Mothers make decisions all the time, particularly about what to buy. So, as a mother, you surely belong to one of the biggest groups of consumers. After all, you most probably do most of the shopping for your family, which means constantly making decisions about what to buy.
Often, you’ll choose a product because of the way it’s marketed, simply because the use of AI in digital marketing understands you as part of a target audience. The more focused you are as a person, the better decisions you are likely to make, so boost your thinking and achieve greater personal coherence. Check out this article for more information.
This article will help you to understand exactly how digital marketing can use AI to target you as part of the target market.
Quick definitions
It’s important to know exactly what you are reading about, so here are two quick definitions for you:
AI (Artificial Intelligence)
Artificial intelligence is far more than that talking robot in a movie. Think about it as people using a combination of science and engineering to create computers that are programmed with a whole lot of data and information that they use to solve problems intelligently. It’s kind of like the machines copy human thought and producing answers.
So, AI is a ‘thinking mechanism’ that taps into its data to put together an answer to any question you may ask, or to make changes to a piece of writing, such as altering the style or addressing any issues. It can also fill in gaps in images and even produce its own version of an image that is described.
Digital marketing
You know that marketing is about advertising and promoting goods and services. In fact, you see and hear it around you every day. Digital marketing is all of this, but the channels via which it comes to you are electronic: email or your mobile; online videos; and social media.
How does AI feature in digital marketing?
There is a symbiotic relationship between marketing and goods/services available to the public. The more the options grow, the quicker digital marketing must adapt. And so on.
The use of digital marketing here is to identify very specific audiences. To do so, digital marketers need to embrace advancements like AI. In fact, AI can become a vital part of this type of marketing.
Narrowing down the target audience
AI allows computers to put together answers to particular questions, often by making predictions. A natural extension of this is to use AI to predict the effect of digital advertising campaigns on a particular target audience. In fact, technology can be used to indicate just how narrow and specific the target audience could be.
Basically, if you want to market anything, you need to understand who you are selling to. This means research into your possible customers, so you can understand what they need and what they desire. There are so many products and services out there, that you must ensure your advertising gets to the right people and persuades them to buy what you are selling. If you can use AI to give you a very specific picture of your possible customers, your marketing will be more effective.
Personalizing market appeal
AI uses algorithms to work out details like what type of customers a client may attract. By doing so, it will understand what customers prefer and be able to tailor the content, look, appeal and focus of marketing materials for those customers. Because of this, AI can guide digital marketers and make the marketing experience personal for audiences.
Challenges faced by digital marketing
AI is not constant…
AI is an advanced application of technology, but it doesn’t stop there. In fact, like just about all technology, AI is constantly changing, as it is being developed and improved upon. This means that the digital marketing companies will need to keep up with the changes, which means manpower, expense, changing technology and training.
Imagine the impact of all of this on the marketing companies. It can only take a lot of time, which will invariably mean that the process of producing targeted digital marketing will be slowed down.
… nor is the market
Consider this picture: a person starts an online selling company which does well for a couple of years, but then starts struggling because of the competition. Eventually, the first business goes under. Changes like this happen all the time in the consumer economy.
Consumers themselves are also always changing. What someone needs this month, or this year, won’t necessarily be the same as next year. If the consumer base and their needs are always changing, then digital marketing also needs to develop regularly. This means that the AI will need to be ‘clever’ enough to monitor the audience trends and adjust the data the marketers rely on.
AI costs
Because of the ongoing changes in AI, marketing firms will need to keep upgrading the necessary software, which means ongoing expenses. If there are any glitches in the process of upgrading, then it will mean more money will have to be spent. Data may even be lost, which will then need to be recovered, which will also cost money.
Limited and poor quality data
For digital marketing to be effective, it needs to operate with high quality data – and there is not always enough available. Again, as we find with all technology, AI is constantly being developed and adapted so that it can work effectively with poorer quality data.
Moral and ethical issues
Is it appropriate or even acceptable for marketers to have access to personal data? Is it ethical for that data to be used essentially to manipulate people into buying goods or services?
The production of weapons is a constant threat to the world. What if AI is used to develop weapons that don’t rely on any human control? What destruction could they cause if they are set on a path that cannot be stopped easily?
In light of growing unemployment across the world, is it productive and advantageous for AI to replace people and their jobs? Will this not create more poverty, as more people are made redundant, because AI can do their work?
Challenges faced by AI detection in digital marketing
Detecting the use of AI in digital marketing isn’t always easy.
Understanding how AI works ‘from the inside’ isn’t something everyone can do. This means that it’s not the run-of-the-mill individual who can detect the use of AI in digital marketing. It’s also not that easy to pick up AI behavior that mimics human behavior, because the two can be so close.
Of course, the constantly changing and developing world of AI means it’s necessary for people to continue inventing from scratch, or adapting, an AI detector that can outsmart the AI technology. Again, this is time-consuming and expensive.
Nowadays, there is a high level of awareness about sharing information and an individual’s right to privacy. A digital marketer needs to operate in a way that fits in with the regulations regarding information. There is no AI detection system that is universally useful that can accurately monitor AI involvement in digital marketing. Thus, it’s not easy to detect if a particular marketing company is using AI according to the rules.
Some final thoughts
Where does all this leave you, the consumer? And where does it leave the digital marketers? The answer is quite simple really: digital marketers need to keep up with the times and make sure they work within the regulations. And the authorities need to develop their systems continuously to make sure they are able to keep up with checking for the use of AI.
