AI has evolved dramatically over the last few years and has had a massive impact on the digital marketing landscape. With the increase in AI tools, it has never been easier for businesses to integrate AI. If you haven’t utilised these tools yet, here is how you can use AI in your digital marketing strategy.
What is AI in digital marketing?
Artificial intelligence (or AI) is the technology that is used for generating, classifying, or performing certain tasks. This can range from solving complex problems to speech recognition. As such, the technology behind AI allows computers or machines to stimulate human learning.
Therefore, AI in digital marketing is using this technology and machine learning towards a company’s marketing efforts. AI can be implemented throughout the digital marketing process, supporting the planning, execution, and optimisation of marketing activities.
This is made possible through the use of machine learning and large-language models that analyse big data. From this, actionable insights, content, and automated actions can be developed. Businesses can leverage this to improve performance and efficiency.
What are the benefits of using AI in digital marketing?
As you may imagine, proper use of AI tools within digital marketing can have a big impact. With the many tools that are increasingly becoming available and the further AI develops it can bring many benefits to support your digital marketing efforts.
Personalisation
One of the first benefits of using AI in digital marketing is personalisation. It is possible to create highly personalised customer experiences using AI. By analysing user data and behaviour, AI can deliver targeted content and tailored recommendations.
Enhanced customer insights
It’s also possible to gain enhanced customer insights to support your digital marketing efforts. AI tools can quickly process large quantities of data to find insights into customer behaviour, preferences, and trends. This helps marketers make better data-driven decisions.
Automation
Automation is another big benefit of using AI in a digital marketing strategy. Certain AI tools can carry out repetitive tasks, such as email marketing, social media posting, and ad management. This frees up time for marketers to focus on strategy and creative tasks.
Improved ROI
AI can help improve your return on investment. That’s because AI-driven analytics can help optimise marketing campaigns by identifying the most effective strategies, channels, and messages. In turn, this results in better resource allocation and a higher return on investment.
Predictive analytics
You can also benefit from predictive analytics by using AI in your digital marketing strategy. Predictive analytics is using existing data to predict future events or trends. You can use AI to predict future trends of customer behaviour patterns so you can adjust your strategy accordingly to be competitive.
Improved decision making
We already touched on how AI can support decision making but it also deserves its own mention. AI can analyse data in real-time, making it possible to make immediate changes to or decisions on campaigns. This also makes it possible to respond quicker to market changes or customer interactions.
Enhanced customer experience
The customer experience is one of the most important elements of any digital marketer. It’s therefore no surprise that AI can also help enhance the customer experience. This is done through chatbots and virtual assistants that can interact with customers 24/7.
Content creation
High-quality content is a crucial element of any successful digital marketing and SEO strategy. AI tools can be used to help support creating and optimising high-quality content that better resonates with your customers. In turn, you can benefit from higher rankings and increased traffic.
Ad targeting and performance
Those who use online ads as part of their digital marketing can also benefit from the use of AI. It is possible to improve your ad targeting through AI by analysing user data. This makes it possible to target your ads to the most relevant audiences for higher click-through and conversion rates.
Reduce costs
Using AI for certain elements of a digital marketing strategy, such as automation and decision-making, can also help reduce your costs. Streamlining your processes with the help of AI can reduce errors and optimise your campaigns while also reducing your overall marketing costs.
What are the drawbacks of using AI in digital marketing?
Despite the benefits provided by AI, there are also some drawbacks. There are concerns with how effective or efficient certain AI tools are. Being aware of these drawbacks helps you to make an informed decision.
High start-up costs
Despite AI being able to reduce costs, there can be instances of it having an initial high start-up cost. Whether it’s the software, hardware, or hiring a skilled person to implement, this big investment can be a large barrier for small businesses.
Require expertise and technical skills
For small businesses or marketing teams that lack any expertise or technical skills with AI can also make it difficult. Such systems can be difficult to implement, manage, or interpret providing a challenge for any marketing teams lacking the required expertise or skills.
Bad data implications
The results you get from using AI are only as good as the data you provide. Providing poor quality, incomplete, or biased data will have a significant impact on how effective AI is. As such, you could be acting on inaccurate predictions or making poor decisions as a result.
Privacy concerns
One big concern relating to AI is privacy. When using AI for analysing and predicting customer behaviour, It will require large amounts of personal data. Therefore, it’s only natural that some people have concerns about data privacy and whether businesses comply with relevant regulations.
Lack of creativity and inaccuracies
One of the hot topics of discussion relating to AI is how it can be inaccurate. Tools that are used for content creation, such as ChatGPT, have come under fire for presenting false or inaccurate information. There is also the issue of these tools lacking any human touch, making copy seem less innovative and emotionally engaged.
Becoming dependent on automation
Too much of anything is never a good thing, right? Well, that’s certainly the case with automation. While automation can be a great way to streamline certain processes, you can become too dependent on it. This results in a lack of personal engagement and potential damage to your customer relationship.
Ethical issues
Similar to the privacy concerns we mentioned before, AI in digital marketing can also present certain ethical issues. For example, AI systems can unintentionally maintain biases present in the data they analyse. This can lead to negative outcomes in your marketing strategies.
Job security concerns
A concern for AI systems across the board is job security. In some situations, AI is replacing entire job roles. This is reflected to some extent in digital marketing as well. Using AI for automating tasks cuts down the need for human involvement. In some cases, this can lead to job losses.
Technical issues
One more drawback to using AI in digital marketing is technical issues. As with all technology, AI systems are just as fallible to technical issues, whether it’s technical glitches or cyberattacks, these can have a big impact on your marketing efforts.
How can you use AI in your digital marketing strategy?
Given the wide scope of AI tools available, there are many ways you can use AI in your digital marketing strategy. This section will provide a brief overview of the most popular methods.
Content creation
One of the biggest uses of AI in digital marketing is for content creation. Given the wealth of AI tools and features, it’s hardly surprising. With the ability to create, edit, and transform content, it can be an effective tool to support content creation.
Firstly, AI can help with written content whether this is the copy for an ad, a blog post, or a landing page. It can used simply for generating ideas for content to create or analyse the voice and tone. On the other hand, it can be used more comprehensively by editing existing text, translating to a different language, optimising for certain keywords, or repurposing. For example, you can make use of AI to transform a blog post into a series of smaller social media posts.
Images are another aspect that AI can help you with. There are some tools and features now that make it possible for you to completely create images using AI. This can range from graphics for a website to enhancing realistic images. It’s also possible to edit images with the use of AI to transform the background of an image, or adding or removing objects.
AI can also help with video content creation. Marketing teams can use AI for creating and editing videos, whether that’s for your website or social media. Some tools make it possible to generate video footage based on text, video, or image inputs. Editing features involve adjusting the colour and lighting, removing certain objects, or generating subtitles.
Customer interaction and support
As AI chatbots and virtual assistants become more intelligent, so does their role in customer interaction and support. Previously, responding to customer enquiries or questions was an impossible task 24/7. This has changed with advancing AI technology.
Implementing chatbots and virtual assistants to a website is an ideal way to communicate and interact with customers 24/7. This makes it possible for customers to get answers to simple questions or queries or make the initial interaction with your brand.
Taking this a step further by adding personalisation can help make a big difference to your customer experience. Whether that’s tailoring your content, personalising messages, or predicting customer needs, these tools can make a difference.
Data analysis
Data is the foundation of every good marketing campaign. Yet there are often times when data is too large for someone to analyse or you’re in the wrong mindset. When taking data from lots of different sources, this only makes the situation worse.
AI can collect and analyse data for you, transforming a large task into a more manageable one. It is possible to obtain data from different sources and then create actionable insights or summaries. This helps save time and can allow for improved decision-making.
Automation
Marketing automation is another aspect where AI can help your digital marketing strategies. Often used to reduce time-consuming or repetitive tasks, automation can help a marketing team to be more efficient.
There are 3 common methods automation helps in digital marketing: Email marketing, social media management, and paid ads. Automation can be used within your email marketing by setting up workflows that automatically send someone an email when certain criteria are met.
It can also be used to schedule and better manage your social media posts. Using a social media management tool makes it possible for you to easily manage all your social media platforms in one place, whether that’s for scheduling posts or engaging with customers.
Automation can also be used to help manage paid ads. Whether that’s scheduling your ads for a particular time or automatically adjusting your bids based on performance, automation helps you to better optimise your campaigns for improved CTA.
Predicting customer behaviour
It is also possible for digital marketing teams to predict customer behaviour and sales using AI. Using historical data, AI can make predictions about how successful your campaigns are likely to be.
This can be measured in different metrics, such as time-on-page, email opens, or purchases. Such insights make it possible to develop better campaigns or adjust existing ones that will drive more sales.
AI can have a big impact on any digital marketing strategy. The more the technology grows and involves the greater this impact. As such, the wealth of tools and features available make it easy for a wide range of businesses to use AI in their marketing efforts. However, it’s important to weigh the pros and cons when opting to use it.