It’s no secret that AI is revolutionising the marketing landscape, from automating content creation to enhancing personalisation. With nearly half (48%) of businesses looking to review their tech stack in light of AI, it’s clear that emerging technologies are influencing brands’ approach to marketing.
The rise of predictive marketing sits at the heart of AI developments, analysing data to predict customer behaviour and optimising marketing strategies. In order to harness the value of predictive marketing, it’s critical that brands must ensure they have the right approach in place, balancing AI tools with human oversight, to engage audiences and stay ahead in a competitive landscape.
How AI is transforming predictive marketing
While predictive marketing is no new concept, it’s been transformed by AI into a critical component of brand strategy. AI-driven predictive models are able to analyse vast sets of data in real time, predicting which cohorts of customers are likely to engage or convert. As such, brands can allocate their budgets to where they can expect a high ROI, reaching the right audiences, with the right messages, at the right time.
Beyond targeting, AI is changing how brands communicate. We know that different audiences are best reached through different channels, whether that be social media, email marketing, or OOH advertising, but by using previous interactions and patterns of engagement, AI can make real-time decisions about where and when to allocate resources, to ensure that messages are delivered through the right channels.
It’s important to look at how predictive marketing in the age of AI is affecting the customer experience. Customers increasingly expect a personalised experience: once they’ve watched a film, they expect recommendations on other movies they may like, or products similar to those they’ve previously bought. However, AI takes this one step further, shifting from reactive to proactive. Rather than simply recommending products, for example, brands can predict when a customer is likely to repurchase an item, and proactively offer a discount.
How brands can leverage this new era of predictive marketing
In this new era of AI-driven predictive marketing, it’s key to bear in mind that brands will succeed only if they have a good data foundation – AI is only as good as the data it’s trained on. Brands that focus their efforts on first-party data can build a better understanding of their customers, allowing for more precise targeting and refining of messages.
Measurement and attribution are essential ingredients to predictive marketing, allowing brands to assess the accuracy of their predictions, and therefore, the success of their efforts. By regularly feeding this data back into their AI model, brands can further optimise their predictions, constantly improving their precision.
Sitting at the centre of any successful AI strategy is human oversight. Yes, AI can generate predictions, but human oversight is critical to ensure that those predictions are accurate and relevant. The ‘human touch’ is also important in maintaining ethical standards when using AI, and for consumers it remains a priority: 78% believe that some form of human interaction is still essential for a good customer experience. As such, it’s important that brands don’t leave AI in the driver’s seat, but instead let it act as a guiding passenger.
Embracing the future of predictive marketing
As AI continues to transform predictive marketing, and the wider landscape, brands have a key opportunity to rethink their strategy. By leveraging AI-driven predictive models, brands can not only improve their ROI, but also improve the experience of customers and deepen the audience-brand connection. However, in order to implement AI-driven predictive marketing successfully, brands should ensure they have a strong data foundation in place, alongside human oversight and an attribution loop.
Looking ahead, those brands that take a balanced approach to AI will be best positioned to thrive and meet the growing expectations of customers. It’s high time that brands invest in predictive marketing and implement the right frameworks to use AI effectively and safely, if they want to stay ahead of the competition.