Always watching: How AI knows your customer better than they know themselves
Artificial Intelligence (AI) has recently been coming into conversations in many industries, but the reality is that it has been in our lives, collecting and analyzing data of our everyday behaviors. This data is now the perfect tool for marketing.
AI watches you shop online
Artificial Intelligence collecting data on your online shopping should come as no surprise at all. Whatever you buy and even how you pay is data stored. AI uses a lot of it for your convenience. For instance, if you purchase something on Amazon, for example, it may suggest something you bought previously to accompany your order. AI can also recommend product pairings based on the combined purchases of other shoppers.
At the same time, as AI is serving you, it is recording and categorizing your behaviors. It knows what you browsed while logged into your online account. AI knows what you purchased and how you paid. It starts analyzing all of that data, recognizing familiar patterns and behaviors. All of that information can be used to provide options to connect to you in a meaningful way.
AI watches you shop in town
When shopping anywhere, using a credit or debit card creates a record of your purchase right down to each item. As a shopper, it is highly convenient that some stores can recall your purchase details if you used a card for payment. If the purchase receipt was lost, recalling that purchase can save the day.
At the same time, those purchase details now go across several markets and stores that you frequent and shop. It is tracking the items themselves, the time windows you like to buy, and the frequency of those item purchases. This data can help marketers come up with which product will catch your attention that comes at just the right time for you to purchase.
One of the most ingenious methods to collect customer data is by the use of discount cards. They are especially popular with grocery stores, but also many other companies that promote a customer loyalty discount program. To activate the discount card, you open an account and provide them a small amount of personal information. This information may contain your name, location, contact information, and gender, to name a few. It may be more, and it may be less. In exchange for providing you a discounted purchase, AI is using your purchase data. It starts to understand what you look for as a customer, and it can target specific promotions directly to you and others with similar interests.
No need to be alarmed
The typical uses in retail are a balanced benefit approach. As a customer, you benefit from discounts and special promotions. The merchandizer benefits by using the data of your purchased items and behaviors. This data is used individually or collectively with others, depending on the query. The merchant gains a keen understanding of their best sellers, peak purchasing hours, and ideal customers. The merchants may then use this data to make the most of their marketing budget to gain the interest of their best customers! This data may be used to identify their worst sellers when it’s time to trim the product line, as well.
AI lurks on the internet
The internet records all of your activities to use in several ways. The different browsers available to use are collecting your behaviors and destinations for use for several purposes.
Search engine optimization (SEO)
Every website visit along with the landing pages and duration to time spent is recorded with the browser application. This data is used to validate websites as legitimate and active sites. The popularity of each site by way of quantity and duration of visits ranks the website’s popularity. That ranking benefits the website by their ordered position in a list of keyword results. For this reason, websites invite readers to visit their website by way of special promotions, new products, blogs, and other information valuable to their audience.
Recalled interest
As you browse the internet pages and spend time on something, you may find it mentioned on entirely different pages for a couple of days. Some companies may pay for data to assist them in targeting potential customers based on browsing behavior to likely be interested in their company and product or service. A perfect example is looking up items on Amazon, and those same items show up on your Facebook feed.
Just for entertainment
When accessing different content pages or free games, there is often a window or checkbox that appears that you agree to terms and conditions. These terms and conditions usually stipulate how the owner of the content intends to use your data. Most will troll your Facebook account (or whatever platform you accessed them from) for key information or present a form for you to provide them with the data they seek in exchange to access to the freebie you were hoping to play or browse.
While most of these applications engage in harmless practices collecting data algorithms, there has been recent news that some allegations of particular Facebook games involving in an overreach of gathering members’ personal information right down to photographs. If you are sensitive to your data being used outside of your present platform, be sure to scan those authorization forms and decide if it’s worth seeing what you will look like 20 years from today or how your face looks when morphed with your dog.
Personality profiling
Artificial intelligence analyzes your behaviors, verbiage, and tone of writing determining your personality type. That kind of data helps communications to you, aiding writers to adjust their writing to best appeal to your personality type. They can do this by changing their tone of language, right down to specific words to use.
Now back to your business
In thinking of your own business, I hope you’ve thought as you read how you might benefit from some of this data. Using AI is a beautiful way to identify potential customers, so you can direct your marketing to bring them to you before they even realize they need you. AI is just one piece of the puzzle. Joseph Studios can help you customize your marketing through AI and other organic means to identify and relate to your potential customers. Let’s talk about how we can get you noticed!
