Using Machine Learning to Improve Your Marketing

We know that marketing teams don’t want for lack of data.

Marketers struggle with making sense of all the data they have at
their fingertips and then putting that data to use. This analysis is
where machine learning comes in.
The primary reason to add machine learning to your marketing
stack is that it can make sense of vast amounts of data much faster
and much more effectively than humans.

This process can use data to identify patterns and make predictions
almost instantly. Marketers can then use these insights to optimize
a huge portion of their workflow, from running more tests and
improving their website’s UX to personalizing the customer
experience and automating consumer engagement.

The long and short of it is machine learning can be used to improve

just about every part of your digital marketing efforts. Below we
discuss five of the most important ways.

Analyze Data Sets

However you use machine learning in your marketing efforts, the
process will probably begin by analyzing data sets.

For instance, machine learning can be used to analyze and find

user activity patterns on your website. Rather than sifting through
data in your Google Analytics profile yourself, an algorithm could do
the job in seconds, predicting future user behavior and identifying
patterns that you can use to optimize your site.  
Sure, humans are perfectly capable of analyzing data themselves,
but you can’t do it half as fast or accurately as AI-powered
solutions.
Marketers can also use machine learning to gain a better
understanding of their customer base.

Take customer segmentation, for instance. Dividing up your

audience into different groups can make your marketing efforts
much more effective, but it’s time-consuming to do so yourself. On
the other hand, a machine learning algorithm could automatically
segment your customer base based on actions and behavioral
patterns that you couldn’t hope to identify.

Create and Optimize Content

You don’t need me to reiterate the importance of content in your
digital marketing efforts. However, you may need clarification on
how machine learning can improve what you write and publish and
why using it in your content marketing strategy is essential.
For starters, machine learning can help your articles rank higher in
search engine results. It’s one thing to be a great writer; it’s another
to write in a way that pleases Google, so it rewards you in the
SERPs. You need to make sure you use all relevant keywords,
discuss every relevant topic, and cover all of your bases in general.
That’s pretty hard to do without smart content creation tools like
Frase.io, which uses machine learning to compare your content
against Google’s top results and make sure you hit all of the
relevant points.

Second, you use algorithms to write content for you. Phrasee is an

AI-powered copywriting tool that uses machine learning to create
email subject lines and push notifications that its algorithm believes
will drive the highest ROI.

You can even use AI to help you curate content for your
customers. Curata offers a machine learning content curation
software that helps marketers find and publish the most relevant
and engaging content for their audiences.

Increase Personalization
Personalization matters for consumers. Research
by Accenture shows 91% of consumers prefer brands that
remember who they are and provide relevant offers and
recommendations as a result. What’s more, if they don’t get a
personalized experience, over half of consumers are only too happy
to switch to a competitor.
Here’s the good news: machine learning lets you deliver the most
personalized customer experience possible. You can employ an
algorithm that tracks user behavior on a granular level, learns what
products they like, and creates a personalized homepage and
recommendation list as a result.

Amazon, for instance, uses AI algorithms that take into account the
purchase history of users, the items in their cart, and their viewing
habits to offer the product recommendations that are most likely to
convert.

The same algorithm could also generate personalized offers for

every customer and email them to consumers when they are most
likely to purchase.

Improve Marketing Automation
Better personalization is one way machine learning can transform
how your brand engages customers, but it’s not the only way. It can
also better automate your marketing efforts and significantly
improve customer engagement as a result.

Let’s say you automatically send an email to customers when they

sign up for your newsletter or abandon their cart. While most brands
will send a generic email, companies that adopt machine learning
can tailor content and offers based on that consumer’s browsing
history.

If they looked at your brand’s range of dog toys before signing up

for your newsletter, a relevant offer on chew toys would make them
much more likely to re-engage with your brand.  

For SaaS brands, AI-powered marketing automation tools can

analyze much larger and disparate data sets to better segment
leads. This allows sales reps to prioritize those leads that are much
more likely to convert.

Marketing automation is incredibly powerful. According to Invesp,

marketing automation leads to an over 14% increase in sales
productivity and an over 12% reduction in marketing overhead.
It’s entirely possible to do this without machine learning, but AI
makes your automation efforts much more personalized and much
more powerful.

Utilize Chatbots
Chatbots are a powerful customer service tool. Eight out of ten
consumers who have engaged with them report a positive
experience. If you run an online business, they are all but essential.
With chatbots, you don’t have to have a human on-hand to respond
to consumers. Instead, machine learning-powered chatbots can
automatically answer consumer queries with a scarily-high rate of
accuracy. That’s because your chatbot will learn from your
website’s content and the conversations it has with consumers to
constantly improve the answers it provides.
Because the chatbot is continuously learning and improving itself, it
will deliver an even better customer experience with more
conversations. You may want to have your chatbot pass an
incredibly complicated query onto a human at first, but soon the bot
will become so effective there’ll be no need for a human to interject.
Eventually, you’ll have a smart enough chatbot to upsell the
consumer, not just answer their questions.

Consumers probably won’t be able to tell they’re speaking to a

robot, either. Some chatbots, like IntelliTicks, employ another
branch of AI, Natural Language Processing (NLP), to have human-
level conversations with customers.
What’s more, data gathered by AI-powered chatbots can be
analyzed by another machine learning algorithm to generate
insights that marketers can use to optimize their efforts going
forward.

What is the Future of Machine Learning?

Things move fast in the world of machine learning. Expect
advances in marketing AI to happen rapidly.

Improved algorithms are in development right now, for instance.

These algorithms don’t need input from humans at the start, making
them much easier and faster for marketers to implement.

Personalization will become even more powerful, too. Machine

learning algorithms will become better at discerning what
consumers want for one, but the ways they can be integrated with
online stores will improve, too. Soon, marketers will be able to
customize every part of their sites for individual users, much like
social media timelines are personalized for every user.
Finally, expect big advances in mobile machine learning. AI-
powered digital assistants will become a more prominent part of our
life, and marketers will have to develop strategies to contend with
this. Mobile applications will also be able to integrate machine
learning features in the same way websites can right now.

Don’t get overwhelmed, however. Before you start worrying about

what the future holds, work your way through the suggestions I’ve
made above first. You’ll then be ready for whatever occurs in the
future.

Conclusion
It’s clear: machine learning can transform your digital marketing
efforts.

Don’t rush into it, however. Adopting solutions without first

understanding how the technology works and its role in your
company will typically do more harm than good.

Machine learning is powerful, but it isn’t a silver bullet. Adopt one

solution at a time, however, and you’ll be fine.  

Continue your education by reading my articles on AI’s role in

SEO and AI-powered digital assistants.