It’s that magical time of year when people everywhere come together amongst the twinkling lights and Christmas tunes and remember just how wonderfully… horrendous shopping can be. If you’re reading this article, chances are it’s a welcome relief from the alternative (a department store) or you’re scarred by your first foray into the nation’s high streets. If you’re like me, every year you tell yourself that next year you’ll do it all online. But old habits die hard, and once again, we will find ourselves deploying a combination of well-thought-out online shopping and the frenzied last-minute dash to John Lewis.

This week everything comes to a crescendo as shoppers mobilise en-masse for Black Friday, which seems to have become the starting gun for the annual epic Christmas shopping extravaganza. Beginning in the US, when retailers noticed a sales spike on the first Friday following Thanksgiving, since 2005 Black Friday has routinely been the single biggest day for retailers stateside. More recently, other countries have followed suit. In the UK last year consumers spent £5.8 billion over the four days between Black Friday and Cyber Monday according to the Centre for Retail Research.

While the opportunity to benefit from a spike in revenue is huge, this highly competitive world can be a retailer’s nightmare when it comes to predicting and capitalising on consumer behaviour. One moment a shopper could be online casually browsing TVs, aftershave or Peppa Pigs. The next, they’re in a store shouting “WHERE ARE THE SNOODS!?”. It’s hard to keep up.

It’s estimated that most digital users, create around 700 megabytes of data each day. Over the course of a year, that’s a pretty sizeable digital footprint that includes information about who we are, as well as what products we prefer or avoid. It’s more than enough data for retailers to know when consumers are most likely to be in the mood to make a purchase and what’s likely to convince us. But all this information is useless without the right technology to organise it into something meaningful. For larger retailers who count their shoppers in the millions, it’s impossible for any human to process the amount of data created by all its customers and make it actionable. And don’t forget, it’s not just digital attributes and data points. Retailers have been collecting customer information through CRM, loyalty cards, checkout transactions and email addresses in-store for decades now. Many are wondering how anything can be done with it.

Advances in technology, specifically artificial intelligence, are painting an entirely different Christmas scene, to that of irate shoppers marauding through our towns and cities. For the first time AI is making it possible to predict the potential of every online moment for a prospective customer so that retailers can finally utilise oceans of data to deliver relevant offers and ads to the people who are most likely to act on them – and all without them having to leave the house. For example, with AI-powered, predictive marketing, we can analyse millions of data points in real time to identify who will want a product, when they will be most likely to buy it and the creative or offer that will convert them at that moment.

AI also gives retailers the opportunity to make each moment throughout the customer journey more effective and engaging. By combining the functions of media and creative, and optimising these across all channels, it becomes possible to predictively tell stories that are most relevant to each individual and create more compelling, personal, relevant brand experiences. And that can make all the difference to retailers competing for consumers’ elusive attention this Christmas when they’re more interested in creating an Elf Yourself greetings card.

Research has found that personalisation in retailing can boost sales by 15 – 20%. In a recent survey by Harris24 commissioned by Sizmek, Almost half of those surveyed (49%) said they would be more likely to engage with a digital ad for a Black Friday deal if it was personalised to their preferences, featuring brands or products they are interested in. This figure rose to 73% among those aged between 18 and 34. Given how competitive retail is right now, that boost to revenue could be the difference between a bleak Christmas and survive the January slump to sell Hatchimals to crazed last-minute shoppers next year.

When it comes to digital advertising, implementing AI is no longer optional. It should be on every organisation’s Christmas list for increased efficiency and marketing ROI in 2018. In order for retailers to survive in a very crowded, competitive market (and for the collective sanity of the nation’s shoppers), it’s time we made use of the data we’ve all been adding to our wishlist for so long. Not only will this enable brands to increase online conversions and access unprecedented levels of insights, for the consumer it means better experiences, more personalisation and ads that are welcomed – especially when you’re trying to find that gift for granny, sister, dad or daughter. Speaking of which, can someone tell me what a Snood is?

The post Black Friday 2017: When it Comes to Customer Data, be Careful What You Add to Your Wishlist appeared first on PerformanceIN.

In April, Facebook gave the world a glimpse into the work of its ‘moonshot’ unit, Building 8, as it explores the possibility of understanding the human mind through sensor-based technology. The department is working on a ‘brain-to-computer’ interface that would allow humans to send thoughts straight to a PC or laptop, and technology that can ‘hear’ or absorb language through vibrations on a person’s skin.

The insights from these studies will be particularly significant for marketing professionals, because their success depends on an in-depth understanding of the desires, motivations and behaviour of consumers in order to create personalised, relevant and persuasive messages. But what many of them may not realise is that technology built to detect the emotional state of consumers online with impressive accuracy is actually already working.

Bridging the gap

Although an era in which advertisers can respond automatically to raw human emotions is some time away, artificial intelligence is bridging the gap between customer experiences and the way people feel at a particular moment. AI is being used to learn the behaviour of existing users and analyse trillions of data points before predicting the exact time and place a consumer is likely to respond to an ad. 

Although it might not be able to detect for certain whether a user is angry, happy or in the mood to spend, it can process oceans of data in real time and identify the moments that tell us when they are likely to be receptive to a brand’s message, product or promotion. Do they work nine to five? Are they a sports fan who relaxes with an iPad and a beer on a Saturday afternoon? Or a London-based 20-something who shops for accessories late at night? Every moment consumers interact online paints a unique picture of who they are and when they want to receive communications from brands.

Artificial intelligence helps us identify these patterns and provides the ability to predict the next step in a customer journey. Not only does this make advertising scalable, efficient and cost-effective, it solves a problem that traditional marketing has failed to adequately address in the past – how to really deliver the right information, to the right person, at the right time.

Data that is shared by others or inaccurate data along with too much focus on tight segmentation have limited the capabilities of brands to reach the right audience. This has made consumers increasingly immune to poorly-targeted advertising campaigns, causing them to block – either mentally or technologically – the many unwanted messages they get each day. By taking a more ‘predictive’ approach and using AI, marketers get to solve both of these problems; they no longer need to put limits and constraints on the customers they reach and at the same time can deliver adverts that resonate, rather than irritate.

“New normal”

We recently discovered consumers actually value advertising when it helps them to find the products and services they want. In Rocket Fuel’s global Perceptions of AI study, two-thirds of consumers – and as much as 80% of millennial audiences – said they see the benefit of artificial intelligence in providing personalised advertising and offers. This is evidence that the use of technology to present people with relevant messaging or advertising is becoming the new normal.

What many performance marketers don’t realise is that this ‘holy grail’ is within their reach. Successful advertising that delivers relevant messaging is dependent on smart data and the right technology to help organise and utilise the information. With artificial intelligence, we can use owned data, not bought, to learn the behaviour of customers, then search near-infinite profiles of people who display the same characteristics online. More robust data directly translates to more accurate audience targeting and timing, and subsequently increases the likelihood of customer conversion.

In addition, we can identify the precise moments – based on their lifestyle, character traits and likely mood – to deliver advertising that people are happy to receive. This level of personalisation is rewarded with higher levels of engagement, brand awareness and ROI along with a lower cost per acquisition.

Changing marketing

Much like the innovative work Facebook is doing, artificial intelligence-based marketing is about the deep understanding of people – their needs, preferences and even emotions. With machine learning we can gain more granular insight into what drives consumers to act, click or make a purchase and then use the same technology to reach the right individual, not just their device. After all, smartphones don’t buy things – people do. We can also focus on the moment they are likely to take action, rather than targeting outdated or restrictive segments. And we can do it all automatically, at scale and at speed.

This transformation changes the way marketers and their agencies will think about their business and develop their marketing strategies going forward. For the end user it means brand experiences that anticipate their frame of mind and the moments in which they’re happy to respond. Meanwhile, organisations and marketing teams gain more control, enjoy more engagement, reduce wasted ad opportunities and make that all-important connection with their customers, whether it’s skin deep or not.

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