Using AI-powered tools can keep shoppers coming back with product recs, sales copy, personalized ads, and more.
Imagine you see your favorite social influencer wearing THE perfect pair of pants, comfortable yet chic, the kind you've been looking for everywhere. You click on the shoppable ad, link to the brand's in-app store, choose your size and color, and then use a store locator to find out where to go pick up your new pants in person TODAY. Congratulations, you're having an omnichannel shopping experience!
The above story probably isn't unfamiliar -- shoppers are doing some variation of it every day. Today’s consumers expect a brand’s social channels, website or app, and brick-and-mortar store to feel like one consistent experience, with the same look, feel, and vibe throughout.
Brand marketers (or, in our agency’s case, media buyers) from each channel have to be aligned on the brand’s voice, messaging, and target audience to achieve the omnichannel experience.
Choose your channel
Know which channels are reaching which segments of your target audience, and reformat your advertising and communication strategies to “speak their language.”
Let’s say, for example, you’re a retailer to sells to multiple generations of consumers. If your data tells you the younger segment shops online more frequently than in-store, then it wouldn’t make sense to prioritize TikTok for in-store-only promotions – it would be wiser to use TikTok (or retail media networks) for online or in-app promotions and reach your older demographic in whichever channels they frequent.
Recommendations
AI can be used to recommend products or services to consumers based on their past purchases, demographics, or inputted preferences. That’s enormously beneficial technology for retail media networks, which deliver sponsored product recommendations paid for by brands.
Personalization
Advertisers can utilize AI to personalize ad messaging or creative to the individual viewer, determine the best channel or placement for the ad based on consumer behavior, and automatically adjust prices to follow market fluctuations.
Customer experience
Customer service is another huge area for AI in marketing. AI-powered chatbots can screen out a lot of customers’ questions or concerns, standardizing the answers and providing correct information every time (how many times has one customer service pro told you one thing, and their colleague told you the exact opposite?)
Efficient chatbots can maintain the brand experience across channels and clear up human-powered customer service lines for lower wait times.
Supply chain & inventory
Who better to learn ecom tricks from than one of the world's most successful omnichannel retailers? Walmart is preparing for the 2023 holiday shopping season by using its proprietary, AI-powered supply chain and inventory software.
According to Reuters, its machine-learning algorithm relies on weather patterns and each store's past sales data to predict the inventory needs of its more than 4,700 U.S. locations.
Avoiding under- or overproduction and supply chain jams is crucial for brands to protect their profit margins, the planet, and customer experience.
Generative AI in Ecommerce
Many small businesses can't afford teams of professional copywriters to write compelling product descriptions like Fortune 500 brands do.
So Amazon, eBay, and Shopify have all released generative AI tools for ecommerce sellers to write product descriptions and sales copy that get noticed by search algorithms. Take advantage of these tools to give your brand a boost.
AI CX in Action
Our media planning team at Exverus recently launched an omnichannel, master-brand campaign with John Soules Foods (as featured in Digiday) using an interactive ad unit to generate personalized product recommendations.
We partnered with ad tech provider PadSquad to create an AI chatbot Recipe-Picker for our target audience of busy families. The chatbot asks a series of questions about the cook’s preferences (beef/chicken, healthy/indulgent, cook time, etc.) and, based on the answers, generates a personalized list of recipe options using JSF's products. Try the demo here (it's fun!)
The AI chatbot was part of a larger campaign that integrated AI in ecommerce, programmatic advertising, paid search, and paid social media.
The potential use cases for AI in ecommerce are still infinite. If you'd like to brainstorm creative ideas for your retail media campaign, leave us a comment or DM and put this paradigm-shifting technology to work for you.
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