The Gist
- AI-driven marketing. AI to revolutionize marketing in 2024 with hyper-personalization, content creation and predictive analytics.
- Balancing privacy. Marketers must balance hyper-personalized experiences with consumer privacy concerns in the AI era.
- Content authenticity. As AI shapes content creation, maintaining originality and authenticity becomes crucial for effective marketing.
As we look forward to 2024, marketing is being increasingly impacted by the transformative power of Artificial Intelligence (AI). AI is predicted to impact how marketers approach personalization, marketing copy, customer engagement and marketing strategies, while the integration of AI into the majority of marketing and technology software is predicted to affect all facets of marketing, providing both opportunities and challenges. This article will look into the future of AI, examining likely AI trends, and how they may impact marketing in 2024.
Personalization at Scale
The AI roadmap for marketers in 2024 will be characterized by increased sophistication and integration across most facets of marketing and advertising. Given the rapid advancements in AI technology and its growing accessibility, AI is likely to enable hyper-personalized customer experiences at a scale previously unattainable. Marketers will use AI to analyze vast amounts of data to create highly targeted and personalized campaigns ranging from customized email marketing to dynamic website content that adapts in real-time to user behavior.
Chris Savage, co-founder and CEO at Wistia, a video hosting and marketing solution provider, told CMSWire that customers will also begin to expect extreme personalization across the mobile apps they use regularly. “Though there are many ways to personalize things today, there are only a few tracks typically incorporated into most B2B and B2C apps,” said Savage. “AI will allow for so many more edge cases and ways to personalize the customer experience, and we’ll start to expect all apps to feel like they have a much better understanding of us and our preferences.”
With advancements in AI technology, marketers will have the tools to analyze vast amounts of data in real-time, allowing for deeper insights into customer preferences, behaviors and purchasing patterns. This capability will enable brands to tailor their marketing efforts to individual consumers, delivering highly relevant content, product recommendations and targeted advertising. AI algorithms can dynamically adjust marketing messages and offers based on a user’s real-time interaction history, context and current needs, creating a more engaging and personalized customer journey.
This level of personalization, powered by AI, not only enhances the customer experience but also increases the effectiveness of marketing campaigns, leading to higher conversion rates and customer loyalty. The key for marketers will be to balance personalization with privacy, ensuring that customer data is used ethically and transparently. AI-driven hyper-personalization will represent a significant leap forward in how brands connect with their audiences, offering tailored experiences that individually resonate with customers.
Yandong Liu, co-founder and CTO at Connectly, a code-free platform provider, told CMSWire that as consumers become more privacy-aware of their online activity and data collected from them, the song and dance between offering a personalized experience while still keeping their information highly secure and private will increase. “Consumers still want an individualized experience when interacting with brands or using apps, but not at the cost of their personal data,” said Liu. “To that end, businesses also want to keep their customers close to offer that intimate experience that keeps them returning, but they don’t want to scare off the customer by revealing that they know too much about them.”
Liu suggested that includes being transparent with the data they collect and not sharing data between merchants, and believes that in 2024, continuing to find the balance between offering an individual customer experience while educating consumers about their privacy rights will be vital to brand development and the customer experience.
Joscha Koepke, an associate of Liu’s and head of product at Connectly, told CMSWire that a key focus for retailers and ecommerce brands in 2024 will be transforming great in-person conversations and purchase experiences into natural interactions through messaging apps — in other words, mimicking the in-store interaction in our virtual world and humanizing the experience. “The in-store experience is highly personalized and contains various touchpoints. Perhaps most importantly, the experience is two-way,” explained Koepke.
“Sales representatives talk to customers one-on-one, understand their preferences and sizes, and take them into consideration when recommending products.” Koepke said that as retailers increasingly embrace new technologies such as AI for online and mobile shopping, they need to focus on bringing this type of personalized luxury brand experience to a broader set of consumers.
Related Article: 5 AI Trends Shaping Martech
Content Creation and Optimization
AI tools will become more adept at creating and optimizing content in 2024. From writing blog posts to creating video scripts, AI’s role in content generation will continue to expand. Additionally, AI will be able to assist in optimizing content for SEO, ensuring better visibility and reach. AI is poised to significantly impact content creation and optimization, fundamentally changing how marketers approach these critical aspects of digital marketing.
Michael Allen, CTO at Laserfiche, a leading SaaS provider of intelligent content management and business process automation, told CMSWire that in 2024, we’re going to start to see generative AI tech expand beyond the “artificial copywriter.” Allen foresees AI being used to generate content in multiple mediums and more highly specialized applications, such as 3-D modeling, animation, architecture and video creation. “We’ll see tremendous early growth, followed by a realization that the costs of generative AI are still very high due to the scarcity of specialized hardware and the energy costs to train large models.”
AI technologies, with their advanced natural language processing (NLP) and machine learning (ML) capabilities, are becoming increasingly proficient at generating high-quality, engaging content. This includes everything from crafting compelling copy for websites and social media to creating personalized email campaigns and even generating creative elements such as images and videos. The advantage lies in AI’s ability to process vast amounts of data and identify patterns and trends, enabling it to produce content that resonates with specific audience segments.
Pallavi Naresh, product lead at Google Ads, cautioned that even in an AI-driven world, creativity is still king. “The AI-powered tools in the market represent a major advancement in the field of creativity, enabling people to produce more assets in less time,” said Naresh. “However, it’s crucial to recognize that AI doesn’t replace human ingenuity; it simply enhances their creative toolkit.” Naresh anticipates that in 2024, marketers will wrestle with how to properly reflect their brand through the use of AI tools and helping people solve this challenge will continue to be their top priority.
Related Article: 4 Rules to Preserve Brand Trust When Using AI in Digital Marketing
Authenticity and Credibility Will Take Center Stage
The ability to create dynamic, informative content is and will continue to be a blessing to marketers and content creators, however, at some point, much of the AI-generated content that is ingested by consumers will have become ubiquitous and unoriginal. The ways that search engines rank content will largely be limited to the originality and authenticity of the content — and that content will not come straight from generative AI, no matter how good it becomes.
Jacob Varghese, chief sales and marketing officer at AgencyAnalytics, an automated client reporting service provider, told CMSWire that “as AI’s paradigm change becomes a reality in 2024, content marketing driven by incumbent SEO tactics will cease to provide meaningful business outcomes. Result-oriented marketers will find ways to include AI in their SEO strategy.”
Varghese suggested that in this new reality, the authenticity and credibility of authors become pivotal. “Brands that leverage user-generated content and authentic voices to stand out will be rewarded with better outcomes. This human-centric approach, coupled with AI’s analytical and automation capabilities, will work together to shape the future of content marketing.”
Related Article: Top Marketing Trends to Watch in 2024
Predictive Analytics and Decision Making
AI will play a crucial role in predictive analytics, helping marketers foresee market trends, consumer behavior and the effectiveness of marketing campaigns. This will aid in making data-driven decisions and adjusting strategies in real-time. AI is predicted to revolutionize predictive analytics and decision-making for marketers through its ability to rapidly uncover correlations in complex data.
According to the AgencyAnalytics 2023 Marketing Agency Management Benchmarks Report, 91% of marketing agencies plan to use AI within the next year. This includes 78% currently using AI tools and 13% preparing to adopt them shortly. “This trend transcends agency size, highlighting AI’s universal appeal for its efficiency, data analytics, and automation capabilities,” said Varghese.
AI-driven machine learning algorithms can process vast volumes of historical and real-time data to generate dynamic models that estimate the probability of future outcomes, such as the likelihood of a customer churning or responding to a campaign. Rather than relying on simple rules or heuristics, AI-powered predictions become more accurate over time.
The infusion of predictive analytics powered by transparent and trustworthy AI means that in 2024, marketing decisions will be driven less by intuition and more by data-backed forecasting. With AI’s ability to process and analyze large datasets, marketers will gain deeper insights into customer preferences, behaviors and trends. This will allow for more effective segmentation, targeting and positioning strategies.
The Rise of Machine Customers
Although it may sound ominous, the term “machine customer” refers to an automated system that makes purchases without human involvement. The concept stems from the rise of artificial intelligence and automation in business activities. Common examples of machine customers are algorithms that automatically trade stocks, or Internet of Things (IoT) devices that order their own supplies when internal sensors detect they are running low.
As machine customers powered by algorithms and predictive analytics become more prevalent across industries in 2024, they will compel companies to shift strategies. Accommodating the needs and preferences of machine customers alongside traditional consumer segments will be a key challenge as automation expands business functionality and ecosystems incorporate more AI decision agents as regular customers.
According to a recent Gartner report, CEOs believe that by 2030, up to 20% of their companies’ revenue will come from machine customers.
Machine customers will force a reshaping of key functions such as supply chain, sales, marketing, customer service, digital commerce and customer experience. Daryl Plummer, distinguished VP Analyst at Gartner, said that machine customers will need their own sales and service channels because they make transactions at high speeds and the volume of decision variables they use far exceed human capabilities. “Machine customers will require different talent, skills, and processes that may not exist in a human-customer focused division.”
Futuristic Aspirations
Jiajun Lu, founder and CEO at Akool, self-described as “the future of marketing,” has AI-inspired marketing inspirations that are somewhat futuristic, although certainly within the realm of likelihood. Lu told CMSWire that in 2024, by immersing potential customers in the brand’s story, marketers can engage and inspire them, instead of making the experience dull and uninteresting.
“Marketers and advertisers can create brand and ad campaigns that allow customers to test drive a new car in their neighborhood, hang out with their favorite celebrity, try on holiday makeup or clothing, or interact with personalized digital avatars.” Lu expressed that these are just a small sampling of examples of how brands can create immersive marketing campaigns and brand experiences that delight and engage customers.
Another unique use of AI is projected to be something that some consumers are currently using in their daily lives — Augmented Reality (AR). Patty Lund, founder and CEO at VOLOOM, a hair volumizing iron retailer, works with influencers to create some incredibly unique campaigns using generative AI and “face-swapping” to deliver the “thumb stop effect” (a term that is used to describe content that captures the attention of the user and causes them to stop scrolling) with eye-catching, immersive campaigns that build an emotional connection with VOLOOM’s customers.
“Retailers that are using AI for their marketing campaigns in 2024 are going to win on driving sales,” said Lund. “That’s the secret weapon to cut through the ad clutter and get past bored consumers. The ads need to just stop the customer in their tracks.” Lund said that her business is creating campaigns using generative AI to design unique marketing experiences by building an emotional connection with her customers. “We have a campaign running where they can swap faces with their favorite influencer to try on a new hairstyle. Advertising goes from boring to exciting once you are actually ‘inside’ the brand.”
With all of the aspects of marketing that will be impacted by AI, brands must be careful not to get caught up in FOMO. Google’s Naresh predicts that for product teams, 2024 will be a test of focus. “AI offers a thousand different ways to solve a problem. The key — and the challenge — is to hone in on the single vision that best serves the people using your product,” Naresh reflected. “Advancements in AI over the next twelve months will be rapid and it’s important not to get distracted by the new shiny object. Teams that are focused and relentlessly center their target audiences will make the biggest breakthroughs.”
Final Thoughts
The AI roadmap for marketers in 2024 involves embracing AI as a powerful tool for personalization, analysis, content creation, customer interaction and predictive insights, all while maintaining a focus on the creation of an exceptional and positive customer experience. This integration of AI will drive marketing toward more efficient, responsive and customer-centric approaches, and will net rewards for both brands and customers.
