Artificial intelligence (AI) is a fast and upcoming technological advancement that is all around us. Whilst we may think of the more tangible aspects of AI, from autonomous vehicles, to household goods such as the Amazon Alexa or Google Assistant, it’s important to realise AI in digital marketing has been around for a while. In fact, there may be a number of AI digital marketing tools that are currently being utilised within your business you had no idea about!
So, with this in mind, let’s delve deeper into how AI can affect your digital marketing campaigns and your business as a whole.
AI in digital marketing
AI in digital marketing is revolutionising the digital marketing space, providing ample opportunities for businesses to capitalise on these technological advancements. Digital marketers are using AI in digital marketing to really showcase a huge upturn in ROI for their businesses.
But what is AI in digital marketing?
Quite simply, according to the official definition on Merriam-Webster, AI is:
- A branch of computer science dealing with the simulation of intelligent behavior in computers.
- The capability of a machine to imitate intelligent human behavior.
Essentially, AI is software that has the ability to constantly learn and improve without the input of human intelligence.
So where do we see forms of AI in digital marketing?
Well, AI and digital marketing may as well be interlinked, as many of the tasks and software used in digital marketing utilise AI.
For example, AI technology can improve customer service. Chatbots is one example of AI that is prominent on many business websites, and these chatbots can undertake a number of tasks autonomously. Whether it is asking users to collect feedback to improve the overall service, or reminding website visitors to checkout an item they’ve left in their basket to improve sales, chatbots are one form of AI.
Content marketing is another aspect of AI in digital marketing. The chances are, you may have read an article that has been written completely by an AI itself! There are a number of AI digital marketing tools for content, but one of the biggest is called Wordsmith, which in 2016 wrote over 1.5 billion pieces of content!
There are of course limitations to this form of AI at present. It is only able to write articles based on numerical facts, meaning this form of content marketing is best served for financial pieces or other industries where stats are heavily found.
One final example of digital marketing in an AI world is via general search online. In late 2015, tech giant Google announced they had integrated machine learning AI into their search algorithms, called RankBrain. RankBrain essentially learns how users are interacting with Google when searching, to improve subsequent searches.
AI and machine learning in this instance, helps Google understand the natural language of humans, to provide more relevant and accurate search queries.
So now that we know how ai is changing the future of digital marketing, let’s look specifically at how AI can affect your digital marketing campaigns.
Audience targeting and segmentation
This is one of the most crucial aspects of marketing campaigns. How are your campaigns ever going to be successful if they are not targeted to the right audience? This is another instance of where AI in digital marketing can really improve campaigns. AI and machine learning enables businesses to gather data on customers, to help inform future digital marketing campaigns.
For example, your algorithm could establish that the age range of 18 – 30 tend to engage with your social posts, whereas those who are 35 – 55 in particular are interested in an article on your website relating to a specific product or service. Armed with this information, businesses are able to create meaningful digital campaigns that are much more targeted to the interested demographic. For example, a Facebook campaign can be created which excludes anyone outside of 35 – 55.
Furthermore, machine learning algorithms are constantly working in the background to provide you with intelligence, such as when your audience is engaging with your campaigns. In fact, AI driven technology is said to be more efficient than a data analyst, with the AI marketing impact to reach near $40 billion by 2026. With the information on when your audience is more engaged, you can tailor digital marketing campaigns to these times. For example, Google Ads allows businesses to switch off their ads at certain times of the day. Moreover, social aggregator platforms such as MeetEdgar or Oktopost also give information on the best time to push social posts for the best traction.
There are a number of further AI tools that can be utilised to provide data on customers, however, in summary, it is evident that audience insights can dramatically improve digital marketing campaigns by using customer data to target, segment, analyse and improve.
Predictive analysis
Predictive analysis can use AI technology to identify a number of statistics (many of which can be found within the Google Analytics platform), such as click-through rates (CTR), page views, or bounce rates. This information can help businesses to make more informed decisions about their marketing campaigns, such as where to concentrate efforts, or which aspects of a website may need extra help.
For example, a business may have a Google Ads or a Facebook Ads campaign that points towards a landing page on the website. The ads themselves may have a good CTR, but there are little to no conversions e.g. a form fill. Predictive analytics can understand whether there is an issue with the webpage itself e.g. is the bounce rate too high suggesting the page is not relevant to the ad campaign, or are people viewing multiple pages, suggesting all the information they need isn’t on the landing page.
Predictive analysis can also extract any data to create predictions on future business engagements. The AI driven technology can analyse past performances such as errors and how to best prevent these from happening again. It can push more people to your website, enhance the user experience on the site, encourage sign-ups and regularly engage with customers. In fact, according to research from Ventana, 68% of those surveyed have said to gain a competitive advantage by utilising AI and digital marketing, specifically predictive analysis. Unilever themselves stated that forecasting errors were reduced by around 15%, simply by utilising this technology.
AI in content marketing
The boom in social media marketing and the growing trend of consuming content online has meant content marketing is hugely important when it comes to the digital mix. AI in digital marketing can be seen here, as AI and machine learning can help businesses determine the type of content prospective customers and customers alike want to see, and the best format to present this in.
One of the biggest challenges for digital marketers is creating adverts that will resonate with the target audience. Now, with a number of AI driven tools, marketers are able to use the power of AI when creating any number of advertising campaigns, from headline generation algorithms to see what the open rate is of a specific campaign, that is perhaps A/B tested in order to find the most effective advert from the campaign.
AI is even allowing digital markers to take care of all the content generation process itself, creating material (copy and imagery) that is most likely to resonate with the audience, improving customer experience through personalisation.
Dynamic pricing
AI and machine learning can even contribute to dynamic pricing, making the process much more refined, as it facilitates continuous predictions. This means marketing campaign pricing can be updated in real time.
What this means is that pricing on marketing campaigns can be adjusted within seconds. As AI is able to review big data much quicker, organisations can save time and resources as well as increase their marketing campaigns through competitive pricing.
With the abundance of big data accumulated and analysed, a lot can be inferred by glancing at a user’s search patterns and history. This allows AI to predict the choice of a customer. For example, if a user is constantly coming back to a product page, it can be inferred the customer is interested. The business can then potentially lower the price slightly of the product for the said user, to finally push through the sale. This can lead to a significant increase in profits if clever digital marketing campaigns are set up.
How AI is changing the future of digital marketing
AI in digital marketing is very much here to stay. In fact, a recent Mckinsey survey states that AI adoption is continuing to rise, with 56% of respondents reporting that AI has been adopted within the business in at least one function, up from 50% in 2020.
One thing AI in digital marketing does offer, is that AI enables personalisation. In fact, according to Accenture, 91% of consumers state they are more willing to purchase from a brand that provides relevant, personalised offers and recommendations, with 71% of consumers feeling frustrated when they receive an impersonal experience according to Segment.
What this means?
Quite simply, business owners who don’t begin to leverage AI will soon be replaced by those who do. AI in marketing is very much here to stay.
If you’d like to understand how to utilisie digital marketing in an AI world, why not get in touch with Kariba on 01423 593020 or fill out our quick form here.
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