Why should we care about Artificial Intelligence technology
Artificial intelligence (AI) is creating the fourth industrial revolution by shaping every single aspect in the world. AI is taking away jobs, and revolutionizing businesses only to create new human-driven creative opportunities.
The new technology has influenced the way we drive cars, grow vegetables, detect cancer. It can even speak, and recognize emotions in speech. AI technology is disrupting right now all industries including digital marketing.
So what is Artificial Intelligence?
Simply put, Artificial Intelligence (AI) is building machines that are intelligent to think and act in a rational way. Similar to humans at much greater scale and speed.
Within AI, you will come across two terms: Machine Learning & Deep Learning.
Machine learning is a subset of AI that is fed structured data by humans to come up with an algorithm to learn and analyze massive data.
Deep learning is a subset of machine learning, in which no structured data is needed. It relies on various layers of neural networks to digest massive unstructured data. The learning and analyzing process of this data happens independently of human intervention.
The relationship between AI & Digital Marketing
We’ve seen the evolution of marketing in the past years and its transformation into the digital space. Companies shifted their strategies, tools and budget from traditional to digital marketing.
Today, AI is pushing further the digital marketing transformation to a new level and in various aspects.
So if you’re wondering how Artificial Intelligence is Disrupting Digital Marketing.
Here are 6 ways Artificial Intelligence is changing the digital marketing industry that every marketer should know:
1- Automating Content:
In the digital marketing industry, content is king. AI aids marketers in 2 roles: Automating content creation, content curation and delivery.
Content creation using NLG (natural language generation), a process that generates content from data automatically. The marketer will choose the content type, topic, number of words and data to be used. The AI-driven platforms such as NLG then uses an algorithm to produce unique articles. The content produced will simulate human-written content saving company time & money.
For example, Washington Post published more than 850 articles written by Heliograf, its AI-driven robot author.
Content curation is the process of collecting quality published articles and spinning the content while adding your own opinion. Not only did AI help automate the content collection process but also customized it depending on the targeted audience. AI harvests the audience’s social media activities, engagements and interactions on the web. Then it ensures individualized content is delivered to each target audience.
2- Mass Personalisation:
The value of personalisation lies in its ability to greatly influence the behavior of consumers. Prior to AI, marketeres used tools to segment their audience in clusters. Based on location, interests, preference, demographic and other attributes and then create various customized offering to each segment of this audience.
Today, marketers are able to provide each of their million users a personalized experience specific to them. The availability of this technology replaced general audience segmentation into personas. Powered by AI, specifically machine learning, unique offerings to each customer are created based the users digital footprints. The ability of AI to review and analyze a mix of overlapping attributes “finding patterns inside patterns” which humans are not capable of doing. These AI capabilities help companies implement digital marketing campaigns based on micro-segmentation. This technique ensures marketers know what kind of message resonates with their audience and delivering to them exactly their needs.
3- Advertising & Product offering:
In digital marketing, online ads is one of the key channels for lead generation. Platforms that offer ad services such as publishers, and social media websites are competing to offer marketers more targeted advertising. Targeted ads generate higher conversion rates for companies.
For example, suggested products / articles used to appear to users based on their transactional history only. While now, websites are deploying machine learning (ML). ML considers the users behavior history along with their implicit and explicit intent into consideration thus delivering more relevant suggestions.
Bidding is another aspect within online advertising that consumed most of marketers time as its manually handled. Artificial intelligence automated the process leveraging smarter bidding. AI combines user based info (signals) such as device, location, language and other data that can also be collected from third parties. This improves ad performance and campaign outcome while saving marketers time to focus on more valuable campaign aspects like content & layout.
4- User Tracking & Data Analytics:
Another aspect of digital marketing that has been massively transformed with AI and Machine learning. A buyers journey is a funnel that includes various steps. Starting from brand awareness, to showing interest and interacting with a brand to purchasing.
Digital marketing altered the funnel by simplifying purchase, increasing interaction channels, offering comparison and review tools which helped users move faster in the funnel. However, these digital marketing advancements missed a vital aspect which is the ability to track and analyze results. Not only is Artificial Intelligence able to integrate huge data collected from different sources. But also it can analyze the type of content users mostly interact with, the products searched for, and each users preferred marketing channel.
The availability of this filtered, structured and simplified analysis of huge data enabled marketers the ability to create data driven marketing campaigns and make intelligent decisions, reduce testing phase and eliminating speculations.
5- Customer Service & Chatbots:
AI plays an important role in leveraging customer satisfaction in multiple phases. Social listening is the process of monitoring consumer conversations on social media and online about your brand which includes feedback, experiences, reviews… Machine learning has helped brands process huge data. This even includes recognizing images that include your brands logo, and intelligently extract relevant conversations.
AI is also used for voice authentication to verify clients and expedite the support process bypassing security and password process.
Deploying AI chat bot support, powered by deep learning and NLU (Natural Language Understanding). NLU is also part of AI and allows the machine to understand human language, analyzing written sentences or voice and interacting with humans. So the AI driven chat bot interacts with customers providing relevant information. This alone solves repetitive questions and queries which account to more than 30% of the support cases and deliver a seamless, and consistent support experience.
6- Predicting Customer Behavior:
Marketers no longer develop strategies to meet customers needs and wants based on their own understanding solely but rather relying on concrete data and information.
AI, specifically deep learning has enabled marketers not only to analyze but also to predict future customer behaviors accurately. This has become possible due to the availability of massive data.
There’s more users Facebook than the population of the United States, China and Brazil combined. Companies are now able to sort huge detailed data like customer interactions, likes and dislikes to identify various metrics that identifies a user behavior. Then transform these findings into actionable insights to connect with their consumers on a deeper level and predict their future actions. Machine Learning’s ability to provide real-time predictive analysis combined with continuous learning is impacting digital marketing immensely.
Today’s Digital Marketing: AI vs Human or AI with Human
AI, machine learning and deep learning are helping marketers build data-driven digital marketing strategies. While brands can leverage AI to optimize their digital marketing, and streamline online business growth. However, brands must know that marketing is still about humans and the value of human interaction is a key to successful marketing.
Want to hire a digital agency to manage your company’s online marketing? Before launching our women-owned digital marketing agency in the mdidle east, my partner and I have worked for multiple agencies in Lebanon, UAE, and Amman for more than 6 years.
Driving growth for local businesses like Abed’s Salon to international organization like World FZO, This period is long enough to come up with a list that will streamline your hiring process to choose the right agency that fits your budget, brand and business.
5 things to consider when hiring the best digital marketing agency in the middle east:
1- Build a relationship :
You need to get to know the person handling your product, not the account manager who signed the deal nor the company’s CEO but the digital manager handling your daily requests. No one knows your company more than you do. If you can explain what you want to achieve, and how you want to position your company directly to that person, then you will ensure the agency is aligned with your business goals.
2- Ask and learn:
Question: Do you know how to replace a video with an image on your website?
Answer: That would require an experienced web developer to use an API. The API will pull data from your website and in 3 working days the image will be replaced.
Truth: It’s all Bullshit! In fact, changing an image requires a minute.
Even if you don’t have digital knowledge, you can ask for a second opinion or simply do a quick google search, you can be surprised of how quick and easy you’ll find answers.
3- Agreements and trust:
Whether you want to create a website, an app or want someone to handle your social media channels. There’s a lot of data at risk. I have seen some agencies that reached to an extent of withholding information or not handing access to the clients after an agreement ends.
4- Price vs Service:
A low cost service isn’t the worse and an expensive one isn’t the best. Research the agency! When did it start? Have they done that before? Do they really know what they are doing? If an agency doesn’t have a functional site for their own agency how do u expect to get a better one.
5- The extra mile
There’s always new trends coming up everyday like the Instagram hashtag follow feature and much more! Choose a digital agency in the middle east that actually keeps up with the trends to get the best results.
Agencies aren’t one size fits all. Hiring the best digital agency in the middle east to fit your business goals is not easy. If you feel that your digital strategy is best handled by a small local agency close to you. Others might feel more comfortable working with a global agency with multiple offices and hundreds of employees. However, The most important thing to remember is that the impact of hiring the right agency on your business and brand is limitless.
Want to grow your business? Get a 20 min Free Consultation, Let’s Talk >>
Google launched Upgraded URLs in AdWords offering marketers and advertisers multiple benefits to edit and track the links in ads that show up on Google search results. If you don’t use tracking, there’s no difference between final URL and destination URL.
The Upgraded URLs means less time will be spent on adjusting URL tracking. In “Destination URLs” which consists of the landing page URL, that people are redirected to once they click on an ad, and the tracking section representing the tracking service. If you need to edit the tracking parameters, the ad URL will change and will be sent back to the editorial review thus will stop running during this review and all data related to the old URL will be lost.
Now in the Upgraded URL, the “Final URL” separates the Destination URL to two parts; Landing page section and Tracking Section. So if you want to update the tracking information at any level; account or campaign or ad group, your ad stats will not be affected.
The Final URL is the web address of the landing page and can include redirects but it will need to match the domain of your display URL.
Tracking Template Parameters and Custome Parameters
Under the advanced “URL Options” You can find the tracking template and the custome parameter fields.
The Tracking template includes the tracking information that will help AdWords understand how to assemble the URLs, in which you can set multiple ValueTrack parameters such as {lpurl}. Managing the URL tracking information can be done on verious levels and a shared tracking template can be used. For example, using a certain tracking template at the account level will apply across all of the URLs within that account.
Custom parameters helps you customize the information you are monitoring in addition to specifying certain values that will be inserted into URLs once an ad click is triggered. For example, to insert “12345” when a specific ad is clicked, a custom parameter is set, {_mycreative} only for this ad. Write: “mycreative” in the custom parameter field to insert 12345 whenever that ad is clicked
The URL upgrade also includes a location-tracking parameter such that advertisers can set up custome parameters to measure ad clicks based on location.
All recorded details about the ad perfomance can be reviewed in Google Analytics or any third-party analytics software. This information will help advertisers track exact information about each click on AdWords ads and will be able to understand where most traffic is coming from and which ads or keywords get the most clicks.
Destination URL is retiring and later this year, the “final URL” will become the only landing page option.
2015 Social Media Map: Update Guide with Live Links
If you are feeling overwhelmed by social media and wondering how to keep track with the latest networks and tools emerging everyday, check out the updated social media map that sums up all you need to know about the evolving social media landscape.
The map has been released by Overdrive Interactive. Its main purpose is to act as a social media reference guide and is organized into categories including a list of:
Social Networks, Social Media Listening, Content Discovery and Curation, Photo Sharing, Wikis , Social Commerce & Payment, Video Sharing, Social Music Networks, Social Media Management & Tracking, Social Reviews, Social Q&A, Social Recruiting, Blogging, Social Travel Networks, Professional Social Networks, Live Streaming, Micro Blogging, Social Gaming, Social Search, Local & Location-Based, International Social Networks, URL Shorteners.
If you are interested in finding any website, mobile app, tool or platform related to social media you will definitely find it here. The interactive map includes live links and is definitely a great reference for marketers to widen their online branding, strategies and marketing channels.
This social media marketing resource is free, you can download the full Map by clicking here.
The term digital marketing also known as internet marketing or e-Marketing refers to the use of different marketing strategies to promote a certain product or service through different forms of digital media and has the ability to give numeric reports and exact results unlike traditional marketing which helps figuring out what works and what not. The internet is the most used channel when it comes to digital marketing others include wireless text messaging, mobile instant messaging, mobile apps, electronic billboards, digital television and radio channels, etc.
The picture below shows the usage of three terms according to Google trends:
The importance of Online Digital Marketing lies in the ability to drive traffic to websites, increasing the number of visitors which in terms will increase revenue, attention, impact, interactivity, and other related goals. When it comes to Digital Marketing the following questions should be answered: What is SEO, Social Media, E Newsletter, Blogging and the impact of it all.
Below is a brief introduction to each section: 101 Intro to Digital Marketing for Beginners.
– SEO: Search Engine Optimization
Search engine optimization is the process of getting traffic from the search engines and into the website. The focus is usually on Google, which holds 80% of the market in addition to Yahoo and Bing. You don’t need to be a developer to understand how it works but if you are then it is much easier. When you open Google and type few keywords, Google will show the most relevant website according to certain measures.
SEO is divided to two sections On-Page optimization and Off-Page optimization and there are two types of SEO strategies: Paid (SEM) vs Organic/Free. Organic or Free is competitive and free yet involves coding and is affected by the number of people visiting the website while Paid includes using Google adwords, which is based on the amount of money invested, the higher you pay for certain keyword combination the higher you rank.
– SMO: Social Media Optimization
SMO is the process of increasing awareness of a service, product or brand by using different social media outlets to achieve viral publicity. The most popular Social Media Platforms are Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, LinkedIn, Instagram, Youtube…. which are web-based and mobile-based technologies used to turn communication to a more interactive form among organizations, communities and individuals. The most popular terms used by those social media platforms are: “Like”, “Follow”, “Connect”. The importance of social media lies in the number of people involved on those networks that surpass one billion users. You can see the picture below showing the number of users on each social network.
– E Newsletter (Email Newsletter)
E-Newsletter is a correspondence sent via email, which is basically a single webpage and is considered one of the most successful mechanisms of communication and eMarketing on the web that really works.
There are two types of E-Newsletters, Emails and Text/Mobile Messaging. E-Newsletter forces you to build a list of emails of people or a community interested in your product or services that is a key to a successful campaign. The power of newsletters lies in maintaining customer relationship and persuading clients to purchase a product or use a service.
– Blogging
A blog is discussion or information site where the user determines the content.It i s an interactive form of publishing content on the web. The most powerful softwares are WordPress and Blogger which belongs to google.
Now what is the impact of all this, in time, the number of visitors will increase and thus helping your business grow.
- 1
- 2