How Artificial Intelligence Will Impact Online Marketing in 2018

Reading Time: 2 minutes This article was originally published in A1 Retail Magazine — There is no doubt that the gap between customers and salesmen is being transformed by Artificial Intelligence (AI).

Psychology and AI

In ensuring customers engage in more positive, and less overwhelming purchasing behaviours, businesses should offer personalised product recommendations. AI allows retailers to understand customer preferences as it memorises their browsing pages, purchases, likes and clicks. The one size fits phase is suddenly out of fashion. You will no longer have to try and address diverse audiences within a single landing page, as they will be automatically tailored to fit the interests and preferences of your customers. AI in 2018 will also bring SEO-voice activation. All a customer needs to do is take out their phone and talk to it. Businesses need to ensure they are SEO-optimised and come up in top lists of voice search results. Retargeting ads will have real-time applications to benefit your business, and will offer important customer usability. Humans have limited cognitive resources meaning they often rely on cognitive biases to make decisions regarding their behaviour. Developments of AI allow marketers to use cognitive behaviour and guide consumer behaviour more intelligently. If using the principle of urgency or scarcity and their personal agenda is not enough to convince customers, AI has another solution for you – Augmented Reality (AR).

A New Type of Try Before You Buy

AR allows customers to experience your products and services before actually owning them. Commitment and consistency is one of the most persuasive techniques, whereby if we perceive something to be part of our identity for long enough, our desire to appear consistent might sway us into owning it. Most CMO’s know that reviews are one of the best ways to generate leads and the power of AI can now be used to recognise emotion displayed by your customers.

It seems like the evolution of AI will first be preceded with the evolution of actual intelligence in 2018. By taking advantage of this, online marketers will be able to guide their behaviour in desired ways effectively by offering personalised real-time recommendations, enhancing cognitive biases and being interactive.

As marketers, our main goal should be to find the middle ground in which the benefits for marketers are maximised and the welfare and safety of consumers is achieved and always preserved.