We’ve seen lots of examples of new intelligent search features or conversational agents in the last six months in online retail – from Walmart, Instacart and Amazon, for example. In a recent article, I tried out some AI-powered product discovery features to see how useful they might be for shoppers. And though they each provided distinctive […]
A joint report from Salesforce and the Retail AI Council suggests widespread retailer investment in generative AI – but a lack of structure and guardrails to ensure it is used effectively and above all, ethically.
Nearly two thirds of consumers rank data security as critical to their CX expectations. They want to know their data is being looked after, especially in the hands of generative AI.
Marketing automation is an established tool among data-driven marketers, and this trend looks likely to continue as estimates predict the global marketing automation market will rise from $5.2bn in 2022 to $9.5bn in 2027.[1] Increased uptake, particularly on a global level, is attributed to pushing this growth, but changes and improvements in the tools’ features […]
Once the strategic foundations of a marketing automation approach have been laid, an organisation may progress through to implementing the strategy by following the eight steps outlined in this chapter. Set clear goals and objectives Setting clear goals on what implementing marketing automation is seeking to achieve is a crucial first step in the implementation. […]
To effectively execute a marketing automation programme, it is important to spend time upfront scoping out the role marketing automation could play in an organisation. Building a clear strategic foundation makes it easier to create any necessary internal business cases and move to the next step of implementation. Building this foundation can help create an […]
As with all new tools and technologies, the path to adopting marketing automation is not without challenges. Respondents to Econsultancy’s 2022 Future of Marketing survey foresee a variety of issues in implementing marketing automation, as illustrated in Figure 1. This chapter will explore this in more detail. Econsultancy’s 2022 Future of Marketing survey identified limited […]
Many organisations are using marketing automation to handle tasks that would simply be too laborious or time-consuming for marketers to take on. In this way marketing automation platforms offer major gains in efficiency, which can translate into greater benefits for the business. This chapter considers the most significant benefits offered by marketing automation, and why […]
By automating tasks that would be impossible to complete manually, organisations using marketing automation tools can free their employees to work on more creative or strategic assignments. This chapter provides a definition for marketing automation, looks at how it works within a marketing strategy and outlines the key features of marketing automation platforms. What is […]
Marketing automation refers to a software or set of processes that organisations can use to automate marketing actions such as sending emails, managing customer data or posting social media content that might otherwise be done manually. Marketing automation has been around since the 1990s, when the first automated email campaigns were executed. Since then, the […]
Holistic testing is designed to reveal more about customer motivations and the ‘whys’ behind successful campaigns. It can be implemented as a framework that imparts both a testing structure and a method for applying the results generated from those tests. This chapter discusses how to set up an email testing programme based on this approach. […]
Advances in technology, particularly at the email service provider (ESP) level, should mean that testing becomes more widespread and more affordable. The creation, launch and adoption of AI-based testing tools has also been a major factor in giving marketers more control over the testing process, including allowing direct access to testing and results. Different attributes […]