Artificial intelligence has been one of the fastest-growing technologies in the last few years. According to studies, more than 37% of organizations have implemented some form of AI in their products and operational workflow, and the reason seems to be very obvious. AI has the power to transform all aspects of an organization, and digital marketing is no exception. Therefore, understanding how AI is changing marketing in 2020 is critical to gain an edge over competitors and to take advantage of the latest trends.
One of the top use cases of AI and machine learning in marketing is to forecast consumer behavior, patterns, marketing performance, budget spends, and other key performance indicators. Predictive AI, as it is called, gives digital marketers the ability to get the most out of their data, improve and adjust spending and campaigns related content marketing, lead generation, email marketing, and more.
AI is helping marketers work smarter, not harder. AI applications like natural language understanding, image recognition, sentiment analysis, and biometrics offer abundant opportunities that not only provide smarter insights but allow marketing to be less invasive and annoying. By harnessing the power of AI in analyzing the customer data generated in multiple touchpoints, marketers can now get a better understanding of their customers.
The following are some of the key areas where AI will be a big game-changer for digital marketing in 2020.
1. Programmatic advertising
Traditionally, media buying is a labor-intensive process that involves the coordination of ad pricing, placement, etc. Now, programmatic advertising has changed the dynamic of digital media altogether. Programmatic advertising is defined as automated digital media buying using machines, and it automates processes with insights fueled by customer data. With further integration of AI, marketers can not only improve the overall performance of ads but can deliver highly targeted and personalized ads at scale through pattern recognition, behavioral analysis, etc. AI can also optimize retargeting ads to accommodate the ideal number of exposures and timing to an ad that customers receive to provide more results and avoid feelings of distrust and annoyance commonly caused due to their frequency.
2. Personalized narratives
One example of an application of AI for creativity is in personalized narratives, or the ability for AI to generate copy and descriptive-style reports without human intervention. While this application is not yet perfect, multiple companies offer services that involve AI-powered content writing. The ability to automate content writing in adhere to a brand’s voice and style can ease several mundane marketing tasks such as creating weekly performance reports, campaign reports loaded with data analysis, market research analysis, and much more.
3. Chatbots
Chatbots require no introduction. They are text-based conversational applications that let a human user talk with a bot that replies automatically to them. AI-powered chatbots utilize natural language processing (NLP), natural language generation (NLG), natural language understanding (NLU) to understand what the user is saying, then respond like a human. The advancement of AI technology to the point where chatbots can react in a human-like manner and provide relevant, timely information gives customers the ability to interact with brands at all hours of the day.
4. Personalized UI and UX
AI’s ability to personalize customer experiences can be very much applied to the user interface (UI) and user experience (UX) design as well. By integrating Artificial intelligence and machine learning into how customers interact with brands, marketers can be able to optimize their websites in real-time and adapt to consumers’ behaviors and needs. For instance, companies like Google, Facebook, Netflix, and Amazon utilize AI-powered product recommendations and real-time personalization based on user behavior to create relevant customer experiences. Personalized UI and UX have tremendous potential, and marketers can perfect them with AI and provide more relevant experiences to their customers.
5. Voice search and SEO
The rise of voice search and voice AI through personal assistants has already begun to shift how consumers search for information online. The adoption of voice search has been steadily increasing, and optimizing content for how users search by voice has been a top priority for marketers these days. Voice search gives marketers a new opportunity to boost their search rankings. If marketers take the necessary steps and optimize their web presence accordingly, voice search can make finding relevant information considerably easier for customers. Brands who align their SEO practices with an emphasis on voice search will surely have a head start over brands with clunky, frustrating websites.
6. Localization
Artificial intelligence is a tool for improving the often-times difficult task of editing and optimizing marketing campaigns to fit local market needs. Instead of manually localizing campaigns, artificial intelligence can automate editing of specified variables, such as making a call to action more relevant to a geographical area, changing ad copy to match cultural norms, and altering the appearance of the ad content. Localizing a marketing campaign has primarily been used by large brands running multinational campaigns, but today, even small brands can stand to benefit from localizing their marketing efforts using AI.
7. Omnichannel
Today’s brands are required to deliver cohesive experiences across the many different channels that their customers use. They should offer consistent, relevant messaging across every channel. This idea called “omnichannel” is highly essential today to create a connected, relevant, and consistent experience at all stages of the customer life cycle. When armed with AI, marketers gain an efficient way to accomplish an omnichannel synergy, improving how data is tracked, organized, and implemented in different channels.
8. Social Media
The impact that social media has on digital marketing is undeniable. Social media boasts a clear-cut, well-documented track record for boosting the firm’s marketing initiatives, making it the critical component of every marketer’s toolkit. Billions of people who use social media possess the powerful ability to co-create and interact with brands through viral content, user-generated content (UGC), influencers, and facilitating word-of-mouth (WOM). Marketers’ ability to understand and analyze the impact of these organic interactions can be crucial to their overall performance, and the ability to do so can be enhanced using AI.
Let’s sum up. AI holds incredible potential for shifting the entire landscape of marketing. Even in its state of relative infancy, AI applied to marketing has already proven to be incredibly useful for delivering an impactful ROI.
