Benefits of AI-Driven Personalization in Email Marketing

It’s the purpose of every product and service to satisfy the needs of its buyer. If a product/service can feel like it was hand-made for their task/problem, it will fulfill its purpose and convert everyone it’s promised to.

The problem is that you can’t make an offer for a single user. At least, you couldn’t in the past. With modern AI-driven personalization, you can tailor messages to fit the needs of a single user for almost every user. 

In the past, the closest you could come to this was the market segmentation and targeted email marketing campaign. This is no longer the case. Today, you have a chance to speak to each individual user as if the entire campaign was made just for them.

Here’s how this is done and why this is so game-changing in the field of marketing.

1. AI insights

The first part of the role of AI in this field lies in advanced segmentation methods based on the careful analysis of your customer base. Now, to translate this sentence—AI is there to give you (or your email marketing automation tool) an idea of who you’re talking to.

Through your customer relationship management (CRM) platform, you can easily gather all your customer information.

Imagine having an AR display that gives you all the information about every person you meet. You talk to someone, and you can see all the important data about your previous interactions, their interests, their habits, and even things you heard about them indirectly. How easy would it be to persuade this person to do business with you? How easy would it be to leave this run-in with them having a much better impression of you?

Now, AI insights do more than just give you data. They also filter all this data and compute them in order to refine them into actionable information. 

Remember an interaction where you go to the store and look at a few items. You don’t buy anything, you don’t even add it to the shopping cart, but a few weeks later, you get an email telling you that this exact item that you’ve been looking at is on -40% sale.

With the help of AI insights, you’ll get even more information. Now, you’re not just tracking the pages they visit (and how long they stay there). You’re also tracking their scrolling and mouse movement patterns. Then, you apply complex user behavior algorithm analysis patterns just to get what you’re looking for.

2. Platform-specific strategy

Every email marketing strategy starts with the creation of an email list. Now, while you can buy the list in question, the effect will never be quite the same as when you organically grow it.

Why?

Well, the simplest answer is that people who agree to give you their email, subscribe to your newsletter, or just outright do business with you (and give you their email in the checkout process) are already qualified leads.

Ideally, you wouldn’t use just one method of gathering these emails. You would have multiple strategies, each of which would be exclusive to a single venue, channel, or platform. Getting emails for your list can take place on Instagram or TikTok, but it can also develop naturally through word-of-mouth or via online events like webinars. You should definitely learn more about these options in order to get the most value out of your campaign.

Still, why do you have to do this organically in the first place?

Just think about it as sending a DM to someone you follow on Instagram. There’s a much higher chance of a positive response (or a response in general) if you send the message to someone you already know in person. While the situation is not exactly the same, the equivalency is clear enough.

If you gather these emails organically, they’re more likely to open an email or engage with it. Even with the best possible subject line and the optimal email design (and content), there’s only so much you can work on its appeal.

3. Ethical considerations and challenges

Your salespeople’s competence was always seen as part of the game. If you can convince someone to buy, as long as you haven’t deliberately misled them or made false promises, you’re in the clear. No one will be taken seriously after a claim that the person they were talking to was “just too convincing.”

Alas, this is not the case when it comes to AI personalization. You see, with a good enough algorithm, the AI will sometimes know us better than we know ourselves. Not only that, but this analysis relies on customer data. While compliance guidelines are pretty clean-cut, the truth is that AI needs more data. 

Why?

Well, because of the incredible computing power and amazing analytics, these tools can actually use data that other tools would deem insignificant. 

This also creates a dilemma regarding the legality and regulation of handling customer data. Jurisdictions sometimes overlap, and ensuring that you work within the bounds of the law is never easy. 

For instance, even as a USA-based business, you might need to abide by GDPR as long as you’re working with partners and clients from the EU. In this scenario, you have a lengthy USA GDPR compliance checklist to go through before you’re completely safe on this front.  

Another ethical consideration is the fact that most of the time, your audience won’t be able to tell that the message is by AI. This feels like cheating on the Turing test, and while there’s no real difference, one of the questions that often arises is whether you have an obligation to let them know anyway.

4. Four-stage personalization

The key thing to remember is that this content personalization is systemic. This means that the system works according to a predictable set of rules that you can adjust to your own strategy. Generally speaking, the personalization takes place in four stages.

• Data analysis: First, the tools of your choice (usually the CRM that we’ve already discussed) gather all the data on the customers. Then, this data is analyzed by a sophisticated AI in order to create insights. 

• Behavioral predictions: The point at which this AI tool surpasses all its predecessors is its ability to predict the behavioral patterns of your customers. This way, it informs you about what the customer is likely to do next. By anticipating the needs of your guests and delivering timely and relevant content through your emails, you’ll always be one step ahead. 

• Dynamic content generation: Just think about some of the smoothest, most silver-tongued people you ever spoke to. One thing that separates them from others is the fact that they can come up with the best things to say on the spot. The thing is that, given enough time, anyone can come up with a great reply, but it’s an instant response that makes you qualify as truly witty. Well, what makes AI content generation so special is the ability to come up with all the best things to say on the spot. 

• Predictive personalization: This is about more than just content. It’s about the right time to send it, as well. Some people hate getting new content too frequently. Others can take a bit more dynamic approach. With the help of predictive analytics, you’ll know exactly who falls under which category.

With the right system, the response is perfect every single time.

5. The most important metrics to track

Ultimately, it’s important to determine why this is worth doing to begin with. In other words, what are the benefits of AI-driven personalization in email marketing? This way, you have metrics to track in order to see if you’re getting your money’s worth from your AI-driven personalization campaign.

Sure, these tools are really not expensive, especially not for the type of firepower they carry; however, it’s important to understand that they’re not free of charge either. So, what are the KPIs (key performance indicators) worth keeping an eye out for? 

If you fulfill these four requirements, you’re moving in the right direction.

• Increased engagement: The first thing you need to track is the average engagement rate. If it goes up, the personalization campaign is a resounding success.

• Higher conversion rates: Better messages will convert more customers. This directly affects your bottom line, which makes it one of the metrics that’s the easiest to do cost control for. 

• Enhanced customer loyalty: Content helps build bridges. It’s a way to provide value to your customers without actually doing business. Since it’s so low-cost on their part, the ROI is always positive.

• Optimized marketing budget: Your marketing spending is more important than you assume. With so many methods, it’s not just putting enough money into a funnel; it’s picking the funnel with the best return. Email marketing is already lucrative. Now, it’s even more cost-effective.

By increasing these four factors, you’ll already make a world of difference. 

AI-driven personalization makes your email marketing campaign more efficient in every way

AI tools are better at analytics and coming up with responses on the go. It doesn’t take a marketing specialist to figure out how this could benefit your email marketing. Still, integrating it into your process is not easy. There is no one-size-fits-all solution, and it’s vital that you check for integration with other tools you’re using.

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