Start from a position of strength
Of all a company’s functions, marketing has perhaps the most to gain from AI, and one of the greatest marketing use cases for AI is personalization. AI can streamline sales processes by using extremely detailed data to create highly personalized and targeted products, service offers and, in the case of Kroger, digital display ads.
As MMA has also found in its yet-to-be-released “State of AI in Marketing and CX” 2023 study, 75% of marketers are either experimenting with or scaling up AI-powered personalization and activation initiatives. That tops all other categories, including measurement (67%), customer service support (58%) and strategy and planning (52%).
Rex Briggs—who is credited with inventing multi-touch attribution and brand lift studies, and led the MMA Global research project—said one reason for the industry’s focus on personalization is AI’s ability to break away from a one-size-fits-all, non-inclusive approach to advertising.
“We know that people are incredibly diverse, and that our needs change by day and by hour,” Briggs said. “So having a system that can learn from those patterns and give us the advertising message that’s most relevant and responsive to that pattern is why we see such a lift in performance.”
Before undertaking this project, Briggs and MMA had expected to see traffic increases of between 30% and 60%, but based on Kroger’s results, they have since revised their expectations. They now believe companies can expect to see a 90% to 110% increase in traffic to ecommerce pages when AI is used for dynamic creative optimization and the right strategies are employed.
The lesson for marketers: While the economic environment is forcing CMOs to focus more on ROI in a cookieless world, AI is enabling more personalized and trackable marketing. Marketers should double down on what has worked before and what continues to drive meaningful results.