More and more marketers are falling for Artificial Intelligence (AI). To the point that, according to a recent survey conducted by Forrester Consulting before summer, about half of the 433 decision-makers involved in Europe and in the United States have forecast relevant investments in it within next year.
The main reason is that AI offers the opportunity to thoroughly target and segment customers. Such trend has been confirmed by the research entitled “Dream vs. Reality: The State of Consumer-First and Omnichannel Marketing” carried out by Econsultancy and MediaMath involving 400 professionals in the field. The study has revealed that 80% of the interviewees already use or intend to use AI for such purposes and that only 20% don’t want to have anything to do with it.
Furthermore, the research conducted by Winterberry Group and Data & Marketing Association involving 450 marketers in North America, revealed that 62% of the interviewees consider targeting a priority while handling advertising campaigns. This is due to marketing new trend: 57% of the field experts consider customer’s experience, deemed to be a crucial area for all organization by 95% of the market, not as an optional but as one of the most important business targets (Why Marketers Use AI For Audience Targeting).
Considering vendors and advertisers’ enthusiasm for audience segmentation, the biggest players have therefore geared up accordingly. For instance Nielsen has invested millions of dollars in the development of an AI based platform to automate the creation of customized segments of audience for marketing professionals.
However, targeting and segmenting functions are not the only reasons which are driving investments towards AI: creativity, adv campaign planning, costs optimization and offers customization are additional advantages which have pushed 40% of the interviewees involved in the MediaMath survey to go for the new technology.
And such trend has also affected mobile marketing. Mobile marketers, indeed, have been increasing their budgets devoted to this sector. A report issued by YouAppi in partnership with Dimensional Research, after having interviewed 425 global digital vendors, pointed out that, this year, 49% of interviewees intend to invest in machine learning and 36% in Artificial Intelligence (AI & machine learning top list of new technology investments for mobile marketers).
Considering that AI is here to stay and to further evolve, investments are bound to increase in the next few years. We can actually give it for granted.
How important do you consider targeting and customers segmentation? Are you planning to invest in AI? Tweet @agostinellialdo.
To find out more about the digital world, you may read my latest book entitled: “People Are Media”
If you liked this post, you may also read “The Blockchain is renewing retailing. Here are some examples”
