Pratik is the CEO North America at Netcore Cloud and Netcore Unbxd.
The digital marketing landscape is undergoing a tectonic shift. For the past several years, marketers have been using AI and machine learning to automate tasks and improve efficiency (e.g., content creation, customer segmentation, etc.). Now, marketers have access to technology that can elevate conversion effectiveness.
In fact, Forrester Research recently proclaimed that “over the next decade, generative AI will be the fulcrum that accelerates growth: It will be the pivot point upon which business growth rises.”
I’ve witnessed (and participated in) this shift for the past decade as a marketing technology product leader and now as the CEO of a company focused on generative AI (GenAI). Having personally designed and developed technology to drive marketer efficiency, I am incredibly excited about the waves of change.
The Application Space
GenAI is forcing CMOs to reevaluate their marketing roadmaps and add flexibility to incorporate GenAI in future plans. In fact, according to Gartner in August 2023, "63% of marketing leaders are planning to invest in generative AI in the next 24 months."
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Here are five key areas where GenAI could transform marketing.
1. Workflow Optimization
The faster marketers can act on customer insights, the better their chance of engaging with their audiences. GenAI can help marketers drive internal velocity through better:
• Segmentation: Grouping customers based on demographics, interests or purchase history. It allows targeted content delivery to broader segments (e.g., location-based product recommendations).
• Content Creation: Generating product descriptions, blog posts aligned with customer behavior and personalized social media captions.
• Channel Orchestration: Scheduling personalized communication, utilizing chatbots for recommendations and serving targeted ads across platforms.
2. The AI Co-Marketer
GenAI can serve as a marketing assistant by offering insights into audience preferences. By dynamically adapting marketing strategies in real time and providing suggestions for improvements based on performance metrics, GenAI co-marketers can optimize marketing efforts.
GenAI can also predict the next best action (NBA) for individual customers, leading to more personalized experiences, upgrading from a current state of marketing campaigns for everyone in segments to a future state of goal-based personalization activation.
3. Advanced Customer Understanding
Until recently, marketers relied on optimization testing to develop an understanding of audiences. To achieve statistically significant results, many optimization programs needed to run for extended periods to generate the requisite data.
Today, GenAI can accelerate the path from insight to action by analyzing not only browsing behavior and channel engagements but also customer reviews, social media interactions and intent both on-brand and off-brand to:
• Uncover emotions, motivations and pain points.
• Predict customer preferences and future needs.
• Develop a comprehensive understanding of each customer.
4. Multi-Channel Analysis And Real-Time Feedback
Even if your brand currently holds a significant place in customers' lives, failing to meet their expectations can quickly lead them to turn to a competitor.
As digital interactions increasingly dominate customer engagement, both the digital experiences customers have—and the data companies collect from them—will evolve, presenting both challenges and opportunities. GenAI can help by:
• Analyzing customer interactions across various channels in real time.
• Identifying customer intent and engagement based on click-through rates and dwell time.
• Refining predictions continuously through real-time feedback loops.
5. AI-Powered Scenario Simulation
AI can assist marketers in achieving their goals by building predictive models that simulate the outcomes of various marketing strategies.
It can analyze historical and real-time data to project the potential impacts of different actions and evaluate the results of these simulations, providing marketers with insights into possible adjustments and allowing them to refine their strategies by:
• Answering questions like, "How do I generate 3% more conversions today?" Marketers will need to provide scenarios that start with a goal (like revenue) and constraints (like profitability), and AI can guide a marketing roadmap set of actions to address that need.
• Simulating the effectiveness of personalized messages and content formats.
• Predicting the potential impact of different offers on customer behavior and conversion rates.
• Identifying the action with the highest probability of achieving the desired outcome.
Human-Augmented AI
While GenAI is powerful, human intervention remains crucial. Machines are well equipped to handle automated tasks and repetitive functions to assist marketers and make them more productive, but strategic guidance is still required.
In fact, Gartner forecasts that “by 2025, organizations that use AI in the marketing function will shift 75% of their staff’s operations from production to more strategic activities.” These activities will certainly include AI prompt engineering to get the most valid results from their AI technology, but will also incorporate:
• Predicting Customer Response: Marketing specialists can leverage industry knowledge to refine segmentation criteria GenAI uses for improved accuracy.
• Identifying Purchase-Ready Customers: Human oversight ensures data accuracy and incorporates business rules for refined targeting.
• Fine-Tuning Customer Segmentation: Marketers can manually review high-risk segments and personalize interventions based on the specific customer situation.
• Creative Direction And Brand Voice: Human copywriters can refine AI-generated content to ensure it aligns with the brand's messaging and resonates with the target audience.
• Emotional Intelligence: Marketers can add elements of humor, empathy or storytelling to connect with customers on an emotional level.
• Strategic Planning And Channel Selection: Humans develop the overall marketing strategy and determine the appropriate channels for reaching specific segments. GenAI personalizes messaging and timing within those channels.
• Channel-Specific Optimization: Marketers leverage their understanding of specific channels (email, social media) to optimize content and CTAs further.
• A/B Testing And Continuous Improvement: Marketers can provide human-in-the-loop A/B testing, which is essential to evaluate and refine GenAI outputs through testing different content variations and channel combinations.
The Path Ahead
GenAI is revolutionizing marketing by enabling hyper-personalization and predictive capabilities. We are well on the way to a goal-driven, campaignless future that supercharges personalization to the proverbial segment of one.
However, human expertise remains vital for strategic planning, creative direction and emotional intelligence. By combining the power of GenAI with human ingenuity, marketers can craft exceptional customer experiences and propel their brands toward a future of unprecedented growth and engagement.
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