We all have heard about artificial intelligence in one way or another, often as a perceived threat to both jobs and the significance of human creativity. The reality is that artificial intelligence has already been here for a while and can benefit multiple industries without taking them over – yet. One industry transformed by artificial intelligence is digital marketing. Before we dive into the changes AI has made to digital marketing, it is essential to understand what artificial intelligence is and what AI in marketing means.

What is AI Marketing

Artificial intelligence essentially mimics the cognitive functioning of humans through learning and even detecting emotions to problem solve. AI can be programmed to both think and respond while having analytical capabilities far more robust than humans. While still in its infant stage, artificial intelligence is already beginning to mimic human creativity. With relation to digital marketing, AI is indispensable to marketing as we know it now and is a transformational element of marketing strategy. The benefits of AI based marketing are far-reaching and include:

  • Improving customer experience and journey.
  • Boosting return on investment.
  • Gaining valuable customer insights.
  • Optimizing and streamlining marketing campaigns.
  • Automating human processes

Watch now | The Past, Present, and Future of Artificial Intelligence

What Does AI Driven Digital Marketing Look Like

It is clear that out of almost any industry, AI and marketing go hand in hand, and at any level of business, marketers can and should utilize some degree of AI. Whether your goal is to save money by reaching only the right people at the right time, improve customer experience, or boost consumer engagement, here are current areas in which AI is already being used to transform digital marketing on an international scale.

Content Marketing

AI is already driving better content curation and generation for many industries. Through AI, marketers can do research and create the best leads for writers and can even culminate a draft of information on a given topic. While the human capacity for creativity, style, and tone makes content writers still relevant and necessary in content marketing, it will not be long before AI learns how to be creative and original as well. AI is being used for content marketing, particularly with some media outlets, like newspapers using AI to author news articles on local events.

Digital Advertising

All digital advertisers use some degree of AI in marketing. The primary benefit is saving money by only showing the right ads to the right people at the right time. This targeting is made possible through complex algorithms and big data. Social media outlets like Facebook and Instagram use targeted ads based on tracking behavior to the fullest extent available. Digital billboards can also time their ads and target specific audiences.  

Email Marketing

Email marketing remains a very effective way of reaching target audiences and tracking consumer behavior. AI allows marketers to optimize email campaigns and personalize them. Like with digital advertising, it is all about connecting and engaging with the right consumers at the right time.

Behavior Tracking and Analysis

Most marketing teams will now include data scientists and others capable of gathering and analyzing big data. The amounts of behavioral data are vast and how to use it is evolving based on advances in AI. Right now, behavior tracked by AI includes factors like time spent on the page, scroll depth, and bounce rate, which are all ways of assessing how valuable a user found your content. In the future, AI will be able to predict behavior, which will enhance methods of identifying and cultivating target audiences. Even at this point with behavioral tracking, AI can already pull together behavioral data from multiple platforms on one consumer.

Chatbots

Chatbots are revolutionizing customer service and customer experience online. They not only save online companies staffing and resources by requiring less human coverage, but chatbots also make customer service available 24/7. Chatbots serve one-to-many instead of one customer to one human representative. Ideally, a company will want to make speaking to a live person always possible, but speaking to a real person is often not necessary to the consumer. Marketers are now programming chatbots to create original responses instead of automatic ones. Moreover, chatbots are now being programmed in multiple languages to cater to the international market. In sum, chatbots help cultivate consumer leads and nurture those relationships.

SEO

Most SEO methods constantly change due to the ever-evolving Google algorithm. Many SEO methods have traditionally relied on keyword selection and organically including keywords in a copy. However, as search algorithms evolve with AI, search rankings will be impacted mostly by user behavior versus keyword identification. User behaviors include those typically used by behavior tracking techniques geared towards identifying the most valuable, useful sites. AI and machine learning in marketing online help prioritize the most helpful sites with the most up-to-date, relevant information to benefit the consumer.

AI in Digital Marketing: The Future

The future of AI and marketing is inextricable, and AI could take a dominant role in both strategy and implementation of digital marketing. While it is uncertain what role humans will have in the future of digital marketing, we do know that for right now, AI is helping humans to be better marketers. AI is evolving, becoming better and better, exceeding human intelligence and going beyond human limitations. Humans still provide a necessary touch of creativity and organic quality to marketing, particularly with advertising and content marketing, but it will not be long before AI can offer those touches as well.

To learn more about AI and how to integrate it in your marketing efforts, contact the experts at Vonazon.