How do data and AI come together for an innovative marketing strategy?

Data and AI are already being used to help improve the effectiveness of marketing campaigns, enabling them to better achieve their goals. Innovation in these fields has also helped to support better customer service and to create a more intuitive customer experience. Today, it’s becoming essential to work with data and AI to create a more innovative marketing strategy, not just to get ahead of the curve but also to ensure that your brand maintains parity with the competition.

Data and AI in marketing strategy

Optimising marketing efforts today always begins with data collection. This could be collecting data about a marketing campaign and what it has achieved in terms of certain specific goals, such as maximising email open rates. Raw data can be collected via A/B/n testing or multivariate testing but it’s what can be done with the results which is where AI innovation really comes into play to help improve and innovate marketing strategy.

Rather than having to go through the testing phase and then making adjustments, followed by further testing, AI simply learns as it goes. So, all the data from testing is collected, analysed and the results applied to marketing efforts in real time. What this means in practice is that an email campaign sent out over time can be adjusted as it goes, based on the creative variants that the AI can see are achieving the desired goals.

Infinite possibilities

Another factor that is brought into play by the use of AI is the infinite nature of possibilities that exist when it comes to variants. Without AI there is an obvious finite nature to the number of variants that can be applied to the process of honing marketing efforts and communications. However, an AI can handle an infinite number, which significantly increases the potential for achieving desired outcomes.

One method via which this can be done is Genetic Algorithms. The way that these work is to take a large number of variants and pitch them against each other – when one works the algorithm then goes on to create multiple versions of that one and so on, continuing the process so that the results just get better and better.

Defining the audience

The traditional approach to marketing strategy is to define the audience at the start of the process. However, with the combination of data and AI, audience segmentation can be done much more effectively by using actual campaign data. This approach also removes all limits on the potential size of the audience.

Different machine learning techniques can be employed depending on the data available. Reinforced learning, for example, doesn’t need labeled datasets but works on the basis of ongoing actions and results. Deep learning, on the other hand, is effective where datasets are labeled and can be used to identify clusters of things that belong together, such as customers who respond to a CTA based on price and those who prefer a message of quality.

Data and AI are key to any brand looking to be more innovative when it comes to marketing strategy. There are huge advantages to embracing this technology now.

Get in touch with Iconic Digital for all your Digital Marketing needs today on 020 7100 0726.