By The story of digital marketing has been one of constant evolution, with new technologies and trends constantly replacing older ones. Marketers are used to staying on their toes, which will serve them well through the next seismic change in online marketing: artificial intelligence (AI).
Find ways to do more with less. Download this list of 101 Free Tools for Digital Marketers.
AI, in all its forms, is a powerful toolset for enhancing any digital marketing strategy. It has been rapidly adopted by marketers in recent years, with just 29% using it in 2018 and 84% incorporating it into their strategy in some way by 2020 (Salesforce). This trend isn’t slowing down. The market for AI in marketing is set to reach over 100 billion in the next 5 years (Statista). To reap the benefits of this new era, now is the time to learn about how AI can be put to work to improve all aspects of online marketing.
In this article, we’ll cover specific ways AI can be used today to enhance your digital marketing strategies, and we provide some forward-looking predictions about where this tech may be headed.
Content generation
AI is already being widely used to help businesses produce more—and often better—content. Despite all of the changes and innovations that the digital marketing space has seen, content still remains the cornerstone of most successful campaigns. However, it’s not just about pumping out a huge volume of forgettable, low-quality AI-generated copy. Instead, it’s best to put this powerful tech to work strategically to maximize the impact, reach, and relevance of your content.
For example, AI can help you identify customer segments that you wouldn’t otherwise have recognized, enabling you to create more personalized, effective content that drives conversions.
Then, natural language processing (NLP) tools like the blockbuster chatbot ChatGPT can be used to automate many parts of the writing process. This can save writers time on ideation, outlining, research, writing, and even editing. It’s not just written content that can be tackled by AI: For visual content, image-based tools like Midjourney and Pictory can help with image and video creation.
Creating personalized experiences
Creating personalized online experiences for customers is a great way to resonate more profoundly with them, build brand loyalty, and drive conversions. AI makes it possible to customize online experiences for customers affordably and at scale.
Email marketing is one of the most effective avenues for personalization because it can feel like a one-to-one conversation. Thanks to AI, businesses can achieve a granular level of email marketing personalization, getting the right message to the right customer at the perfect moment.
AI can also deliver personalization through the power of predictive analytics, analyzing browsing behavior, past purchases, and more to deliver recommendations that buyers are most likely to purchase. This doesn’t just grow the bottom line, it also helps customers by making it easier to find what they actually want.
Beyond ecommerce, local businesses can similarly improve their marketing campaigns through AI-powered personalization. They can leverage AI insights to understand their customer insights and tailor content—from social media to Google Business Profile images and beyond—accordingly.
Automating digital advertising
Succeeding in digital advertising has always been part science, part art. Now, it’s also part AI, too. For digital advertising, AI can provide the ability to automate tasks like digital ad campaigns and address key issues like audience targeting, budget allocation, and bidding strategies.
By automating ad management tasks that were previously done manually, AI helps advertisers optimize campaigns in real time. This can maximize their return on investment and limit the risk of sinking budgets into poorly performing campaigns. As more businesses use AI marketing automation to manage their ad campaigns, businesses that fail to take advantage of the technology will find it harder to compete.
Increasing the relevance of content
AI can improve the relevance of the content that audiences find on search engine results pages (SERPs) and social media by analyzing large quantities of consumer behavior data and providing searchers with more accurate results.
While some of this may take place on the search engine side of the equation, businesses can take advantage of AI insights to provide content that best aligns with their audience’s search intent. This can help them climb the SERPs naturally. The result? More organic traffic and more conversions.
Online reputation management has long been a vital component of digital marketing, and AI can now play a useful role in helping businesses bolster their online reputations by creating and delivering relevant, high-quality content to audiences.
Optimizing user experience
Creating a seamless, pleasant, and effective user experience requires a solid understanding of UX principles. It also requires a willingness to A/B test and iteratively improve websites to arrive at the best possible configuration.
With the help of AI-powered insights, this previously tedious process can be replaced by tools that interpret user behavior and data. In turn, you can determine exactly how to optimize website navigation, improve the overall design of websites, and otherwise understand and meet customer needs.
Analyzing data
Much of the mind-blowing power of AI comes down to its ability to analyze vast quantities of data that were simply too large to practically assess in the past. This enables businesses to identify trends they may have otherwise missed. Marketers can use this AI-powered intel to develop more effective strategies for targeting customers.
Social media, website actions, and even off-site behavior can all be used as inputs to determine actionable patterns, insights, and trends. For example, AI can be used to reveal the most popular products on an ecommerce website for a specific, highly motivated sub-niche that might not have been easily identifiable otherwise. This can help marketers with everything from creating personalized, targeted experiences to informing product development decisions.
The future of AI in online marketing
So far we’ve looked at how AI is reshaping online marketing in the present and the applications that are already transforming how businesses interact with their target audiences. As exciting as these applications are, this is still a nascent technology, especially when it comes to the tools that are readily available to businesses.
In the near future, the next generation of AI tools and technologies will help marketing agencies and marketers in even more refined ways. AI will continue to help businesses make better decisions and remain competitive in a changing digital landscape. Through a combination of AI tech and the use of white-label marketplace software, agencies have the tools to sell more products and services than ever before.
Automation
To effectively scale a business while remaining profitable, marketing automation is critical. AI automation tools will continue to be essential in the PPC advertising and marketing space. While AI is already enabling the automation of previously manual tasks, such as content research and production, review generation, and ad management, expect its role in automation to grow.
What will this look like? It will likely include the next generation of chatbots that can replace customer service time managing tickets, ever more refined lead scoring to help agencies and other businesses focus their efforts, and more refined automated SMS and email marketing strategy to maximize ROI.
AI will also play a larger role in advertising, effectively helping marketers put campaigns on autopilot. Long-term automated campaigns, directed by AI, will help businesses optimize their ad budgets and avoid waste, all while leaving marketers free to focus on other tasks.
Predictive analytics
AI will increasingly be used to predict customer behavior and preferences based on past interactions and other data, giving marketers the ability to anticipate their needs and respond in real time. As the relevant AI tools evolve, predictive analytics will be used to automate the process of delivering offers, product recommendations, content, and more to customers.
Personalization
Businesses will respond to the granular level of personalization made possible with AI by creating ever more customized online experiences for customers. The websites that customers are served will become more personalized. Beyond online experiences that can be created with a website builder, businesses will use AI-powered personalization to enable product customization for the on-demand production of goods, taking the promise of AI insights into the physical world.
Real-time content generation
Looking forward, AI-based tools such as video streaming, automated chatbots, and text generators will be used to create and deliver customized content in real time. This can be an eco-friendly way for local businesses to ensure their content is visible and relevant to local customers.
Frequently asked questions
How does AI benefit in marketing?
AI benefits marketers by automating many tasks that previously required manual effort and time. Thanks to AI, marketers can dramatically reduce the time needed to complete important marketing tasks, such as content creation, review generation, data analysis, and personalization.
How will AI change digital marketing?
AI is already changing digital marketing by helping marketers accomplish more in less time and by providing actionable analysis of large quantities of data. This data helps businesses make smarter decisions about their business, such as determining how to optimize ad campaigns for best results.