At Refactored, we like to stay on the cutting edge of technology when it comes to digital marketing and increasing revenue for our customers. We regularly attend talks and seminars on emerging technologies and have enjoyed a number of talks on emerging artificial intelligence (AI) in marketing. In this post I will share some of the highlights of what we have learned about how AI is revolutionizing marketing.
Better Marketing with AI
There are a lot of data out there. Analyzing big data to make marketing decisions can take humans from hours to months, AI can do the same thing in seconds, better and more accurately than we could.
AI is a lot better at analyzing data and deducing information than humans could ever be because it doesn’t make decisions based on emotion or bias. An AI system can look at the amount of time visitors spent on specific pages, previous purchases, demographics of successful conversions, and many other data points to make campaign decisions based on the data, and change those decisions in real time based on new incoming data.
In addition, AI can take that analysis and, based on pre-set business rules, purchase ads, send emails, run specials and promotions, and create new campaigns while constantly reviewing the results and making informed decisions.
Limitations
Fortunately, the superior speed and analysis capabilities of AI don’t render marketers obsolete. Since we are not marketing to robots, human involvement is still a necessity. Computers lack creativity and are unable to add the human component to marketing that draws in new customers. Anyone who has used a chat bot or an automated call system knows what I mean.
There is still a lot of progress that needs to be made in many areas of AI. For example, natural language processing is easy for people. We take for granted the ability to listen, translate, and understand the meaning of the spoken or written word. But sarcasm and context are not easily understood by an artificial system.
Visualization is another complexity that we don’t consider in our daily lives. We know the difference between a photo of a sleeping dog and a bagel because we can experience those things. Consider how difficult it would be to teach an inanimate artificial system the difference between two photos that look similar but are 100% different when it can’t experience the differences.
Existing Tools
Marketers who are interested in exploring the capabilities of emerging AI technology have some promising options. Here are a few we think are worth looking at.
GumGum
GumGum uses image recognition to provide targeted ad placements as contextual overlays on related editorial pictures and inline with content as users are actively engaged. GumGum also looks at social media to determine how audiences are interacting with your brand so it can provide you with more accurate demographics for targeted media buys. Well known brands such as Miller Lite, UGG, LG, and Adidas use GumGum.
Albert
Albert is an artificially intelligent marketing platform. It is autonomous and requires little human manipulation. Albert makes decisions in real time by constantly looking at what's happening now, comparing it to past data, building and updating campaigns, and creating new opportunities. It can handle media buying by finding out where your customers are engaging, bidding efficiently, adjusting based on performance, and weeding out fraudulent traffic. Decisions are made for cross-channel and cross-device marketing (both paid and non-paid) based on analysis and insights. Albert can launch hundreds of micro campaigns that are algorithmically identified to have a high probability of success, and can scale or abandon the campaigns as the results come in.
Call Sumo
Call Sumo is an intelligent call tracking software that uses unique phone numbers so you can determine which ads are driving customers. As calls come in, the ad is matched to the visitor and call data is recorded, including metrics like the caller's name, length of the call, quality of the lead, and the channel or webpage the caller saw. Call Sumo also records and analyzes the content of the call. Voice is transcribed to text and analysis is performed to pick up on keywords that can be sent back to Google Analytics and AdWords.
X.ai
Although it's not necessarily a marketing tool, x.ai is worth mentioning here. Your personal artificially intelligent autonomous assistant x.ai integrates with your calendar to schedule meetings for you. All you have to do is CC the bot, Amy, on a meeting request and she takes care of the rest. She tells others what your availability is and then adds the meeting into your calendar and sends an invite once everyone has agreed on when to meet.
Looking to the Future? Look to the Experts First
Whether you are ready to take the leap into AI or just need a fresh approach to the analysis and decision making you're already doing, your agency partner is a valuable resource. Be sure to reach out to your marketing provider now and throughout the year to be sure your initiatives stay on track.