Marketing: The Art of converting data into strategies and results

Ton Carrera by Ton Carrera
Marketing: The Art of converting data into strategies and results

The data, and how it is used, have evolved enormously, which has meant the opening of a new horizon of possibilities for Marketing. Techniques for collecting, storing, and gaining insight from data have greatly improved. The use of data is not something new, but the integration of AI techniques for the improvement of campaigns is. The bias between companies that use data more statically and manually compared to those that use automated systems with AIs is beginning to be noticeable. Without a doubt, the time will come when it will be almost impossible to compete in the market without highly specialized and trained AI systems.

Data has always been an essential tool for Marketing, although we now have much more powerful collection, storage and processing systems. With the growing interest in Big Data, Machine Learning, Deep Learning and AIs in general, a new horizon for Marketing has opened, as well as new challenges to overcome. The market evolves, this is nothing new, towards a real-time competition system in which AIs have a very important role. When designing digital campaigns, it is essential to modify them every time in shorter times to adapt to the decisions of the competitors and to the fluctuations in the preferences and attention of consumers. You have to observe the strategies and thousands of data inputs that are constantly changing.

Integrating IAs, which help us in management and decision making, greatly improves the quality of our results.

AIs make decisions that eliminate subjective bias and value thousands or millions of data. Determining the best decision no longer depends so much on the best pre-established strategy but on the best developer of decision-making algorithms. The campaigns go through different phases of testing, growth and maintenance. These phases are not so far from the process of evolution of an AI that has to be designed, trained, tested and optimized when it has already been put into real operation. The decisions of AIs are faster and consider the objectives as a whole, they do not forget any data, or they always forget it, so errors are easily corrected and, by nature, not repetitive.

Marketing competition will occur between AIs beyond people

We can affirm that with the evolution of AIs in the Marketing world, we will find an important barrier to future entry for those companies that decide not to use them. Experience and market knowledge is essential to compete on equal terms. The AIs, which are currently being developed and growing, are accumulating millions of data on which they base their decisions. We should never forget that a computer does not forget and can quickly access records that the human mind has already been able to discard or forget.

Marketing experts will have to become experts in data and algorithms to design not so much their strategies but to prepare their systems to face the market in the best way. Such instruction will, of course, require knowledge of the sector and the most traditional techniques that will be used quickly and, sometimes, adapted to each situation. The greater the presence of AIs in the world of marketing, the greater the need to make quick decisions and the valuation of a greater number of data in real time. We can expect that the application of quasi-static strategies will tend to disappear, not only due to increased competition but also due to the rapid change in the tastes and preferences of the society to whom they are directed.