The Use of A.I in Marketing

In May 2015, IBM CEO Ginni Rometty made a bold prediction: “In the future, every decision that mankind makes is going to be informed by a cognitive system, and our lives will be better for it”. This may be a bold statement, but nonetheless, A.I is transforming all sectors, and marketing is no different.

With the compound annual growth rate estimated at 42% in the U.S alone by 2025 (teks.co.in), perhaps the most prominent area in which A.I is impacting marketing is machine learning. Machine learning algorithms figure out how to perform important tasks by learning from past examples (University of Washington).

Examples of Machine Learning (ML) in Digital Marketing

1) Content Marketing: LinkedIn defines the top three aspects of effective content. Audience relevance (58%) engaging storytelling (57%) ability to trigger a response (54%). By producing actionable insights, ML tools help digital marketers understand customer data better and produce more relevant and engaging content.

2) Pay Per Click Campaigns: ML tools allow marketers to focus on more high priority and in-depth analytical tasks while A.I completes routine tasks, such as analysing data and competitor analysis. This freedom allows marketers to focus on tasks such as bid adjustment and ad copy split tests (Pepper Report, 2019).

3) Chatbots: A chatbot is a virtual robot with the ability to hold conversations with humans through text, voice command, or both. An example of which is Apple’s Siri feature. Which can perform searches and answer questions through voice command. For digital marketers, chatbots provide a means of engaging with targeted audiences on a personal level. Through conversation, ML allows chatbots to collect data such as demographic information and product preferences.

Today, the ability to anticipate customer behaviour is essential to the effective optimisation of marketing campaigns. In fact, Gartner studies indicate that 57% of major executives believe it is in this area where the use of machine learning can be most beneficial.⁶

With the advantages of machine learning in marketing clear and evident, what do you think could present a challenge to its utilisation?

Look forward to your comments. Thanks for your time!

References

1: Magnus Unemyr, 2019 Blog Post, Marketing With A.I. Why Do We Need It?: https://www.unemyr.com/marketing-with-ai/

2: Machine Learning in 2019: Tracing The Artificial Intelligence Growth Path, Hussain Fakhruddin:

https://teks.co.in/site/blog/machine-learning-in-2019-tracing-the-artificial-intelligence-growth-path/

3: Washington, A Few Useful Things to Know About Machine Learning, Pedro Domingos: https://homes.cs.washington.edu/~pedrod/papers/cacm12.pdf

4: B2B Content Marketing Report, Linkedin, Slideshare: https://www.slideshare.net/hschulze/b2b-content-marketing-report-40688285

5: Automation and Machine Learning in PPC, 2019: https://pepper.agency/blog/automation-and-machine-learning-in-ppc/

6: DMI Daily Digest, 7 WAYS MACHINE LEARNING CAN ENHANCE MARKETING: https://digitalmarketinginstitute.com/en-ie/blog/7-ways-machine-learning-can-enhance-marketing