• by Jess Nelson , December 26, 2017

Only 11% of marketers believe their budget is spent effectively, according to a WorkSpan study released earlier this month. But artificial intelligence can help make email marketers more efficient.

WorkSpan enlisted Propeller Insights to poll 100 American marketing executives, at a level of vice president or above, on how they measured campaign success. The results suggests that a majority of marketers believe their advertising budgets are not optimized, with digital marketing, product marketing, and partner marketing highlighted as the top three concerns of senior-level marketers.

Email marketing is the most cost-effective marketing channel currently available, and it’s the perfect conduit for digital, product and partner marketing. Further, email marketing can be enhanced with tools driven by artificial intelligence, helping free marketing resources for other projects. 

“Marketers can better leverage customer segmentation to design marketing campaigns that deliver true personalization,” adds Allen Nance, CMO at Emarsys.

Emarsys is a marketing cloud vendor for B2C companies, and its email marketing solution includes AI-driven content and product recommendations for more personalized messaging at scale. Additional email product capabilities include A/B testing, mobile optimization, triggered email campaigns, and dynamic content that populates the moment an email is opened. 

Nance argues that artificial intelligence improves email marketing by automating monotonous tasks, improving workflows and automatically delivering personalized emails at scale.

“A.I. will ease [marketers’] burdens by tackling ‘machine-like’ tasks and leaving people to spend more time on interesting marketing aspects, such as creative, content and strategy,” he says.

Nance asserts that A.I. will become critical to building brand loyalty in the years to come. He recommends marketers ensure their data is ready for A.I.in 2018.

"A.I. cannot deliver desirable results if your customer data is disorganized or dirty,” says Nance. “Spend time on cleaning up your data, refining how you’re obtaining the data, where your data lives, and manage its upkeep.” 

In order to secure buy-in from the C-Suite, Nance says marketer should s be ready to show how an A.I. marketing investment will support customer experience, acquisition and retention. Illustrating how artificial intelligence aligns with larger business objectives is important to ensure adoption across an entire marketing team. “It’s hard for AI to work its magic in silos.”