Role of AI in Digital Marketing: Personalization, Chatbots, and Beyond

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October 29, 2023 Marketing

There’s no hotter topic than AI. While the hype has been bubbling for many years now, and plenty of AI-fuelled technologies are second nature to most of us, 2023 has the conversation boiling over, spilling across all different industries and niches.

While the AI revolution is sometimes reported as a single, major event – a takeover that will see countless teams rendered unnecessary almost overnight – the past few months have proven the opposite. Instead, we have witnessed some incredible collaborative efforts between teams and companies – creative uses of AI that enable the technology to underpin and complement human effort, rather than replace it.

Digital marketing is no exception. There are a huge number of applications and promising new ventures for AI in digital marketing. Here are just a few.

Personalization

If content is king, then the ability to personalize and tailor content toward specific audiences is the throne, crown, scepter and orb all in one. While a scattergun approach toward marketing has its virtues, it also inevitably yields plenty of waste – wasted time, wasted effort, and wasted opportunities.

The more targeted an ad campaign is, the higher the chances are of a strong ROI that manifests in interactions and conversions. According to IBM, more than half of consumers expect their experiences with brands to be personalized, and AI is an essential tool for curating, storing, and leveraging the vast amounts of data needed to facilitate those opportunities.

But IBM also reported that almost two thirds of customers are more worried about their data being compromised compared with how they felt two years ago. After all, more internet users than ever are looking to improve their digital hygiene, reduce their profitability for data brokers, and actively limit their vulnerability to malicious third parties online, with companies like Incogni empowering internet users with that option – an option many still don’t realize is available to them.

But consumers still respond well to personalization, so how does that work? It’s all about a business’s values – their ability not just to remain compliant with strict guidelines, but also to convey trustworthiness, authority, and genuine interest in their customers.

AI Chatbots

Starting with one of the most familiar applications, and something most of us have experienced plenty of times in the past week, month, or year. AI-powered chatbots are a major benefit to SMEs and larger enterprises alike, offering the power to diagnose and resolve common issues much faster (and at much lower cost to the business).

There are always going to be limitations to AI chatbots, but they have a home in any business that wants to approach customer complaints objectively, consistently and, for the most part, without forcing the customer to endure lengthy wait times, miscommunications, or mistranslations.

This is incredibly valuable in industries where standardization is fundamental. For instance, the healthcare and financial industries resolve up to 90% of queries through AI. Furthermore, just under 2/3rds of consumers prefer chatbots to humans.

Chatbots are not without their issues. Natural language processing cannot come up with creative solutions, tailor advice to specific circumstances or offer the concern of a human agent that makes customers feel seen and heard – but the majority of everyday cases just don’t require an ‘above and beyond’ type of approach. AI targets expediency, and that’s what people on both sides of the business are looking for too.

Enabling Data-Driven Decisions

It’s all about what you know – and how you put that knowledge to use. Data-driven decision making is like the holy-grail of effective digital marketing. It enables marketing operatives to channel their creativity in particular directions and toward particular demographics with underpinnings that are based on numbers and facts, rather than more creativity.

If a team can manage both the quantitative and the qualitative at the same time, then they are bound to go places. The quantitative is best handled by AI, which can sort through reams and reams of information in very little time, and create predictions based on fact, rather than instinct.

Content generation

Controversial, but nonetheless a major springboard for the future of digital marketing. AS we mentioned above (and as any digital marketer has said a hundred times over this year alone), content really is king when it comes to building a better digital presence for a business – and that’s likely to get truer and truer as time goes by.

AI is the obvious resource to turn to when content is needed at scale. Google has stated no penalties for AI-written content per se, provided quality remains high. But the question remains – can the average AI-powered content tool meet the high standards Google has always imposed on content?