain a deep understanding of their customers’ behavior, predict their actions, and anticipate their moods. Therefore, they can target the right strategy to the right customer, saving time, effort, and resources.
A good example of using AI in the field is Gmail and Google Docs, which integrate AI into Smart Compose. Through it, they read what you write, analyze it, and suggest what to write next.
Why is AI marketing important?
The impact of artificial intelligence on digital marketing is huge. Nearly 80% of customers expect companies to understand their needs and meet their expectations. AI allows specialists to process huge amounts of data analysis from social media , emails and the web in a significantly shorter time. That is why marketing with artificial intelligence is gradually becoming mandatory for every business.
Let us present you with a few examples of how artificial intelligence improves the work of marketing teams and the user experience.
Automations
Through AI, automation becomes much faster and more accurate. Your team can work with it to enable data to be transformed into decisions, meaningful interactions, and positively impact your business outcomes.
It’s all about data, but more importantly, turning numbers into actionable insights with ease and precision. The speed at which marketing tasks are executed and implemented is a critical element that artificial intelligence can provide to your business.
AI helps marketers increase the number of campaigns they create, determine the most appropriate next actions for customers, and then correctly determine the mechanisms for implementing them.
Email marketing
AI automation in email marketing is one of the first on the market. It can help companies increase customer engagement and open rates while saving time and money. AI will stay one step ahead of the copywriter by optimizing individual functions and tracking their effectiveness.
Additionally, AI is being used in social media automation. Just like in the case of email marketing, companies are using it to attract and retain customer attention with optimized and personalized content.
Minimizing errors
People make mistakes. AI and the shortcomings of the human factor is a widely discussed topic, and many believe that artificial intelligence will be a means of eliminating and preventing any omissions and inaccuracies.
One of the main goals of AI is to minimize human intervention and thus eliminate the possibility of unintentional errors or intentional actions that harm businesses. It has been shown to be particularly helpful in the most troubling and sensitive aspect of subjective interference: data security.
Common data security issues have many brands worried about their employees’ dishonesty or failure to protect their customers’ data. The rise in cyberattacks is a risk that every e-commerce business should be aware of. Fortunately, AI can help solve these problems by learning, adapting, and delivering the cybersecurity that businesses need.
Saves costs
AI can help you save many of the resources typically used to create and implement a marketing strategy. With its help, you will significantly improve your financial balance: reduce costs, work faster and more efficiently, and increase your revenue.
Instead of your organization spending too much money and hours to get something done, AI can help you complete repetitive routine tasks. It reduces the time it takes for staff to perform an action, while, as mentioned, reducing errors to zero. The cost of hiring employees can be significantly reduced, while using the available staff to perform more important tasks.
Increases return on investment
AI helps marketers better understand customers and deliver a more satisfying customer experience. AI-powered marketing allows teams to create predictive analytics of their target audience. This way, each product and service will be offered with an individual approach that effectively increases the return on investment for every customer contact.
Through artificial intelligence, marketers can gain a better understanding of customers, group them correctly, and guide them to the next step of the shopping journey.
Amidst the immense competition, a campaign delivered in the wrong way or to the wrong audience at the wrong time can actually turn people away from your brand. By deeply analyzing market demand and understanding what each group actually wants, marketers can increase the number of real sales without wasting budgets on futile efforts.
Improves personalization
We've already mentioned personalization in online shopping a few times. It's something that customers increasingly value when it comes to e-commerce. And all of this is achievable through improved AI integration.
AI can go a long way in targeting and improving your ads. Many companies are already using artificial intelligence to personalize websites, emails, social media posts, videos, and other content to better meet all expectations and desires.
Although behind such an effect lies an extremely complex algorithm and a huge flow of information, the mechanism for impressive and engaging content is simple: each individual customer will receive their personalized notifications directly to their phone, email, or favorite social network, based on what they have watched, searched for, or exactly what they want to hear from a given brand.
Smarter and faster decision-making
Artificial intelligence helps process data much faster, ensures accuracy, security, and enables your team to focus on strategic initiatives to run effective campaigns with its help.
AI is able to collect and track tactical data in real time, so marketers can take action in the moment without having to wait for campaigns to end. They can determine what to do next based on data-driven reports, so decisions are more objective.
AI in digital marketing – uses
Sales and profit forecasting
Every company strives to meet customer expectations by predicting their behavior and that of their competitors. Applying AI in sales and marketing helps sales teams stay several steps ahead. One method is to collect and analyze data about their contacts and previous purchases.
This system can predict what customers will buy next, as well as in what quantity. It will help you determine what product to promote and to whom to offer it in order to achieve more sales. This way of market research allows you to avoid overproduction or offering products that are out of stock by balancing your inventory.
An example of software that uses artificial intelligence to assist marketing representatives is Qurious.
Research and segmentation of potential customers
The main reason why most companies use AI is data collection.
The information that a software collects for businesses is a valuable source for them to understand users in the best way possible and make decisions that are focused on them.
AI enables overall market knowledge by analyzing the vast amount of online content on social media platforms, blogs, or other platforms.
Marketers can easily create customer personas based on billions of data collected by AI algorithms. This includes location, local characteristics, purchasing behavior, past interactions/communications, and more.
Segmentation is then performed much more effectively. Marketers can more clearly define which customers should be targeted and included or excluded from the campaign, better select the products that customers are likely to buy, and present themselves in the most appropriate way to a new circle of people.
Content generation
Artificial intelligence tools can support the work of content creators, increasing their creativity and productivity.
Although the bulk of content is created by humans, you can use AI tools to guide and support your team’s efforts in the right direction. AI will automate specific tasks – email content, personalized reports/messages, or social media content.
Tools like Rocco and AdCreative AI can help you create fresh social media posts that will increase engagement with your followers. You can also turn to an AI marketing agency that will help you optimize and create content across channels.
PPC advertising with artificial intelligence
AI is also widely used in PPC (pay-per-click advertising). According to GoodFirms , studies show intriguing results from the application of artificial intelligence in the segment.
In particular, some of the best applications of AI in PPC are:
- Smart offers;
- Interactive advertisements;
- Performance analysis;
- Dynamic Search Ads;
- Price optimization;
- Account management.
With the help of artificial intelligence, you can monitor more advertising platforms, which would not be achievable by your internal teams, or even your competitors.
Chatbots
You may have talked to a bot in an online store , in a website's live chat, or on social media, especially Facebook Messenger. This is how artificial intelligence is being applied to build faster and better customer service.
In addition to answering customers' recurring questions – related to price, product/service specifications, quantity, and so on – AI is best used to take requests.
It would also be best to combine AI chatbots with personalized content marketing to turn them into proactive advertisers, rather than just using them to directly engage customers.
Speech recognition
Want to experience what it's like to have JARVIS from Marvel's Iron Man movie? Well, such assistants are still ahead of the curve in technology today, but that doesn't mean they won't appear in the coming years.
Nowadays, we already have similar applications with speech recognition capabilities. Have you heard of Siri, Google Assistant, or Alexa? These are just some of the most popular applications that use speech recognition.
They can respond to spoken words, playing them back and/or converting them to carry out a command. Speech recognition is even used in applications like Google Maps, Shazam, and other sound and voice-controlled systems.
How can marketers leverage speech recognition for their campaigns? It is predicted that by the end of 2024, more than 55% of households will have some form of smart speaker, up from less than 20% in 2018. In addition, voice shopping sales are expected to jump to almost $50 billion in 2024, up from just $2 billion in 2018. If the data is to be believed, this speaks to the need to use speech recognition in every marketing campaign.
Dynamic pricing
Personalized pricing is an AI strategy where the price of a product is determined in real time by demand and/or supply.
An app or website bot can track predictive analytics usage, such as cookies, history, searches, and other activities, to provide you with real-time pricing. This means you get fewer discounts and/or higher prices for the product/service you need right now. It sounds unfair, but there are always two sides to a story.
Customers can benefit from dynamic pricing when demand for a product has decreased. A good example of this is with vacant hotel rooms. To increase the chances of these rooms being occupied, dynamic pricing can offer competitive prices to attract customers.
Automated content curation for emails
Content curation is about finding great content and presenting it to your audience in an effective way.
However, this is not simply re-sharing already created content with your followers; this process is done by adding more value, which makes your audience more likely to engage.
By adding AI copywriting and email automation tools, you can curate content and trigger it based on predefined parameters and text you enter. Automation will save you time planning and sending content to customers. Once you’ve segmented your audience, AI writing with Byword, for example, will help you personalize newsletter content to each of your subgroups.
Automated image recognition
Major companies like Google, Facebook, Pinterest, and Amazon use artificial intelligence to identify people and objects in images and videos with up to 99.75% accuracy.
If you're a Facebook user, you may have noticed how accurate the system has become at recognizing your friends' faces in the photos you post and automatically tagging them.
From a marketing perspective, image recognition can better synchronize online content and store visits. Many stores track customers' store visits through facial recognition software and link them to their profile to provide them with a better online shopping experience.
Some others combine this technology with the so-called push notifications, driven by AI to send real-time offers, discounts and highly personalized messages to each user individually. This increases the interaction between stores and customers, as well as maintaining and building on their satisfaction with their stay in the store.
Ensuring data quality and confidentiality
When fully and properly implemented, AI can improve the quality and integrity of data in a company. Marketers typically need a huge amount of information. Therefore, to fully utilize the capabilities of artificial intelligence, it is crucial to have quality data and a virtual space suitable for its activity.
Consider using a modern warehouse for your information flow and implement all-in-one management software to avoid analysis problems caused by complex data processing.
AI provides you with better data collection and prevents this rich source of information from being damaged by cyberattacks.
Successful marketing campaigns with AI
Many leading global brands have already taken advantage of the use of artificial intelligence in their advertising campaigns, and some of them have achieved tremendous success.
Here are a few examples of successful AI integrations in marketing from world leaders.
Nike – personalized online experiences
AI technologies allow Nike’s website to recommend products that are carefully selected for the specific customer. In addition, users have the option to search and order products using spoken language and images, without requiring any action from an employee.
Nike is fully utilizing artificial intelligence to personalize their customer experience, and this is a huge added value for their business.
Amazon – Personalized shopping recommendations
Amazon set the standard for product recommendations and continues to be a leader in the e-commerce market today.
Amazon’s product recommendations feature provides customers with a more personalized and enjoyable shopping experience. Studies show that over 50% of shoppers always do research before purchasing an item to ensure they are making the best possible choice. That’s why product recommendations will be a great help for customers to find exactly what they are looking for.
Whether recommendations are based on customers' previous purchases or simply similar products at different price points, they are effective tools to help customers make an ordering decision.
Dynamic pricing
Amazon has also developed a pricing strategy to compete in today's ever-changing marketplace. Amazon's dynamic pricing has been a huge success. Rather than aiming for a slightly higher profit when it registers interest in an item, the company uses this method to guarantee a completed purchase by lowering its prices.
This helps Amazon stay ahead of the competition and offer its customers more attractive discounts on products.
Alibaba - FashionAI Store
Alibaba is introducing AI into fashion to improve the retail experience for fashion goods and has even opened a physical FashionAI store in Hong Kong. This use of AI is simplifying the clothing shopping experience and engaging more customers.
Alibaba's FashionAI store uses 3 key features:
Smart lock to capture customer preferences
Products in this store have special tracking tags containing RFID, gyroscopic sensors, and low-energy Bluetooth chips. Each tag collects and presents specialized information about the item to which it is attached.
Smart mirrors
The store's mirrors are located on the sales floor and in the changing rooms with smart touchscreens. They display information about the items that customers interact with, thanks to smart "locks".
Additional suggestion
The concept allows customers to quickly get the best finished look with what they are currently wearing. They are offered clothes and accessories that are compatible in style, color, and size with the item in question.
BMW – Intelligent Personal Assistant
In addition to the technology that learns the driver and adapts the system and the in-car experience to best suit each individual, BMW’s sports cars with artificial intelligence are also equipped with a “smart” personal assistant. The technology enables additional car functions, such as controlling the climate control, lights, multimedia, and settings – Caring car, Experience Modes, etc.
At its core, the system is a voice-activated guide that can predict travel routes to simplify destination input, alert drivers, and integrate with other applications.
Can AI replace marketers? How can they work in tandem?
After all, marketing decisions are made by people. Artificial intelligence can help marketers achieve higher productivity and improve what they do, but its offerings and features cannot fully replace the leadership and strategic role in the broad sense.
There is no doubt that AI helps marketers achieve their cherished goal of more effective, personalized, and valuable campaigns. However, to achieve success in AI marketing, professionals must consider the following factors:
- Make sure your data is sufficient for AI algorithms to learn from and analyze it accurately;
- Never leave everything to the tools when it comes to customizations;
- Identify where artificial intelligence can have the biggest impact and bring you the highest returns.
In conclusion
Artificial intelligence has taken the leap and has been setting the pace in marketing for a long time. Not every business necessarily needs such technology, but one thing is certain – AI is the future of global commerce. If you own an online business and want to expand its scale, then at least familiarity with AI-based marketing tools is a must.
