The efficiency of Big Data and AI in creating more humane purchase experience - Part 1

As you can imagine from the title the topic of the next blogs is quite vast and complex and therefore we want to start with a simple example to introduce the subject even to the less experienced. You probably had this happen to you. Let’s say you are glancing at a pair of shoes from your favorite online store. Be it the lack of funds or indecisiveness of the color selection, you end up navigating your way out of the website. The next website you find yourself in is totally different from the last, yet, somehow on the right side of the screen you spot something all too familiar - the same shoes. This is an example of ad retargeting, one of the different types of processes that marketing automation provides as a tool for marketers.

The commerce landscape has changed into a growing virtual shopping cart, consumers are turning to the internet to purchase goods and services essentially pushing marketers’ to redefine their tactics and strategies. Though traditional marketing relied heavily on mass media channels like the TV, magazines and radio, it had no real means of knowing who the consumers were or knowing the value in return from a specific campaign because tracking proved to be difficult.

The internet has paved the way for marketers to not only know who their consumers are, but also to track in real time the response rate of a campaign, opening the door to a new branch called digital marketing. This branch involves all social platforms and tools necessary for companies to reach and establish a relationship with consumers. A method such as this may seem to be the answer to all marketers’ dreams because it expands the tools available to carry through a successful campaign using activities such as search engine optimization, content marketing and campaign marketing to remove remedial task work.

However, simply having these tools is not enough in establishing automation efforts that will generate an efficient return on campaigns. Enter Big Data in tackling these challenges.

Not too long ago Big Data found itself on the other end of the stick with marketing automation. The crossover was practically nonexistent. Now the gap has been closed and they’re highly dependent on each other. Big Data alone has its own set of tasks from collecting and organizing its data to transforming the information into relevant insights that offer growth. To get most out of the data marketers need to use tools that will help with accuracy. This is where personalization comes in.

“We need tools to do this more and more innovative, flexible and "intelligent", it is not enough to feed the list of customers to any marketing tool and hope that by putting a filter on age and sex, you grow your company", said Marco D’Ambrosio Head of R&D Laboratory in GreenVulcano.

As consumers spend more time on apps, websites and web pages every day they are leaving their digital footprint behind. In e-commerce the millions of page views and reaches at each touch point hold a great deal of the data. The data contains wealth of information on the various stages of the consumer’s purchase history providing marketers a leverage to use when coming up with campaigns and promotions to create an individualized experience.

Personalization may seem to be somewhat of a hurdle by just having marketers work. It is actually a balancing act that requires the input of big data and the creative touch of the marketer to enhance the consumer experience. The future success of these business will be dependent on building relationships with customers and that will be dependent on sorting out the data to understand who the audience is. Artificial Intelligence plays a role in humanizing the experience by bringing efficiency in marketing automation. The use of up to date data and predictive analytics delivers promotions and offers in real time for the customers interested in that moment.

This concludes the first part of this study on new technologies and digital marketing.

In the second part we will analyze in more detail how the Artificial Intelligence must become an essential element in order to have a competitive advantage over competitors.