Did you know that more than 90,000 websites are hacked daily? That’s alarming when you consider that in 2019, 224.1 million Americans consider themselves online shoppers. Are you taking the right technical measures to ensure the safety and security of your online business? Continue reading to learn how modern technology and artificial intelligence can assist you in the success and security of your business.
Number of digital shoppers in the United States from 2016 to 2021:
Table 1 – American online shoppers from 2016 to 2021 from Statista (Clement, 2019)
The number of online shoppers is expected to increase to 230.5 million in 2021 and you cannot afford to lose significant sales due to falling behind on technology. In this article, you’ll learn how to use Artificial Intelligence (AI) for security, digital marketing and for analysis.
Artificial Intelligence (AI)
Let’s start by defining what AI is and what it can offer to your business in the new year. AI is one of the many branches of computer science which uses technical systems to work intelligently. Modern AI technology recognizes data patterns, solves complex problems and can generate endless content ideas.
In addition, AI functions similarly to the human brain, meaning that it works independently from data based and symbolic based learning. AI works well in any industry and will continuously improve upon its features from complexity.
What can AI add to your business?
1. Tighter Security
Traditional website security has two major pitfalls: highly rules based and does not have the ability to scale with the growth of world-wide cyber-attacks. Traditional cybersecurity is programmed on what is considered a threat, however, with threats occuring at record rates, AI can step in and combat these dangers coming to your business.
According to IBM, AI provides instant insights to help you cut through the noise of thousands of daily alerts. AI can bring your business tighter security by not only understanding the pattern of threats, but also by adapting and combating to the ever-evolving hacker tactics, all by reducing response times to the ongoing threats.
Advanced Digital Marketing
2. PPC
The second thing AI can offer to your business is advanced digital marketing strategies. There are several ways AI can help you with your marketing plan and one of them is AI-enhanced pay-per-click, PPC advertising. Most PPC campaigns are managed by humans, however, AI can uncover new channels for autonomous media buying to improve your results.
There is an AI marketing platform called Albert, which provides AI analysis, management and optimization techniques to large-scale paid ad campaigns. “By 2025, all paid digital media campaigns will be managed by marketers collaborating with autonomous AI.” – Or Shani, Founder and CEO of Albert.
Example of PPC:
Figure 1 – PPC Campaign for Modern Mail managed by Zelen Communications
3. Chatbots
Another advanced digital marketing feature AI brings to your business is the ability to manage Chatbots. Chatbots are an automatic communication tool on your website which can initiate conversations from your business to someone in your target audience. For instance, a chatbot can pop up on your website to help guide your visitors.
Chatbots are useful because it can answer many common questions you get asked about your business by generating appropriate responses to the consumer in a timely manner. The best thing about Chatbots is that they operate 24/7, meaning that a client’s questions can be answered promptly even during non-business hours.
Example of AI Chatbot:
Figure 2 – Online chatbot example for Palma Sola Bay Club managed by Zelen Communications
4. AI Analytical Recommendations
Another great aspect AI offers your business is its powerful analytic software tool. AI is able to learn about customer behaviors and can predict their next probable course of action. An easy to understand example of this is Amazon’s ‘Explore More’ products and Netflix’s ‘more for you’ recommendation systems.
AI uses deep learning to make these recommendations custom to the individual based on consumer’s preferences and past search history. Although Amazon and Netflix recommendation systems are relatively simple examples, AI can detect more complex data across many platforms.
Example of AI recommendation:
Figure 4 – Amazon recommendation system personal example
5. AI Market Research
Finally, AI can also provide market research for your business. Like I mentioned earlier, AI uses machine learning to analyze data in real time. AI can produce insightful research for your firm faster and more accurately than any human can.
For example, AI has the power to analyze millions of new sources of data in less than two seconds. This includes the masses of data about your business which might have been overlooked in the past by your marketing team.
AI contributes even more to market research by analyzing open-ended questions your market asks on social media, survey responses and contact center calls. AI completely removes any type of bias from gathering and assessing this data, and only gives you the raw facts allowing you to make informed business decisions.
When AI can provide you with tighter security, optimized PPC campaigns, insights about your target audience’s behavior and much more, there should be nothing stopping you from utilizing AI techniques in the new year.
What’s your favorite AI feature?
Terry Zelen is a seasoned Creative Director with more than 35 years of experience in Home Builder advertising and marketing.
He is the founder of The Punch List, which is an online blog to help inform home builders and developers on strategic marketing insights to fuel their firm.