AI IN DIGITAL MARKETING
Artificial Intelligence (AI) in digital marketing has evolved from a fantastical notion to a game-changer for today’s marketers.
It’s become a powerful technology to drive personalization, predictive analytics, customer experiences, and much more.
What is AI in digital marketing?
Artificial intelligence in digital marketing uses the capabilities of the technology, such as data collection, natural language processing, machine learning, and analytics, to drive better insights and automate marketing tasks and decisions.
The advantage of AI is that it will help you gain insights into customer behaviors at speed by harvesting vast amounts of data.
These can be used to respond to and tailor a customer’s needs depending on their actions and preferences. AI is also able to adapt and improve over time using feedback and new data.
Artificial intelligence offers great opportunities for marketers to be more effective and personalized. This means customers get relevant content that can be triggered by actions on a site, an ad, or a branded message.
But AI doesn’t replace the roles and efforts of humans! It is a technology that complements and enhances those, but it requires human skills to use it effectively.
How to use AI in digital marketing?
As AI technologies have become more accessible and easier to use, companies have started to use them in daily tasks such as creating content for pay-per-click (PPC) ads or setting up triggered email workflows.
1. Content and image creation
Marketing teams are often under pressure to create content quickly for many purposes and channels. However, creating good content takes time and effort, and a lot of marketers are time- and resource-poor.
AI writing tools such as ChatGPT and Claude have exploded because they help people to generate content: that’s why they’re called generative AI tools! This could be email subject lines, ad copy, landing pages, blogs, or anything else you need for your content marketing.
You can also use AI writing prompts to create catchy headlines and customize content for your audience, which drives personalization, and use AI to boost your influence marketing campaigns and manage your relationships.
Using these tools saves time and money. However, make sure to read over any content before publishing it live to ensure it has personality and fits in with your brand voice.
2.Customer service and support
AI-driven chatbots have been around for a while as a way to communicate with and provide information to customers. When people want to get instant answers to simple queries or interact with a brand, they first go to a chatbot.
However, AI has a bigger role when it comes to customers. It can improve customer experience by personalizing content and messaging, anticipating customer needs, streamlining purchasing, and directing queries or concerns to the right department or agent.
"88% of marketers say they need to increase the use of automation and AI to meet customer expectations and stay competitive." - Mailchimp
3. Customer segmentation
Customer segmentation and targeting help you identify and influence your most valuable customers. However, doing this manually can be time-consuming and costly.
AI can use algorithms to segment your prospects and customers into groups or segments of people with similar interests, needs, or behaviors.
You can then communicate with and target these segments with relevant and customized messaging that can be adapted and adjusted in real time.
Recommendation systems can suggest products, services, or offers that match customer preferences while Natural Language Processing (NLP) can analyze customer feedback and reviews to improve your products, services, or customer experience.
4. SEO
Artificial intelligence has huge potential in the area of search engine optimization. Search engines such as Google have been using sophisticated algorithms that crawl and index web pages to rank them.
Now, AI is becoming further integrated with that process in a way that is changing the world of search even more through AI Overviews (previously known as Search Generative Experience).
AI can automate and improve keyword research and content optimization by analyzing user behavior, along with creating meta tags and headings. Marketers can also use it to predict SEO trends, user behavior, and algorithm updates through predictive SEO.
Voice and visual search are becoming more important ways for people to find information, and AI can help optimize both. This can be done by focusing on NLP and long-tail keywords and including relevant metadata on images.
5. Pay-Per-Click Advertising
Pay-per-click (PPC) advertising is a form of advertising where you pay when someone clicks your ad. As a strategy, PPC marketing is important as it can attract new customers through targeted campaigns, get quick results, and be easily tweaked and optimized.
AI can be used to enhance your PPC campaigns by optimizing:
- Keyword research
- Bidding and targeting
- Ad creation
- Ad scheduling and placement
- Predictive analysis
- Fraud detection
As the technology continues to evolve, marketers can see new ad formats, targeting techniques, and measurement tools for PPC. This is why it’s so important to keep an eye on developments and stay up to date.
6. Data analytics
With so much data available from a wide variety of channels, marketers can often feel overwhelmed. However, artificial intelligence can process vast volumes of data at speed. This can help marketers gain insights from data, along with using historical data to predict trends and behaviors.
AI can also be used to detect anomalies in data and uncover patterns. The combination of AI and data analysis can help drive hyper-personalization. The better you know your customers , the more targeted you can be in your messaging and approach. In retail, for example, it can be used to manage inventory and optimize customer service.
ChatGPT has excellent data analysis capabilities, especially if you use its Advanced Data Analysis plugin. This enables you to feed a spreadsheet to ChatGPT, and it then helps you to unearth deep insights above the data in your spreadsheet.
Ultimately it’s about using AI technology in data analysis to drive better insights in a way that works for you.
7. Email marketing
Email marketing is an important part of any marketing strategy, as it continues to be an effective way to convert prospects and engage customers. Using AI tools in your email marketing can save you time and improve performance.
By using AI in emails, you can:
- Analyze email performance to identify how to optimize your email strategies (e.g., high-performing subject lines)
- Create triggered workflows driven by user actions
- Conduct campaign and workflow analysis
- Craft copy tailored to your audience
- Personalize content to audience segments
- Enable dynamic content
- Perform A/B testing. AI can also curate your email lists by comparing metrics to determine the value of an email address or email list. You can also get insights about your email schedule by tracking the value generated by each email and analyzing the frequency. Did you know? 63% of users trust AI email-generation tools but double-check their work, while 25% fully rely on AI-generated emails
CONCLUSION
We know that artificial intelligence can be daunting, and it’s difficult to see where and how it fits into your role. But it shouldn’t be seen as a threat. AI can become an invaluable ally as you look to effectively meet your goals.
After all, AI tools are great for looking after mundane, predictable, and labor-intensive tasks. This frees you up to focus on the more creative and strategic aspects of your job.
Understanding and mastering AI will also give you a personal boost. You will gain new skills and real-life experience in a generative technology that’s going to become more widespread and an area that companies look for to recruit or promote.