Have you ever tried to launch an e-mail marketing campaign, and wished you had another pair of hands to assist you?
Artificial Intelligence can help you.
It may sound scary, but AI is not robots replacing humans. You may have used artificial intelligence in the past without realizing it. For example, you might have received more targeted emails or better suggestions when shopping online.
WebDew estimates that businesses that use AI to drive their email marketing will grow by $1.2 trillion per year. In the same study, 49% of marketers had already begun to use automation in their email campaigns.
Every marketing campaign should show a return on investment for the budget allocated. Email marketing can be more effective for businesses with artificial intelligence. This guide will teach you what AI is in email marketing and how it can be used to your advantage.
What is AI-based email marketing?
Artificial Intelligence in Email Marketing is the use of data and customer behavior to influence campaigns, subject lines, and copy and ensure that every message is tailored for the reader.
When you are building an email campaign, it’s like having a copywriter (really) standing right over your shoulder.
AI tracks the history of your subscribers, their purchasing and behavior patterns, and determines what language will be more persuasive and when to send emails.
This is a significant change from the way email marketing campaigns are usually built.
What are the advantages of using AI in email marketing? Marketers can customize their email content with AI to target specific audiences. AI-driven email marketing techniques can optimize the experience for users by providing a more personal one.
Artificial intelligence, from optimizing subject lines to smart segmentation can improve click-through rates, conversion, and engagement in an email campaign.
What is AI doing? Let’s dive a little deeper
Five Ways to Use AI for email marketing
Artificial intelligence is a technology that has gained popularity in many industries.
Artificial intelligence, with its direct and personalized approach, can be a great boost for any business that has not seen enough results from email marketing.
Five effective ways to help email marketers use AI in their campaigns.
1. Multivariate Testing
Automated multivariate testing to discover what makes your list tick. Email marketing is all about knowing what makes your audience tick.
Email marketing campaigns that are relevant to your subscribers will be more effective if you have a better understanding of who they are.
Multivariate Testing is a step beyond the traditional A/B test. Instead of testing just one element at a time, you can now test several elements simultaneously. Imagine you’re about to launch a product feature and want to make it appealing to your community. Multivariate testing analyses several variations at once instead of just a single subject or offer.
- Email 1 – Subject Line 1 + (Feature Offer 1)
- Email 2 – (Subject Line 2) + (Feature Offer 1)
- Email 3 – Subject line 1 + (Feature Offer 2)
- Email 4 + (Subject Line 2)
Multivariate testing goes beyond experimenting with subject lines and feature offers. You can use a tool such as Sendlane to create a multivariate test campaign, and then put it on autopilot. The process is simple:
- Choose the components you want to test. You can choose from subject lines, offers, and preheaders.
- Choose your audience. Who will you test the messages with? Select the number of contacts that you would like to test your messages with.
- Find the winners: Which components worked best? Find out what combinations make the best emails.
You can automate all this by using a tool for Multivariate Testing.
2. Use catchy subject lines in your emails to grab the attention of your readers
Have you ever received an email that… just spoke to you?
It is important to learn the language of your customers. When subject lines are what people see first, they can make or break a campaign.
AI can help you create better subject lines by incorporating the language of your customers into your subject lines.
When online retailer Dixons Carphone sought to improve the effectiveness of its email campaigns, it turned to an AI-based tool phase to help.
What is it used for?
It combines NLP and algorithms to study the language that customers use. It then feeds back this information to the company that is creating the email campaign and gives them suggestions on how their subject line should read.
Dixons Carphone immediately noticed the changes. They had 10% higher rates of open and 25% more click-throughs after AI intervention. AI helped them boost sales when they launched the ‘Black Tag Event,’ their largest event of the calendar year.
A message from Dixons Carphone Black Tag Event
The new subject lines not only increase open rates by 42% but also the campaign revenue by 100%.
3. Create a targeted campaign
Create targeted campaigns that anticipate what your customers will read and purchase. long ago, blast emails were out of fashion. We expect brands to personalize their emails.
According to The Marketing Minute, 74% of customers are frustrated when they receive emails from a company that doesn’t include their personalization. You’re likely to pay attention if you see your name at the top or in the subject line of an email.
AI can help you to target customers down to the products they may like. Consider your Amazon recommendations… It is almost frighteningly accurate at predicting what you may want to purchase.
AI is at work. Amazon and other brands target their customers with campaigns that are likely to be successful using tools such as predictive analysis.
AI allows you to use the same techniques in your email campaigns. Sendlane’s Pixel allows you to track your email subscribers and segment them based on behavior. The tracking pixel, for example, can retarget a customer who is surfing your site but leaves without purchasing anything.
AI automates the entire process.
You can use a browser abandoned funnel to retarget window shoppers who have been eyeing your popular hoodies but didn’t purchase them before leaving.
This series of emails is sent to anyone who browses but doesn’t purchase. It encourages them to return and complete what they began.
4. Send emails at the right time
When it comes to email marketing, timing is critical. Why? Why?
Have you ever had an email arrive in your inbox while you were drinking your morning coffee? How about during your commute from work?
This is not a mere coincidence.
AI allows brands to determine when their customers are the most active on their emails and their time zone. This allows for campaigns to be targeted so that they arrive in the inboxes of people at the right time.
Machine learning and open predictability are used to achieve this.
Imagine your subscribers check their email at different times. Customer 1 likes to check his email during breakfast at 6.30 am, while customer 2 prefers to do so during her lunch hour at 2 pm.
With machine learning open predictability, any email that you send will automatically arrive in their inbox when it is most convenient. If you’re having a Black Friday Sale and want to remind your list of the sale, customer number one will get it during breakfast time while customer number two will read it on her lunch hour at 2 pm.
You should know that the machine learning open predictive ability has changed with iOS 15. You can read more about this here.
5. Learn more about your customers by observing their behavior
AI can reveal a lot about your customers.
AI can track their movements and determine what they are interested in and what they buy. Marketers can better understand the customer journey by using this information.
An AI-based email automation tool
AI-based marketing via email is very effective when the right tools and techniques are used. We’re seeing a growing number of automation tools on the market, thanks to the increasing interest in AI-based email marketing.
Beacon, the advanced AI tracking tool from Sendlane, gathers information in three different ways:
- Tracks the visitor’s behavior on your site
- Alerts Brands when a URL or website is viewed.
- Conversion rules: Tracks someone who makes a purchase on a URL or spends a certain amount.
This data allows you to make your emails highly personalized for your customers.
Imagine this: A loyal customer visits their favorite skincare site, but the product they buy regularly is not in stock. They leave the website without purchasing anything.
Right? Not quite. The whole event was tracked thanks to AI. The skincare brand has set up an opt-in form so that shoppers can be notified as soon as the product returns to stock. They can then send out personalized emails to alert customers. Plus, they can create custom audiences using the data to retarget customers on social media!
Public Goods tracked visitor browsing and purchasing behavior to learn what products they liked and whether or not they were waiting on a product to return into stock.
The customer only has to click on the CTA and the sale will be in the bag.
Why use AI for email marketing?
AI is a great assistant to make sure that every email you send has a powerful punch. It can help you optimize your subject lines to get more people to open your emails.
- Predictive analytics for tracking and optimizing current and future campaigns based on engagement and behavior
- Use automated tests such as A/B and Multivariate to determine the best email combinations for campaigns and blasts
- Data allows you to send emails at the optimal time, increasing their chances of being opened
Artificial in email marketing is a sensible choice for a business world dominated by digital technology. It is a brainer to be able to streamline the efforts of marketing while simultaneously strengthening the success of email campaigns.
