AI in Digital Marketing: Expectations vs. Reality

Artificial intelligence has brought about tangible business benefits across all the sectors. In the coming years, AI is projected to change the way we do business. AI in digital marketing has significant business benefits, from generating better ROI to targeting new audiences. Artificial intelligence has enhanced person-to-person interactions over social media channels. However, digital marketers have several expectations when it comes to leveraging artificial intelligence. These expectations not always meet reality. So, here’s a look at the expectations that marketers have when incorporating AI in digital marketing and what you should expect in reality.

#1: Expectations: AI in digital marketing generates better ROI

Today, businesses across different sectors of the economy leverage artificial intelligence in their digital marketing initiatives. Various AI-powered digital marketing tools and applications help businesses to automate their marketing tasks and enhance productivity. As a result, business leaders expect to generate better ROI by leveraging artificial intelligence in their business processes.

Reality: Only when you know what you’re doing

Every business owner implements an AI-powered marketing automation solution to generate better marketing ROI. But the fact is that just implementation of AI tools and applications cannot help marketers. AI tools and applications work on algorithms. So, you must have the right algorithm in place to get the best business results. Thoroughly analyze your target audiences and gather detailed insights about the market before customizing strategies for your target market.

#2: Expectations: AI will do the entire marketing tasks for you

Most marketers believe that AI will do complete marketing tasks for them. From sending emails to customer service, AI does all tasks for marketers. Moreover, artificial intelligence enables marketers to automate their day-to-day activities. So, do you think that you can leave complete marketing to AI tools and applications?

Reality: AI tools don’t automate entire marketing tasks for you

You may spend a considerable budget to implement AI tools and applications and expect that AI will do all the whole marketing tasks. This is not always true. AI can automate your marketing tasks, but not your entire tasks. To automate tasks, you will have to prioritize the tasks that need to be automated. Then you have to incorporate different AI tools and applications to automate various tasks.

Your entire work is not entirely over if you implement an AI tool; you have to evaluate the progress and make changes regularly in the algorithms. You have to make sure that all the processes are streamlined and are working accordingly.

#3: Expectations: AI will give results instantly

The hype around AI has created enormous expectations for businesses across all the sectors. So, marketers expect that AI will provide instant business outcomes. Marketers believe that they have to set the business goals, and AI will do the rest. AI will generate better ROI and bring results instantly.

Reality: AI doesn’t bring instant results

Undoubtedly, AI will bring positive business outcomes. But AI will not always deliver immediate results. It takes time to get results. You must have heard that AI brings about instant results. But everyone forgets about the effort and time that it takes to set the algorithms in AI tools and applications. AI can help you create marketing campaigns and track its results, but you’ll have to regularly monitor the campaigns and make changes whenever required. AI-powered tools can help you identify audiences who show interest in your ads. You have to retarget these customers through personalized advertisements and emails. It seems easy, but it takes much amount of our time to set the marketing campaigns. Leverage AI and have enough patience to achieve the best business outcomes.

#4: Expectations: Enhancing brand awareness equals increasing conversion

Today, marketers majorly focus on enhancing brand awareness to increase conversions. AI tools and applications are leveraged to enhance brand awareness and personalize communication for customers. But, is brand awareness = increasing conversion? Well, brand awareness contributes to business success and lead conversions, but not always.

Reality: Only if you optimize processes for conversions

Brand awareness indeed contributes to increasing conversions. But brand awareness doesn’t matter if you don’t know your target audiences’ needs and demands. AI tools and applications not always help businesses to increase conversions. AI-powered tools can take businesses one step closer to success. Don’t leverage AI tools and applications to automate marketing processes without having a clear goal or objective. Initially, you must have a solid strategy to optimize the processes for conversions, whether you use AI or not.

Conclusion

AI predominantly helps you enhance your marketing initiatives to a great extent. To achieve beneficial results from AI, you must have a solid business plan in place. AI tools and applications provide different benefits for different business sectors. So, you must thoroughly analyze the business benefits of leveraging AI in your organization. Besides, you must examine how your competitors are leveraging AI to achieve better business results. If you are starting with AI, it’s recommended to automate one or two marketing initiatives first. Don’t forget to track the results regularly and make changes whenever required. In today’s competitive marketplace, only businesses with a solid strategy are expected to gain a competitive advantage.