AI-powered targeting and personalization in digital marketing

AI-powered targeting and personalization in digital marketing

Artificial intelligence and machine learning

Digital marketers do many different things for their work, including focus Search Engine Optimization. This is when they write copy for things like a blog that includes certain words and phrases that people might use to search for things the seller’s customers are selling.

Trying to think of how people are looking for things in their particular field of business always feels like a chess match…and marketers are blindfolded. Yes, they can use certain tools, both free and paid, to get certain ideas about how their audience reacts to what they send them. However, interpreting this data can almost feel like reading tea leaves. It may seem like a game of chance and the odds are not always in your favor.

However, digital marketers are not completely out of trouble. They may be able to use something that is now in its infancy: artificial intelligence or AI. It’s a great tool that can show marketers who to focus on when it comes to the material they publish and send out in things like newsletters. AI can go even further and also tell marketers how they can personalize material so that each intended customer feels like it was uniquely designed for them.

AI and ML

We already know what AI means – what does ML mean? Machine learning. Both have intrigued many business leaders. Let’s dig a little deeper into what each one means before looking at what these things can do for digital marketers.

When people hear artificial intelligence, they might think of all those movies, like “2001: A Space Odyssey,” where computers learn to think for themselves, or the worst movie scenario, “Terminator,” where a sentient artificial intelligence decided to wipe out humanity and only a machine with an Austrian accent could save them. Digital marketers won’t have to lose sleep over this nightmare scenario that could happen to them.

AI is an extremely complex field that defies a one or two sentence explanation. What it really boils down to is that the people developing it want to create machines and computer programs capable of independent thought. It’s really hard, though, because people are still able to tell something is AI right away. It lacks some intangibles that humans have. Scientists use something called the Turing Test to see if AI can think like a person. It could be a while before any AI gets past that.

Social media creators will be very familiar with what ML is based on: algorithms. ML programs look at past data that has been entered and then make future predictions based on that. The more data you input, the more likely the ML will make an accurate prediction.

A digital marketer can feed purchase information into an ML program and then predict what people might buy more of in the future. The marketer, in turn, can send material specifically targeted to these customers in the hope that they will comply with predictive analytics. Arguably, a potential customer may decide to click on a link at the top of a post rather than at the bottom. The digital marketer can then tell the writers they hire to put the links at the top of their posts.
AI, which is very lucrative, will be a part of digital marketing for the foreseeable future. How lucrative? By the time we get to 2030, it will bring in hundreds of billions of dollars.

Why is AI becoming so popular?

Websites usually rely on cookies now. That won’t be the case anytime soon. Instead, marketers will use AI and ML to get the data they need to personalize their work.

AI is very effective for both large and small businesses. Digital marketers love this because it can put everyone on a relatively equal footing. Smaller companies will have the opportunity to outcompete much larger competition.

There are many uses for AI and ML. They include A/B testing, content personalization, setting up chatbots so they can be more effective at answering questions and also personalize recommendations. Sellers will be able to expand this further as time goes on. Its uses are almost limitless.

It will be very interesting to see how the field grows. In 20 years, all of this may seem curious. But AI and ML are here to stay, so it’s best to integrate them now so you can succeed.