AI: a fundamental ally for a brand to dazzle during Black Week and Christmas
The Christmas season is a key moment for retailers and brands, with the top 40% of companies earning more than 10% of their annual revenue through e-commerce. Although consumers tend to increasingly advance their purchases, 71% plan to buy online during Black Friday, and 70% will actively look for offers during Cyber Week. Google also reveals that 20% of Christmas spending occurs in the 10 days before Christmas.
Faced with this panorama, brands must ask themselves: How can I get buyers to choose my products in this very competitive period?
If we target Generation Z or millennials, we know that they prefer to do their Christmas shopping in physical stores. However, Generation X and baby boomers tend to opt for online shopping. Besides, 37% of consumers will combine purchases at both physical points of sale and online. What’s interesting is that 2 in 5 people plan to use AI to locate the products they want.
Facilitating the discovery of new products and speeding up the search for the best deals are crucial aspects for consumers who will turn to AI in their purchasing decisions. Today, marketers have the responsibility of optimizing the increasingly complex customer journey, and AI can be a key tool in this process.
The study ‘Putting the AI in retail 2024’ by NP Digital summarizes consumer expectations during this season of maximum advertising pressure and shows us how to meet, or even exceed, them with the best digital marketing strategy.
1. Omnichannel shopping
It is essential that our brand accompanies the consumer throughout their daily journey. 76% of online consumers use, on average, more than three channels throughout the day. Increasingly, the discovery, consideration and purchase phases are carried out on social networks, which makes it essential that we are present in these environments to capture the attention of our potential customers.
2. Attractive offers
Last year, 2 in 3 shoppers delayed their purchases until retailers offered discounts. In the United States, 66% of consumers consider that competitive prices and promotions are their main motivation when deciding on their Christmas purchases.
3. Shopping anytime, anywhere
The mobile phone is, without a doubt, king these days. It is estimated that, during the Christmas season, purchases made through mobile devices will exceed those made from computers or laptops. In fact, mobile transactions are expected to represent 53.2% of online purchases this holiday season. Also, not all purchases will be gifts: 50% of Christmas shoppers will also shop for themselves during this period.
4. Personalized experiences
Consumers increasingly value tailored offers that fit their needs, preferences and personal tastes. 75% of buyers are willing to pay more for personalized online shopping experiences that truly add value.
To meet or even exceed these expectations, AI becomes an essential ally, allowing brands to grow quickly, efficiently and accurately. But how can retailers make the most of this technology? Below are some of its key applications:
1. Prepare for the season
AI can provide demand forecasts by analyzing historical sales data, internet search trends, social media conversations, or external factors such as the weather. With this information, it is possible to detect which products will be the most requested and adjust prices dynamically, based on demand, competition and inventory levels. In this way, retailers can stay competitive and maximize margins, in addition to designing more focused marketing campaigns, using enriched customer profiles thanks to AI’s ability to synthesize data from various sources.
2. AI on the web
Incorporating AI functionalities into our websites can generate important benefits:
- Design a more dynamic user experience (UX), further personalizing interaction with users, which can multiply the return on marketing investment by 5 to 8 times and increase sales by more than 10%.
- Increase conversions through programmatic conversion optimization (CRO).
- Listen to users so they get the information they are looking for quicklyoptimizing product descriptions based on the most common consumer comments.
- Integrate technologies such as Augmented Reality or virtual tests, that allow buyers to view items in real life without leaving home. It is estimated that these technologies can increase sales by up to 30% and reduce returns by 20%.
3. AI in email marketing campaigns
Email marketing influences 59% of purchasing decisions. Although the average open rate is 16.97% across all sectors, AI can help improve these numbers. AI systems are revolutionizing email marketing by optimizing sending times and personalizing content to increase engagement and conversion rates, reducing cart abandonment. Additionally, AI allows multiple email subject variations to be generated and tested and adapts to individual user preferences over time.
As if that were not enough, AI is also essential to perform predictive analysis, automate A/B tests and analyze campaign performance.
4. AI in ads
According to an analysis by NP Digital, human-generated creatives outperformed AI-generated ones in 68.3% of cases. However, AI was able to improve the conversion rate by 75.7%. This analysis consisted of running different ad sets on Facebook for 28 companies, taking the winning variations created by humans and allowing the AI to generate multiple versions of these. Variants created by AI won 75.7% of the time, showing that by applying AI in advertising creative, conversion increases considerably.
5. AI in social media campaigns
Social networks have become the new search engines. 80% of users discover new products on platforms such as Instagram, TikTok and YouTube thanks to hashtags, influencer posts or videos. For this Christmas, it is expected that 20% of consumers will buy gifts through social networks. NP Digital recommends taking advantage of the AI tools that each platform offers.
On TikTok, for example, you can use the Symphony Creative Studiowhich generates attractive videos that highlight products, with voiceovers in several languages.
For influencer marketing campaigns, AI helps find the most suitable partners, personalize content, predict campaign performance and optimize it in real time. Additionally, chatbots play an important role, as conversations through platforms like Facebook Messenger generate 30% more return on investment (ROI) than retargeting ads.
6. AI in product discovery
For a brand to be mentioned by AI models like ChatGPT, NP Digital has identified six key factors: relevance, brand mentions, reviews, history, authority and recommendations. They also recommend focusing on image and voice searches, allowing users to interact with search engines more naturally, using spoken language and images instead of written text. 50% of US consumers use voice assistants daily, and Google Lens processes more than 10 billion visual searches per month.
To optimize voice search strategies, you can use colloquial keywords, focus on local businesses (76% of voice searches are of this type), and adapt ad texts so that they are clear and direct, suitable for being read aloud by virtual assistants.
Regarding visual search, it is advisable to take advantage of dynamic ads, exploit tools such as Performance Max from Google and perform advanced segmentation based on previous use of technologies such as Lens or Pinterest.
Conclusions
- Retailers and e-commerce face a highly competitive commercial season.
- Being present on all channels is essential to capture attention and drive sales.
- Adopting AI is essential to optimize campaigns and achieve success.
About NP Digital:
Co-founded by Neil Patel, New York Times best-selling author and one of the most influential professionals in the world of marketing according to The Wall Street Journal and Forbes, NP Digital is a performance marketing agency focused on offering solutions to large and medium-sized companies. companies with great growth objectives. Supported by its technology division and the Ubersuggest marketing platform, NP Digital has positioned itself as one of the fastest growing and internationally recognized agencies in the industry. Their approach to marketing is consultative and holistic, applying specialized solutions to cross-cutting business challenges, which makes them strategic partners for their clients, among others: Fortune 500 companies and leaders in their sectors and regions. NP Digital has a presence in 19 countries with more than 800 employees worldwide.
For more information visit npdigital.com/es o neilpatel.com/es/
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