Artificial Intelligence (AI) is growing in popularity among email marketers as it saves time and helps maximise email marketing strategies.
Using AI technology can improve your email marketing, but it’s important to remember that it’s not there to take over your strategy. Instead, it provides time-saving solutions, while humans are still very much in control.
Some people imagine AI as some sort of ‘rise of the machines’ scenario where robots could be programmed to orchestrate brilliant marketing campaigns. I wish!
The reality, while still new and exciting, is a little less dramatic – you’re still in charge with AI but it’s a really handy tool to deploy on your campaigns.
While AI-powered technology is still partly in the idea phase, there are already some tools available to help improve email marketing, and many brands are adopting AI email practices.
Here are some of the ways in which AI technology can improve your email marketing:
Personalised send time
Even if you’ve found the peak send time for your campaigns, not all your subscribers will open your email at that time. Every one of your subscribers has different habits and preferences for opening, deleting, and acting on emails.
AI technology analyses their past behaviour in engaging with emails and can help email marketers optimise the send time for each individual subscriber. So, while most recipients could be reading your emails first thing when they wake up, the rest could be receiving theirs during the afternoon, or later at night during the ad breaks or gaps between their favourite series.
Email content
A/B testing or split-test campaigns, while an important practice, is one of the most time consuming. AI can help you learn more quickly what combination of content will work – from body content in the layout, to images and attention-grabbing subject lines.
Writing a snappy subject line can be the trickiest part of crafting a campaign, as you have just a few seconds to grab the recipient’s attention. Phrasee, for example, is an AI-powered tool that analyses email subject lines. It recommends subject lines that are likely to lead to opens. The tool is said to out-perform subject lines written by humans 98% of the time.
Personal product recommendations
Sending personal product recommendations can increase customer loyalty and improve conversions. And while it’s a practice worth committing to, hand-picking products yourself is just too time consuming.
AI technology comes in by analysing users’ online activity, purchase patterns, and shopping history to send tailored emails with personal product recommendations. As a result, this type of personalisation can increase click-through rates leading to a boost in sales.
In fact, Amazon generated 35 percent of its revenue from onsite and email product recommendations according to McKinsey & Company, the global management and consulting firm.
As we can see, by using data about the habits of subscribers, AI technology can be used to improve personalisation — something which has become a top priority in email marketing best practices.
AI expedites the gruelling process of tailoring and scheduling emails, giving you more time to focus on the creative side of campaigns.
But remember that AI is not doing the work for you. While it can analyse data faster and more thoroughly than humans, your own analysis will determine what’s working, so you can decide how to maximise your email marketing strategy.
No machines rising here!