AI is Transforming Marketing: How Digital Marketing Agencies Can Keep Up with the AI Times

by Naida Alabata, Guest Contributor

​Digital marketing has always been about going above and beyond the human limits of taking brands to new heights by using technology to supplement traditional marketing. Nowadays, the field is set to be shaken from its very foundations by artificial intelligence. The potential for AI has always been apparent, but it has since been exceeding expectations with all the things it is being developed to do.
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How digital marketing is done with the growing influence of artificial intelligence.

The shifts in digital marketing have always come and gone very quickly, and this is yet another scenario wherein we might see another major shift in how digital marketing is done with the growing influence of artificial intelligence.

What is Artificial Intelligence?
The definition of this term has changed throughout time. It went from just about anything that lets computers do things on their own to a more specific field of study. Most of what we call AI these days involve machine learning, which is all about how systems are able to learn without having to be explicitly programmed.

Artificial intelligence has become more of a buzzword these days in technology due to how far it has come and what it can do now in a wide variety of applications. Business leaders believe that implementing AI in their system is a huge “business advantage.”  Mind you, it's still light years away from being able to completely replace human workers and take over the world. Although 16% of jobs will be lost over the next decade due AI and other technology adoption, 13.6 million jobs will be created during that time. We need not yet welcome our robot overlords, so you can just relax.

However, it can already do some remarkable things like translate different languages, identify specific objects in images, simulate human speech with a particular person's voice, optimizing web designs, and many more through the prodigious use of neural networks, learning algorithms, and so on.

What is the Relationship Between AI and Digital Marketing?
In the realm of digital marketing, artificial intelligence is set to disrupt much of it so marketers can then focus less on busy work and a lot more on connecting with people. AI makes marketing a whole lot easier as it gives marketers a whole host of tools to automate repetitive tasks, track results, and follow up on those results.

For the most part, the main goal for AI in digital marketing is to ease burdens for marketers. However, there is also potential for AI to help improve digital marketing campaigns by actively becoming a part of the process, although it will not entirely replace us as the job of connecting with people is still best done with a human touch.

AI's Impact on Digital Marketing
Another reason why AI is becoming invaluable to digital marketing is big data, which takes a whole lot to crunch and break down if it weren't for AI. Data science has become a more important field these days due to how much better it is now for AI to be utilized to make sense of seemingly endless data sets. It can then better help clients by catering to their needs, thus giving them a highly-personalized experience.

Therefore, AI is no longer just about how to automate one's email marketing or social media posts, even though it can also handle that kind of busywork. With AI taking care of those aspects, you can then focus more on innovating and growing your brand. In fact, 80% of executives believe that AI boosts productivity. AI can handle what would've taken you hours before, letting you have more time to play around with ideas instead, which can then be further worked on by AI in turn.

How Can Digital Marketing Agencies Stay on Top of the Curve with AI?
It may seem like a bit of a stretch at first, but being an early adopter may pay dividends down the line. Since the potential of artificial intelligence is fairly obvious at this point, taking to it while it's still early should be the thing to do if you're looking to stay ahead of the curve. Top tier companies like Google, Microsoft, Amazon, Netflix, and so on have taken to artificial intelligence like a duck to water, and it has been serving them well already. 

Therefore, if you're looking to redefine the digital marketing field for the next decade, you should look into AI for the long term. In fact, even in its early days yet, it has been predicted that by end of 2018, 45% of the fastest growing companies will employ more AI. You can start with smart implementation of chatbots and auto-responders to streamline your customer support, then take it from there. Getting into an emerging technology while it's still on the ground floor can help you catch that wave, as long as you're able to effectively implement AI to your digital marketing processes.

You can plan ahead, attend conferences on AI in marketing, talk to customers on whether they're comfortable with chatbots and what they know about the technology thus far, and so on. If all the signs point at AI being good for your brand's credibility and accessibility, then that should be a good enough go-signal.

In the end, the most important factor here is if AI can help improve customer experience. AI can help you hone in on a target audience better, as well as help creatives better create for marketing campaigns, which are then managed better as well because of AI. Results can be better tracked and channels can be better tested, and the results from those tests can be better reported and analyzed.

It's apparent here that AI is indeed a tremendous boon for digital marketing agencies. If efficiency and better performance is what you seek and you have the resources for it, implementing AI can pay off in time and make for a better agency in the long run.

Conclusion
There are plenty of advantages to implementing AI into digital marketing. Perhaps there are a few drawbacks to putting it to work. For instance, there'll be a lot of homework ahead of you to learn everything you'll need to know about it. You'll also have quite a few hoops to jump through while implementing it since it's relatively new technology. Finally, you'll have to make sure your employees are trained to make use of it.

Other than that, it's mostly a silver lining. If you have questions, comments, or suggestions regarding artificial intelligence and how it can help with digital marketing, please tell us about it in the comments section below. Thank you for stopping by.
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Author bio:

Naida is born and raised in Manila, Philippines and a graduate of BS Entrepreneurship. She's an entrepreneur and a junior content marketing specialist for various online brands. She writes mostly about branding, entrepreneurship, business development and marketing.