AI - The next game changer in email marketing for 2024

By Anatolii Riabyi for Marketing Boerse

32% of survey respondents already use AI and marketing automation for email messages and offers. And with technologies like ChatGPT taking the digital world by storm, the number of companies recognizing the value of artificial intelligence is set to skyrocket in the coming years.

But what does the increasing availability of AI technology mean for email marketing? And how will it change the way marketers around the world work?

In this article, the MySignature team will explore how AI technology can help email marketers today and in the near future. But first, let's answer the most important question: Can AI take over the work of human marketers in the foreseeable future?

Can AI replace email marketers?

If you want to find out whether AI will take over the world of email marketing, the best place to start is at the source. And here's what ChatGPT had to say when asked if there are any plans to replace humans:

Despite widespread concern, it appears that AI has no plans to replace marketers any time soon. While it's hard to predict the capabilities of AI in the future, many of the creative aspects required to run email campaigns cannot yet be accomplished without human input.

AI still has the potential to improve the work of experienced marketers and make email marketing campaigns more efficient and effective.

How can AI help with email marketing?

The number of potential applications of AI in email marketing is difficult to quantify. The technology is still in its infancy, which means it will be a long time before marketers run out of ideas on how to use the technology to create a better (and more profitable) email experience.

Still, most of the current applications of AI in email marketing can be divided into a few main categories. These categories are by no means definitive, but they can highlight the key benefits of AI that could benefit you today or in the years to come.

Personalization

Just a decade ago, for many marketers, personalization meant using the recipient's first name in the email. Today, there are a number of helpful email personalization options that most experienced marketers have already used or considered. 

But AI promises to take the possibilities of personalization to a new level.

Their ability to analyze large amounts of customer data is already changing the way email marketing campaigns are run. Before the introduction of AI, the ability to segment was limited not only by the data available, but also by the marketer's ability to make and execute decisions based on the data. 

Meanwhile, AI can analyze the data and take into account countless variables to deliver personalized email content at a level more comprehensive than anything a human could do. According to Rebecca Herson , Vice President of Marketing at Anodot, AI is essential in this space:

There is simply so much data being generated that a human cannot even look through it all. When we analyze historical data for companies we introduce Anodot to, they sometimes learn about things they didn't know. Of course, companies know when servers are down, but if you have a funnel that is leaking in multiple places, it can be difficult to find all the problems.

Automation

Another important area that AI can impact is automation. Part of this has to do with the personalization capabilities, but it's also about getting rid of a lot of the manual work that's typically associated with setting up an email campaign.

For example, AI tools can automatically adjust campaigns and make timely recommendations about what could be done better. AI’s ability to optimize and improve effectiveness at scale is something that is difficult to replicate manually.  

However, there are still many areas of AI technology that need to be improved before it can fully replace human input and analysis in developing funnels, email sequences, and specific strategies to solve email problems.

optimization

If there's one area where AI is already very effective, it's optimizing performance through various incremental improvements that can make a big difference over time.

AI can analyze and track the performance of different variables in an email campaign, such as email signatures for Outlook or Gmail , test different approaches, and analyze the data to make informed decisions about what works best. Changes can range from optimizing subject lines to testing different offers to determining the best time to send an email to different audiences.

AI can also make real-time optimizations to increase the likelihood of your emails reaching the inboxes of different ICPs.9 Scenarios for Using AI in Email Marketing

It's easy to get excited about the potential of AI in email marketing, but marketers are just beginning to discover the technology's specific applications in their campaigns.

Here is a list of potential scenarios where AI could become an indispensable tool that increases performance, leads to more sales, and keeps your subscribers happy.

Create compelling subject lines

64% of people decide whether to open an email based on the subject line. And that makes it one of the most important parts of an email that you can improve.

But for most marketers, coming up with different ideas and angles for an email subject line can be stressful. Over time, you may have used most of the ways to target your subscribers with the subject line, so your ideas may seem repetitive.

But AI doesn't have this problem. It can evaluate an unlimited amount of data and find a range of email subject lines that may be appropriate for the situation. 

Today, an experienced copywriter is still required to evaluate ideas and select the ones that work best. You also need someone to optimize the email subject lines and make them more suitable for your target audience. But some companies are already experimenting with subject lines generated entirely by AI, and this trend is set to continue.

Faster copywriting

The American Marketing Association (AMA) is using an AI copywriting tool to create newsletter content for its 100,000 subscribers, which is quite remarkable. By using AI newsletter analytics and personalization techniques, the AMA can tailor headlines and content to each subscriber's preferences.

If you want to use AI beyond the subject lines of your emails, that's becoming more and more realistic too. With the introduction of tools like Jasper, Lavender, and ChatGPT, you can now feed a trained AI platform specific instructions and get it to compose the entire email. 

You can even fully customize the instructions by informing the AI ​​about the audience, tone, goals, and other parameters to consider. You can then have the email revised as many times as necessary until you are satisfied with the result.

Dhruv Patel, co-founder of Saleshandy

AI can use natural language processing (NLP) algorithms to analyze and understand the content of existing emails and recipients' preferences. It can generate personalized email content and provide suggestions for subject lines, greetings, and closing words. AI can also make text suggestions based on the recipient's interests and behavior, speeding up email creation. By automating content creation with AI, you can save time and increase the efficiency of email marketing campaigns.

Most marketers today are obviously not ready to send fully AI-written emails to their target audience. But that doesn't mean you can't use it to generate ideas by taking the basic structure and refining it to make it more suitable for your own situation.

The biggest advantage of using artificial intelligence to create email copy is that it can save you and your editorial team a lot of time. Lack of time is one of the biggest bottlenecks when sending a large number of emails to a large number of lists. And this is where AI can come in and help you create better emails faster.

Personalize your email text

Email is primarily a communication tool and not a marketing tool. But for communication to be engaging, it must feel personal and relevant to the recipient. This is why emails that use the right personalization elements tend to be more effective and drive more engagement. 

This used to require marketers to figure out how to add personalization elements to their emails, but today that's no longer the only way. 

Today's leading AI tools can leverage your data and find new ways to personalize your emails based on customer information, behaviors, and relevant metrics that matter to your audience.

Dmitry Kudrenko, founder and CEO of Stripo

Nowadays everyone is talking about using AI for copywriting, but I don't think AI is capable of replacing a human yet, because writing copy requires a creative approach. I've heard of various experiences with Phrasee and Persado and I'm keeping an eye on ChatGPT's OpenAPI.

I am sure AI will revolutionize this field in the near future, but not today. Still, AI is essential for email marketing today. Many processes, such as analyzing data, would be impossible without them. 

For example, you could have AI automatically incorporate performance data from each subscriber's account to start a conversation and make the email more relevant. If a user has achieved a positive, measurable result with your app, you could send them an automated email with a personalized opening line that highlights that and shows the value of your tool.

Run automated A/B tests

Testing can be one of the most time-consuming aspects of email marketing. Split testing has been the holy grail of email marketing for decades, but the vast number of variables that impact performance have made extracting valuable data from manual testing much more difficult today. 

Even if you find that subject line A performed better one week, you won't be able to rely on that result to make decisions in a month or two. 

But using AI in email marketing can make A/B testing practical and effective in ways that haven't been possible before.

Clean up your email list and increase deliverability

Good email deliverability is an essential part of a successful email marketing strategy. But maintaining an effective email list can be a complicated process that requires your team to manually identify, re-engage, and remove inactive subscribers.

The good news is that this may no longer be necessary. AI tools can simplify and automate this process by scanning and continually updating your list to only contain verified and active email addresses.

With a tool like SendGrid, you can set up a real-time email address validation API that uses machine learning and various secure tactics to automatically eliminate inactive, shared, mistyped, or throwaway email addresses in your list find. 

AI algorithms can analyze engagement data to identify email addresses that have not opened or clicked on emails in a certain period of time. 

SendGrid also introduces neural protection features that use AI to detect sending behavior and in-progress messages that could negatively impact how ISPs perceive your email.

Skirmantas Venckus, Growth Hacker at Sender.net

Good email deliverability requires several important steps, such as segmenting the audience, avoiding spam triggers, and writing interesting subject lines and high-quality content. AI-based tools like subject line testers, spam checkers, and segmentation algorithms can immensely improve email deliverability success by analyzing audience behavior and engagement metrics and suggesting the best options.

This service eliminates the need to manually adjust your shipping patterns. The AI ​​can instead analyze the performance data for you and create custom broadcast schedules for each ISP, resulting in better performance.

Recommend products

Personalized product recommendations can increase the click-through rate of your emails by up to 330%. But suggesting relevant products to each email subscriber can be challenging due to the amount of data to analyze.

But AI can simplify the process by analyzing behavior in emails, websites, and even social media to figure out which products are most likely to spark interest in a given user.

For example, IKEA Retail (Ingka Group) was able to increase the global average order value in e-commerce by 2% with the help of AI recommendations.

Google's latest machine learning architectures to provide highly personalized product recommendations.

Whether you want to send a weekly newsletter to inform potential customers about new offers or personalize an upcoming promotion, AI can help you. The AI ​​can first look at each subscriber’s entire customer journey and determine their engagement, interests and habits. Then she can use this information to combine product recommendations with unique offers that she is likely to find irresistible. 

Oksana Chyketa, Newoldstamp.com

Customers today have a strong need for personalization and tend to buy from and recommend brands that offer tailored experiences. An effective way to meet these expectations is to offer recommendations tailored to customers' purchasing behavior, browsing history, or the preferences of similar customers. 

In the past, implementing such personalized recommendations on a large scale has been challenging and incurs significant costs for companies. Thanks to recent advances in artificial intelligence (AI), even medium-sized businesses with moderate website traffic can now use AI-driven recommendation systems to their advantage. This allows you to offer your customers personalized experiences without the previous limitations in terms of scalability and costs.

Discover new segments

The best email lists offer personalized content, not just in terms of offers but also what types of emails are sent in the first place. While you can set up tags for later segmentation at various points in the customer journey, leveraging these segments effectively can be a laborious and complex process that not many companies can master.

Fortunately, AI can help streamline and simplify the process.

Mirjana Miric, Mailtrap.io

AI can also be used to segment email lists based on various criteria, such as previous email engagement, demographics, or behavioral data. This can help you send more targeted and relevant emails to specific segments of your email list. 

Email marketers today can use AI to categorize their lists based on various data. AI can take into account behaviors, purchase history, clicks, open rates, and many other factors and make logical decisions about how best to segment your list in different situations.

Send emails at the right time

A big part of email marketing success is properly anticipating your customers' needs and sending timely emails that address those needs. Because of the infinite number of variables that you have to take into account, this can only be done manually with a lot of effort.

Of course, you can time your emails better as you know your customers and performance metrics better, but you'll still have to guess when and how often you should send your emails. 

Improve your analysis

Machine learning has long been used to improve outcomes. In fact, it can be considered the first real-world application of AI to improve business performance. Businesses today have far too much data to analyze manually, but AI that sorts through the data and recognizes patterns can be a powerful tool when it comes to improving the quality of your decisions.

AI can be useful in many areas of your business and can also be used extensively to analyze your email data. It can help you spot patterns and opportunities you may have missed and give you a more complete picture of what your campaigns are missing.

Conclusion

While the boom in AI through tools like ChatGPT and Jasper is a relatively new phenomenon, it's hard to predict how AI can (and will) impact email marketing today and in the future. 

The ability to quickly analyze large amounts of data, identify patterns and optimize performance translates well to email marketing strategies, meaning the technology is likely to become essential sooner rather than later. And while the list above offers a glimpse of the possibilities, it is by no means complete. As AI tools become more accessible, it will also become easier to find new ways to use them to improve performance.

While AI can't yet write entire emails in place of human writers, it can still play a key role in almost every other part of your email marketing campaigns.