Online shopping has skyrocketed in the past decade.. According to a survey by Statista, more than 2 billion buyers will actively participate in e-commerce activities in 2021. If you want to expand and grow during the online-demand race, it’s important to focus on innovation. Artificial intelligence (AI) has made strides for e-commerce by innovating processes from lead generation to final transactions.
Understanding the working procedures and the benefits of AI tools makes a difference for a marketer in this new decade of online shopping. These five ways of AI automation have taken e-commerce to a new level. These tactics are a great way to see growth in your business.
1. Cart Abandonment
Cart abandonment is likely to happen when the customer encounters any unfavorable experience or any technical glitch during the buying process. According to Baymard, the two reasons for cart abandonment are high extra costs (55%) and the need to sign up for an account (34%). Usually, the marketer sends a follow-up mail, which an open rate of less than 50%.
Marketers can use AI to their advantage to know the exact reason behind the cart abandonment.AI can also be used to pop up a survey when a customer turns down the products in the cart. You can even analyze the customer’s online behavior with AI machine learning and will get to know the difference between a potential lead and a non-convertible buyer. Gathering this information is the perfect way to convert leads into potential customers.
2. Voice Search
The probability of buyers using their voice to search for products will be increasing very rapidly with new technology. The Amazon Echo, Google Home, and Apple HomePod are all voice-activated virtual assistants that can help with online shopping among other tasks. By talking to Alexa, Google Assistant, or Siri, a customer can check out without even needing their phone in front of them. This new technology will allow buyers to shop quickly and efficiently.
Businesses need to ensure that their customers can voice search for the products on their website. For example, websites need to be optimized using machine learning by allowing customers to purchase through the voice search.
Convenience of voice search will increase the number of customers to show interest in your website products. Customers can purchase products proficiently by voicing out their requirements.
Buyers are using visual search along with the voice search. They upload an image onto a search engine or website and look for results matching that photo. Marketers need to design their apps and website according to this requirement in order to fully take advantage of this new process. Programming of this feature is only possible using AI and machine learning.
As the demand for voice and visual search continues, companies will need to quickly get onboard. Soon, it will become a central element in the e-commerce market.
3. Targeting Specific Customers
To compete in the e-commerce market, you need to utilize the data you have on your customers. Using AI, companies can easily create ads that specifically target potential customers based on their online behavior.
AI and marketing automation tools can easily create dynamic ads by collecting buyer’s data. Companies can distribute these ads on suitable platforms where the potential customers are likely to be populated.
Even social media platforms like Facebook have made things easy for e-commerce. Businesses can circulate the ads where the majority of targeted customers are online. AI can analyze the customer’s behavior against specific types of products. This helps the business send recommendations to the customers. AI also creates an algorithm that makes it easier to reach out to targeted buyers.
4. Search Results
Business marketers may create great and engaging content, yet customers cannot find them unless they are optimized on search engines. Search engines and the marketplace are the primary platforms where the customers are searching for their products. Search engine optimization (SEO) is one of the main objectives for online business success.
Features of SEO based AI tools
- Help with Keyword research
- Recommend relevant tags
- Conduct site performance analysis
- Optimize content
Meta descriptions, tags, and relevant keywords will help a website to achieve organic traffic for ideal buyers. AI tools can help to achieve a high ranking on search engines, which helps drive traffic to your website.
5. Follow-ups
Getting new customers is not the only important task in e-commerce. Marketers need to know how to maintain past customers too. According to an SMB report, 61% of the revenue from businesses comes from repeat customers. These people are loyal to you if you provide the best products and experience.
Marketers should not neglect the buyers after their purchase.. One way to to engage buyers is by sending follow-up emails to make sure they come back.
AI tools make things a lot for email marketing. Robust email marketing software will help you in triggering the promotional messages and product recommendations to the repeated customers. You can do A/B testing, run different promotions, and time your messaging to better engage your buyers.
To keep up with the booming e-commerce industry, marketers should stay up to date with the AI trends and implement them as they can. By utilizing machine learning and automation, you can increase the speed of the buying journey for you customers. These innovations can help guarantee success for your B2Bor B2C e-commerce business.
