Predictive Analytics: As AI Comes of Age, Marketing Strategies Mature

Predictive analytics isn’t just about successful marketing campaigns. It can also drive impact across all aspects of a business. By connecting current and historical data to find patterns, marketers and other business counterparts can gain a broader view of what consumer behavior may be saying and lessen confirmation bias.

Through regression analysis, our team establishes the relationship between two or more variables. And from there, we predict outcomes that can help our clients with everything from offer optimizations to demand forecasting to up-sell and cross-sell modeling.  Here’s what it looks like in practice.

Look-alike modeling: If an enterprise client wants to expand digital target audiences based on attendance to trainings and events, look-alike modeling can be extremely useful.

By examining a client’s existing partner base, Fleming explained, the IC IQ3 team can learn what makes a client’s typical customer tick. From there, we create an “ideal customer profile,” or ICP.

This ICP becomes the basis for targeting new customers who exhibit similar traits. The result? Leads that are a whole lot warmer than they used to be. “The ICIQ capability allows us to centralize that data,” Fleming added. “So now we can stitch together digital behaviors, and we can develop a 360-degree profile.”

Next-best action strategies: “Once we’re able to really give that clear view of what their customers look like and what they’re actually doing … we design strategies that support that next move,” Fleming explained. This gives the IC IQ3 team a much better chance to convert new customers through the marketing funnel. “Actioning that data is the key next step for us.”

By truly understanding a customer’s decision-making and logic during one campaign, we can build a follow-up campaign that aligns with this customer’s likely next action.

Lead qualification and scoring: This supports prequalification through robust targeting and dynamic forms.

Data-drive design: Enabling the appropriate images and content placement for email template design optimization can support engagement and boost ROI.

As AI has come of age — and more marketers have gained access to robust AI frameworks that offer marketing research, operations, and impactful strategies — the technology is becoming less of a disruptor and more of a standard. But its ubiquity doesn’t mean these strategies are less impactful. With maturity comes growing opportunities.

“It definitely takes an agency expert to understand how to activate that data, and what to even look for, and connect those data sources,” Fleming said. “And that’s where we really shine. But now we can explain it to the client a lot easier. We’re no longer feeling as though we’re having to sell them on this idea. This idea is at the forefront of their minds. They want to talk about customer data platforms, and propensity models. It’s the future of marketing.