What Innovative Uses of Automation Enhance Digital Marketing Efforts?
Martech Interviews
What Innovative Uses of Automation Enhance Digital Marketing Efforts?
We asked twelve marketing experts to share innovative ways they've used automation to enhance their digital marketing efforts. From using AI-powered email personalization to delivering personalized content at scale, here are their insights.
- Use AI-Powered Email Personalization
- Implement AI-Driven Content Generation
- Create a Hyper-Personalized Content Strategy
- Use AI-Powered Chatbots for Engagement
- Craft Ideal Customer Personas with AI
- Automate Abandoned-Cart Recovery Emails
- Automate Off-Market Property Offers
- Drive Conversions with Email Nurture Campaigns
- Collect Contact Information with Chatbots
- Repurpose Long-Form Video Content with AI
- Track and Analyze Behaviors Across Channels
- Deliver Personalized Content at Scale
Use AI-Powered Email Personalization
One innovative way I’ve used automation to boost our digital marketing efforts is through AI-powered email personalization. Instead of the traditional one-size-fits-all approach, I integrated AI tools to create dynamic, personalized email content that adapts to each subscriber’s behavior, preferences, and past interactions with our brand.
For example, the automation tracks what products a customer has shown interest in, how often they engage with our emails, and even what time of day they’re most likely to open them. With this data, we can send highly-targeted emails that recommend products or content tailored to each individual, increasing the likelihood of engagement.
Moreover, automation helps us segment our audience more precisely, allowing us to run multiple personalized campaigns simultaneously without the heavy manual workload. This not only saves time but ensures that every customer feels seen and valued, enhancing their overall experience with our brand.
We’ve seen significant improvements in open rates, click-through rates, and conversions since implementing this approach. The AI-driven insights allow us to continuously refine our strategies, ensuring that our content remains relevant and engaging. It’s a game-changer that makes our marketing efforts more efficient, effective, and in tune with our audience’s needs.
Implement AI-Driven Content Generation
We implemented an AI-driven content generator that automatically adjusts website copy based on user behavior and A/B test results. For one client, we set up dynamic landing pages that change wording, images, and CTAs, depending on how a user interacts with the site. The system continuously refines the approach based on conversion data. This allows us to optimize performance on-the-fly without manually testing every variant. The result has been a significant boost in engagement and a 30% increase in conversions within three months.
Create a Hyper-Personalized Content Strategy
At RecurPost, we used automation to create a hyper-personalized content-distribution strategy that significantly improved our engagement rates. By integrating AI-driven content curation with automated scheduling, we tailored our social media posts to match the peak activity times of our diverse audience segments. This approach allowed us to deliver the right content at the right time, boosting both visibility and interaction.
Furthermore, we automated the process of content recycling, ensuring that high-performing posts are consistently reshared without manual intervention. This not only kept our content relevant and in front of our audience, but also maximized the return on our content investment by driving long-term engagement with minimal effort.
Use AI-Powered Chatbots for Engagement
One innovative way I have improved our digital-marketing efforts through automation is through the use of AI-powered chatbots to engage with individual customers. We've integrated a chatbot into our website that not only answers frequently asked questions, but also uses data analytics to understand user behavior and preferences.
When visitors come to our website, the chatbot will start a conversation based on their browsing history by recommending content or services tailored to their interests. This level of personalization not only improves the user experience, but also significantly increases conversion rates.
Additionally, the chatbot captures lead data in real time and integrates seamlessly with our CRM system to nurture customers through targeted email campaigns. By automating these interactions, we have improved our marketing channels. This allows us to focus on strategy and creativity. Chatbots, on the other hand, handle initial engagement efficiently. This approach has changed the way we connect with potential customers and has optimized our lead-generation process.
Craft Ideal Customer Personas with AI
We have proprietary AI tools that help our clients with creating a digital strategy. One of these tools helps you craft an ideal customer persona or avatar of your perfect client. Our goal is to help our clients create effective ad campaigns whose message will resonate with their target audience and yield ROI. It's a win-win for everyone!
Automate Abandoned-Cart Recovery Emails
An automated email sequence for abandoned-cart recovery is one of the innovative ways we’ve used automation to improve our digital marketing at CabochonsForSale. Once products sit in the customer’s cart, the automation initiates a set of customized emails, bringing back attention to the items they were drawn to.
The email sent within one hour of abandonment arrives with a cheery reminder and a tangible call-to-action to complete their initial purchase. Should there be no response, a second email is sent one day later, presenting a small incentive like free shipping or a discount on the items.
This automation serves to recover lost sales and increase customer connection. We’ve observed a 15% rise in cart-recovery rates thanks to this strategy, as it provides customers with a gentle prod and occasional rewards.
If you are someone hoping to boost digital marketing with automation, I would recommend focusing on important user interactions, including abandoned carts and post-purchase correspondence, where customized automated messages can deliver measurable results.
Automate Off-Market Property Offers
Check out Make.com! We use it to power all of our automations at Playbook Automations. A majority of our clients are in the real estate industry, and many are leveraging our automated LOI (Letter-of-Intent-to-Purchase) or BOV (Broker’s-Opinion-of-Value) generator.
Essentially, this automation sends out offers to off-market and on-market property lists, targeting sellers and agents directly. It operates by using an HTTP request to pull data from popular property tools, automatically underwrites the property according to the client’s criteria, and sends an email with the BOV or LOI attached.
We’re seeing around a 44% reply rate, compared to the industry average of about 15%, which is a testament to how effective these automations are.
Drive Conversions with Email Nurture Campaigns
I have found that automated email-nurture campaigns are a powerful tool for driving conversions and enhancing the customer experience. The foundation for this is good, clean data. This allows me to segment my list based on demographics, business type, and purchase behavior to deliver highly targeted, relevant content.
For example, I have automated email campaigns for new subscribers, abandoned carts, and customers who have made a recent purchase. These campaigns provide valuable information, offer exclusive discounts, and encourage repeat business. By testing and tracking KPIs, I'm able to continuously optimize my email campaigns and improve results from digital-marketing efforts.
Collect Contact Information with Chatbots
ManyChat. I use this for my business and my clients all of the time. Whenever someone comments a specific word on social media, ManyChat will send an automatic DM to them with a lead magnet. This has been a game-changer for collecting people's contact information.
Repurpose Long-Form Video Content with AI
We are currently taking our long-form video content, transcribing it with AI, and having it rewritten for shorter-form platforms. This allows us to keep our tone of voice consistent and ensures the output is in line with the longer-form content it relates to. In some instances, we are also reviewing it against our tone of voice documents before passing it to the team for final revision.
This saves us a significant amount of time and allows us to have multiple jumping-off points for our team to choose from and finesse, if needed.
Track and Analyze Behaviors Across Channels
Automation in digital marketing efforts has dramatically progressed beyond triggered email sends, scoring, or assignment rules. It is a critical component in the foundation of an efficient, insightful, and scalable go-to-market growth engine. By leveraging AI and machine learning, we can track and analyze behaviors across channels to identify purchase intent earlier in the journey. This enables more precise segmentation and timely engagement to ensure we are targeting the right prospects at the optimal moment. Taking it a step further, we can aggregate these insights into actionable reports, providing visibility into how intent is evolving, which tactics are driving engagement, and how programs are having an impact on the business. By integrating technology and process, we can significantly reduce manual work, improve program agility, and ultimately drive better revenue outcomes.
Deliver Personalized Content at Scale
Personalization is key to building strong customer connections, but doing it manually takes too much time. Automation lets you deliver personalized content at scale without the heavy lifting. By using data like browsing behavior or past purchases, you can automatically trigger tailored emails, ads, or SMS that feel custom-made for each customer. AI even helps adapt messaging in real time based on what people do. This not only streamlines your efforts—it gives customers a better experience by showing them exactly what they’re looking for, right when they need it, in ways that simply weren’t possible before.