8 ways to use AI in email marketing

Artificial Intelligence can reshape your email marketing strategy by automating tasks at scale using real-time data and generating insights that aid in performance. This technology is poised to become even more integrated into email marketing over time, and the sooner you leverage it, the sooner you’ll reap the benefits. 

In this article, we outline how email marketers are using AI currently, from copywriting to cleaning up audience lists, making product recommendations to predicting audience behavior. 

Recommend better subject lines to improve open rate  

It’s not always easy to think up new, creative email subject lines every time you want to send an email, especially when trying to break through the noise of a busy inbox. AI is able to predict the word combinations that will result in higher open rates and recommend them. 

Ortto’s free subject line writer tool allows users to type in an email subject line to get accurate AI predictions on the open rate and recommend alternatives that are more likely to lead to a higher open rate.

This tool was built by training a neural net on every subject line ever sent by Ortto. The AI was then taught which subject lines led to a high open rate and which resulted in a low open rate.  The results were weighed on different factors such as the engagement of that audience.  As more emails are sent, the AI can learn and fine-tune the open rate prediction.

Clean up your audience list to ensure deliverability

Practicing email list hygiene is critical in retaining a high email deliverability rate. The task itself can be quite time-consuming and manual, AI will speed through the process in next to no time. 

AI-powered software can help you keep your email list clean by removing any duplicates, verifying emails, and removing any bad addresses (spam or outdated). This refined list will reduce the risk of your deliverability rate dropping. 

Once your list is clean, you can further enhance your email deliverability by using an AI-powered email warm-up service to help you increase your sending volume gradually. This will help you maintain a strong deliverability rate, and keep your IP address from being categorized as spam.    

Target the right audience

One of the biggest benefits of AI, is its capacity of analyzing large amounts of data in an incredibly short period of time.  

AI can take your entire audience base and segment it to create smaller refined groups based on demographic, behavioral, firmographic, and transactional data. This becomes incredibly helpful when planning content or customizing emails to fit your customer’s interests. Plus it takes the guesswork out of the process.  

Ortto brings your customer data platform and marketing automation platform together so your audience segmentation is fed directly from the data in your CDP. This will save you time and ensure your audience segments are always up-to-date in real-time.  

Provide personalized product recommendations

The longer AI is incorporated in your email marketing strategy, the more it can learn about your customers and their behavior. 

It will use sophisticated algorithms along with customer data (demographic, transactional, and behavioral) to choose products, content, or CTA messaging that will drive better results without the need for extra resources. 

Let’s say a person on your team was set the task to create emails recommending products for each customer. It would be a monstrous, time-consuming task. They would have to manually look into each customer's purchasing habits, then find similar products to offer instead. AI and machine learning can do this entire task in minutes, with high accuracy and no chance of human error. 

When building emails in Ortto, use the dynamic content widget to offer products similar to what your customers have already viewed or clicked on. Ortto’s AI leverages a customer's website browsing history and previous purchases to help you personalize their experience. Dynamic content allows for personalization at scale, so no email is the same, and you’re speaking to each customer as a unique individual. 

Plus, Ortto will update the customers' preferences, product purchases, and interests in real-time, meaning recommendations are relevant to their recent purchasing and browsing behavior. 

Predict audience behavior

A combination of AI and auto-predictive analytics will help you forecast analytics such as average basket size, next order date, smart send time, and churn risk, based on the results of your emails and customer journeys

For example, AI can help you answer questions like, "what is the likelihood that my customers will purchase products with an estimated total value size over $100 from the weekly ‘what’s new’ product email ?” Or “how many customers are likely to re-order in the next month?”

Predictive analytics will help you forecast upcoming revenue, prioritize the emails that drive sales, and help you fine-tune emails to ensure conversion. 

Better the customer experience through personalization

With AI, there is no excuse for companies to send emails that are not personalized.  Customers hand over their data to receive relevant content, and when that data is utilized for personalization it will drive sales and strengthen brand loyalty. 

AI takes factors such as the level of customer engagement, online behaviors, enriched data (e.g. interests), and the transactional habits of customers to determine the best product recommendations, customer promotions, or discount codes. 

For example, if a customer browses your page multiple times, but doesn’t  purchase anything, you can send a personalized email tailored with a promotion more likely to get them to convert. One customer may prefer a 15% off coupon, whereas another would convert if free shipping was offered. 

Over time the AI will learn which promotion works best when certain customer actions have been met and will offer the best-suited promotion. 

Save time and have AI write copy for you

If copywriting has never been your forte, or you find you’re experiencing email writer's block then there's an array of AI copywriting tools to help you out. 

The technology used for these tools is evolving constantly. The output is more engaging, grammatically correct, and optimized to drive conversion or the desired action.  

These tools work better when you write a detailed brief, so start by identifying the objective of the email along with the key messages that need to be covered. Then within mere minutes, most tools can suggest 5 - 10 variations of copy. 

There are even some AI writing tools that will repurpose your blog content for email. This would work well for nurture email campaigns where you know the interests of the customer. 

Send your emails at the right time and right frequency

You may have created an ideal subject line but if the email is buried in the depths of an inbox, the risk of it being unread or deleted is increased. 

Machine learning and AI use data from past customer activity, time zones, and behavioral habits to ensure that you are sending your emails at the best time for engagement. 

For example, if your company covers the US, Europe, and Australia markets - when setting up your emails in Ortto, you can ensure that all your emails are being sent at the best time regardless of where they are in the world. There is no excuse for international customers receiving emails at strange hours. 

Once you’ve finalized the best time, then it’s integral to find out the right email cadence. If you’re too quiet, your customers might forget about you, too loud and that may risk your low unsubscribe rate. AI will help you work this out by analyzing the customer activity, open rates, and even more granular, by looking at the type of emails more commonly opened.  

Final word

The use of artificial intelligence in email marketing will help you save time on tedious tasks, generate greater customer insights for personalization, predict the behavior of your customer, and so much more. 

Ortto is an AI-powered tool here to make email marketing far easier for you and provide a better overall experience for your customers. Sign up for a free trial today.