An interview with Amy Inlow who is the CMO of Albert. Albert is the first-ever artificial intelligence marketing platform for the enterprise, driving fully autonomous digital marketing campaigns for some of the world’s leading brands.
You shared that “AI technology has the ability to transform the way we market today, and address many of the execution and analytics oriented issues that exist within our field.” How is Albert transforming the way we market? What are the issues that Albert’s solving?
With the continuous introduction of new channels and consumers’ rising expectations for personalization, reaching and engaging relevant users has become nearly impossible. The advent of martech tools was meant to be an answer to this problem but ended up creating an even bigger headache for the marketer. We’re now swimming in both data and tools to break down that data–not to mention siloed, inefficient, efforts to understand, engage and convert each and every customer on each and every channel. Albert is the answer to this.
As a true AI and fully autonomous digital marketer, Albert has the ability to manage and optimize data at a speed and rate beyond human capability. And he does this from a holistic cross-channel standpoint, meaning that he unites all digital efforts so that the insights and learnings he gains on one channel are shared across all channels. As a result, true attribution is reflected in the campaign’s focus at any given moment. Albert works 24/7 and handles all of the gathering, processing and analyzing of data, in order to free up the marketer to do what humans do best: creative strategy.
Asaf Jacobi, President of Harley-Davidson of New York City, shared that they’re building a call center to accommodate the leads Albert is generating for them. Is this kind of ROI common?
Harley-Davidson NYC is much like other brick and mortar retailers in that they use their online properties and channels not only to sell, but also to drive customers in-store. This allows them to cater to different consumer buying patterns, and focus their physical presence to specific products and buyer motivations. In the case of Harley-Davidson, they know that their customers buy their bikes in the store rather than online, so they used Albert as part of a lead generation program, aimed at gathering customers’ interest and info–or sending them to a call center where they could learn more. On our end, we ensure that there is an attribution measurement in place to gauge the effectiveness of Albert across historically detached online/offline ROI goals.
We are seeing similar offline use cases and ROI across other large-ticket items, such as vehicles and furniture that require further inquiry or in-person trials, etc. Being able to measure the online to offline success is crucial. We are also seeing this among several of our retail/ecommerce clients, who find that they must adjust their on-the-floor team or “call centers” in order to take on the new volume of offline leads produced by Albert’s online efforts.
Courtney Connell, Marketing Director at Cosabella and an Albert customer, shared that “it’s important to distinguish between those that just offer insights and those that actually execute.“ Can you give a bit more insight into this comment?
While there are systems that can come up with automatic insights or strategies, only
a truly autonomous AI system, such as Albert, can act on those insights without human supervision. Albert automatically implements changes based on what he observes, and continues to adjust and optimize based on changing user behavior patterns. He additionally offers high-level suggestions–that marketers can apply across their marketing programs–based on analysis of the company’s data and customer/target market (including learned and predicted behaviors).
For companies who are still a bit iffy about using AI in their marketing efforts, what advice do you have for them?
The key here is to understand that AI takes on the time consuming data management/analysis work in order to free up the marketer to focus on high-level strategy. The marketer remains in control and the AI makes decisions, which remain within the guidelines and ROI targets defined by the marketer.
Additionally, when a company first decides to make the shift, it’s important that they find a vendor who offers transparency into the AI platform. Clear measurable goals should be defined in the scope of the campaign, and the AI should ease digital efforts, rather than add to the marketing headache.
Which AI solutions do you use for work and in your personal life?
This is unending. From my smartphone, to Netflix and Amazon shopping, I happily go with the AI flow where my convenience and ease is improved, I have frequent conversations with Alexa. At work, anywhere there is a possibility to automate a process, we will implement–whether it be email campaigns or social media scheduling. We even use Albert for Albert promotional campaigns!