04.03.2022
Most industries we interact with every day have started to adopt artificial intelligence. Think of Siri on your phone, the smart assistant in your house, or the face control as you enter a building. Not to mention, the personalized social media feed you see is only made possible with AI marketing.
The breakthrough in adopting AI on such a wide scale came from the rapid growth of digital data. With so many people, businesses, and transactions online, more and more data is generated each day. To use this data to improve and grow, companies turn to artificial intelligence.
For any modern-day business, it’s crucial to understand what AI digital marketing is and how artificial intelligence will change the future of marketing. That’s exactly what this article will help you do!
So without further ado, let’s jump into it.
What Is AI Marketing?
AI marketing uses artificial intelligence concepts and models to achieve marketing goals. It can be as simple as using AI-powered tools to automate everyday tasks or developing complex algorithms to deal with huge databases.
To understand the role of AI in digital marketing, you first need to know what artificial intelligence is and what it can do for marketers. A machine is considered artificially intelligent if it can perform tasks that normally require human — or animal — intelligence.
Now, where machine learning (ML) steps in is the point where the machine obtains the ability to learn on its own and improve performance without human intervention. The use of AI and ML has produced fascinating results in helping companies work more efficiently.
Here are a few benefits of AI in digital marketing:
- Automating mechanical tasks, such as scheduling meetings, emails, and social media posts
- Using historical data to uncover user behavior insights and make predictions based on customers’ past actions
- Applying sentiment analysis to monitor a brand’s online image and understand user needs
- Examining big data to uncover trends and patterns to optimize marketing campaigns and strategies
- Analyzing website performance with heat maps to find any blockers and improve user experience
It wouldn’t be an overstatement to say that AI has revolutionized digital marketing. Businesses can now make decisions based on actual data rather than imprecise calculations or assumptions.
4 Ways Your Brand Can Use AI Digital Marketing
A lot of business owners and strategists are starting to ask themselves how artificial intelligence will change the {future of marketing, and rightly so. But the future is not as far ahead as some might think. The impact of AI in digital marketing is quite tangible already, and it’s predicted to only rise in the years to come.
With that said, here are four ways AI is transforming the present and the future of marketing.
1. Automated Communication
Chatbots, AI assistants, voice assistants, and other similar tools that engage with a customer are known as conversational AI. The latter automates certain parts of customer communication to interact with and assist users without involving a human agent.
An excellent example of conversational AI in action is when you visit a web page and get a message through chat that’s surprisingly relevant to your search. And guess what? There’s no magic trick; it’s just a matter of AI analyzing your actions, understanding your intent, and sending the right message at the right time.
As a marketer, it’s not difficult to see all the advantages this type of AI can give you. Firstly, the AI assistant incentivizes the user to get in touch instead of passively browsing. Visitors often choose to abandon a page when they don’t find what they’re looking for right away. The AI assistant prevents this by offering help and guiding the user through their experience.
Secondly, using AI in digital marketing allows businesses to gather, systemize, and study customer data. This enables companies to understand their audiences better and even uncover pain points that customers weren't aware of themselves. With this, businesses can optimize their marketing strategies and save time and money.
2. AI Content Marketing
Content marketing continues to rule the digital world, as consumers keep demanding more intentional, personalized, and high-quality content every day. In turn, digital media improves to meet user needs, and year by year, online content becomes more diverse and engaging.
The graph below shows how quickly digital data is predicted to grow, 60% of which is purely online content.
Source: Statista
Since online content is likely to double in volume by 2025, brands are starting to employ AI to boost their content marketing. Artificial intelligence algorithms get more precise with figuring out what type of content users enjoy and delivering them exactly that. Every social media platform we use on a daily basis follows this principle.
Besides content distribution, AI is trying its hand in content creation. Of course, a machine’s ability to understand the nuances of human language is not quite up to par, but there are still many tasks computers can handle.
One example is turning long-form content into shorter pieces that can be shared on social media. Another task AI can handle is automatically adjusting designs to different screen sizes and device types to speed up the design process. While intelligent machines can’t really replace human work, they can certainly help us do our jobs quicker.
3. Targeted Advertising
Digital advertising is one of the marketing areas where AI’s influence has been quite radical. Companies often dedicate a lot of funds to advertising without getting the expected conversion rate. AI marketing has changed the game of advertising as it allows brands to create hyper-targeted ads and gain higher returns as a result.
Instead of aiming at a wide audience with TV commercials or outdoor posters, most marketers have now narrowed down their focus to smaller groups. And this trend will certainly continue to rise with AI marketing.
Source: Facebook
AI has made it possible to segment consumers into specific groups based on available data and target the ones that are the right fit for a business. The outcome? Companies generate more qualified leads, make more sales, and cut down costs on inefficient marketing campaigns.
Google, Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn are the clear industry leaders with their targeted advertising platforms. Their machine learning algorithms get more and more effective as the data grows. By putting together and analyzing user demographics, psychographics, and behavior patterns, these platforms enable brands to deliver targeted messaging to the right audience.
4. Cognitive Search
Underestimating the importance of search in user experience is a big mistake. Dysfunctional search features that don’t understand the searcher’s intent can negatively affect the user’s experience with a brand or website.
Whether a visitor is using a chatbot, search bar, or social media messages, they should be able to find what they need even if they made a typo or worded their query differently. AI-powered search, also known as cognitive search, is trained to understand user intent and deliver contextually relevant results. Taking into account search keywords, their semantic connection, and data from past searches, AI provides more relevant information.
Since the image search trend has also been on the rise, brands have begun implementing it on their websites and apps. Image recognition technology is used to analyze pictures and identify objects in them. This AI marketing technique is famously used by Pinterest, Google, eBay, and many more.
The Future of Marketing Is Here
Artificial intelligence is surely becoming an indispensable part of modern business. The way companies approach marketing has evolved with the emergence of AI technologies. AI marketing allows businesses to work more efficiently and achieve more with fewer expenses.
Some of the biggest AI digital marketing trends that continue to shape the future are automated communication, AI content creation and distribution, targeted advertising, and cognitive search. However, AI doesn't stop here: It keeps expanding its influence with each new advancement.
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