By Rodney Perry, Head of Data & Analytics, UK, Making Science
The marketing industry’s relationship with AI is becoming complicated. While advocates such as Meta have showcased the potential for AI-enhanced ads to drive 32% higher return on ad spend, many are racing to get a stronger grip on smart tools. Others, however, can’t shake the feeling that doing so will hasten their obsolescence, especially when it comes to generative technology.
Bringing the dual promise of lower costs and greater productivity, GenAI is gaining traction at speed: already used by half of marketing teams and featuring in near-term investment plans for six in ten CMOs. But the rapid expansion in automation scope has raised questions about the impact on working dynamics — and for 89% of marketers, the concern is that advanced tools, including GenAI, could replace their jobs.
However, the reality is increasingly shaping up to be in favour of marketers. Key areas of GenAI implementation — content production, personalisation, and process augmentation — are set to lift the weight of mundane paperwork, acting as valuable timesaving assistants rather than competitors, enabling human intelligence to be used on more productive, strategic tasks.
Up-scaling content generation
Marketing operations continue to grow in complexity, with all roles (including that of the CMO) now covering multiple bases and buckling under an ever-growing workload. The impact of this is evident by the finding that half of marketers are feeling burnt out. But according to surveys by Gartner, marketers who utilise GenAI technology more frequently are 30% less likely to experience high levels of burnout.
In this convoluted landscape, GenAI can be a means of not only lightening the load, but also allowing marketers to achieve much greater scale and efficiency with content production. A recent MIT study has shown that workers who leverage GenAI content production applications can reduce the time it takes to complete tasks by 40% while improving content quality by nearly 20%.
Moreover, thanks to advances in secure data access, it is now possible to safely plug in non-public company information and use it to generate on-brand content in multiple formats, at scale. As a result, businesses can retain full authority over their data and produce content that is less generic, better reflecting their guidelines and branding, and aligned with the latest messaging.
Brand-specific GenAI content production can be particularly useful in drafting copy for ads, blogs, newsletters, FAQs, emails, and product descriptions — as well as the translations of each. This tech can also drive efficiencies when generating high-quality images for product shots, thumbnails, and blog content. For intricate images with more nuanced details, base assets can still be shot manually and then dynamically fine-tuned, filled-in, or displayed in different contexts in line with campaign requirements using GenAI.
Improving personalisation precision
In addition to content production, GenAI can become a powerful personalisation assistant, making it easier to analyse vast volumes of consumer data efficiently and harness key insights to inform creative tailoring and targeting.
Leveraging predictive and machine learning algorithms, this technology empowers marketers to delve deeper into consumer behaviour, identifying patterns and preferences that were previously elusive. In turn, marketers can adapt their targeting strategies in real-time with emerging trends and according to how consumers engage with different messages, crafting highly tailored campaigns that resonate with their audience on a deeper level. Such AI-driven campaign personalisation has been shown to improve click-through rates of SMS campaigns by over 40% and email campaigns by 25%.
GenAI is also helping businesses offer bespoke recommendations to their customers. Stitch Fix, a personalised clothing service, employs GenAI to assist its stylists in understanding customer preferences and delivering tailored product recommendations. Similarly, Instacart has embraced GenAI to provide personalised recipe suggestions, meal-planning assistance, and automatically generated shopping lists based on individual preferences; enhancing customer experiences.
Process augmentation
Another superpower of GenAI for marketers is its ability to efficiently, effectively, and automatically carry out routine everyday tasks, allowing humans to focus on more creative and complex tasks.
An implementation of this is in customer service communications, which are an integral part of the customer and marketing experience. ChatBot technology, powered by Natural Language Processing (NLP) and machine learning, can increasingly understand customer requests and respond with accurate and relevant information, suggest optimal actions, and predict outcomes; streamlining the customer service process across various touchpoints, including in call centres.
This approach ultimately delivers faster responses — saving customer and business time, and reduces the number of open customer support cases and therefore the load on customer service teams. Meanwhile, it continuously evolves its capabilities, training itself with feedback from every interaction. This technology can even be set up in a way that alerts human agents when more nuanced requests are identified, prompting more thorough customer support — but only when it is needed.
Marketers can further benefit from such implementation of GenAI technology automating recommendations for ads. For instance, Google Ads Conversational Experience can generate recommendations for keywords, headlines, and descriptions as well as identify relevant keywords for optimal Google Ads campaigns.
Ultimately, marketers should embrace the change; GenAI technology is opening more doors than it is closing. A collaborative approach between human marketers and GenAI technology — particularly when used in content production, personalisation, and process augmentation — not only enhances efficiencies across the board, but also ensures the delivery of impactful and tailored marketing materials that resonate deeply with target audiences, driving higher engagement and conversion rates.
