Contrary to what the luddites of advertisement would like you to believe, email marketing isn’t dead — it’s just smarter now. Thanks to artificial intelligence (AI), you can now rely on data-driven machines to turn each individual email marketing campaign into a personalized masterpiece. No guesswork. Almost no manual labor. AI technology is changing how marketers think (yes, you still need to do that on your own), strategize and finetune their email copy, delivering results that were once wishful thinking.

As we use AI in more and more areas of our daily lives — like most recently, browser tasks like filling out forms or creating social media memes — your email list remains at the heart of customer engagement. It’s where brands connect directly with their audiences, driving higher engagement and building loyalty. So how do you level up your email marketing efforts with a brand strategist who never takes a break? Let’s dive into how AI-powered email marketing works, tools to consider and the best practices to keep things ethical (and effective).

How AI Helps You Smash Those Email Marketing Goals

Big enterprise or small business — every email marketer has goals. Boost open rates. Drive more clicks on related posts. Convert readers into buyers. And let’s not forget the holy grail: making your life easier. You yourself may only follow business goals related to those metrics. But since we’re just looking back at January, the eternal hunting grounds of new gym memberships and failed diets, we don’t need to explain the difference between setting goals and achieving them.

The challenges attached to an email marketing strategy are real: manual segmentation takes hours, data insights are limited and scaling campaigns can feel impossible without sacrificing quality. The almighty AI algorithm, however, doesn’t just bridge those gaps — it turns them into stepping stones. With AI-driven content marketing, you can:

• Personalize at scale: Say goodbye to generic emails. Generative AI crafts tailored messages that resonate with individual recipients.
• Optimize send times: Algorithms analyze customer data and determine when your audience is most active, ensuring emails land at the perfect moment.
• Predict outcomes: Predictive analytics help you forecast engagement and adapt strategies before you even hit send, which is especially important for transactional emails.

In all of those steps, the goal isn’t to set it and forget it, but to find and tweak the right AI marketing tool that helps you create a hybrid strategy suiting your business objectives. And that means you’re not looking for a single AI feature but a full-blown strategy.

AI Email Marketing Strategies: What Can Artificial Intelligence Do for Marketers?

If you attach a clamp to the throttle of your lawnmower, you’ll undoubtedly cut miles of grass. But when the tank is empty, you’ll have to explain to the neighbors what happened to their petunias and where the oil slick on the swimming pool came from. The same logic applies to automation through AI.

From Day One, your strategy should account for human intervention and evaluation, so you can automate email marketing tasks smartly. Here’s how marketers are using AI tools to create email campaigns that won’t make you wish the robots had already taken over:

• Content creation: From subject lines to CTAs, AI tools like Jasper AI and Phrasee craft compelling copy that aligns with your audience’s preferences, assuming you know how to provide adequate context through prompts.
• Workflow automation: While a lot of creative tasks may require more human oversight, trigger-based campaigns and follow-up sequences are a great way of leveraging AI’s strengths.
• Audience segmentation: To enable the hyper-personalized targeting that today’s customers expect, you can rely on big data and predictive analytics to turn audience data into actionable insights.
• Send time optimization: Why guess when your audience is online? AI pinpoints the best time for maximum impact, so you can hit send even when you’re actually hitting the pillow.
• A/B testing at scale: Test and tweak campaigns faster with AI-powered tools and sift through loads of data points to determine what truly resonates.

Notice how a lot of these activities revolve around the evaluation of large amounts of data? If your use case scenario wasn’t on the list, those types of tasks are safe bets. While an AI model may struggle with some of the creative tasks you find ridiculously easy, it excels at gargantuan tasks we puny humans can’t possibly fathom. Keep that in mind as you develop your own AI email marketing strategy.

Top AI Tools for Email Marketers

What kind of blog post would this be if we couldn’t rave about our favorite toys? Whether you’re looking for the right AI tool for your next email campaign or simply feel sorry for our obsessive passion for collecting apps, here’s your shortlist of heavy hitters:

• Jasper: A powerhouse AI assistant designed to help you develop and maintain a consistent, authentic brand voice across all your email content.
• Copy.ai: Offers flexibility with multiple AI models like GPT-4, Azure and Anthropic, along with robust team collaboration features to streamline content creation.
• Phrasee: Specializes in AI-optimized subject lines and CTAs, leveraging performance predictions to craft messaging that converts.
• HubSpot and Salesforce: Their deep CRM integrations enable advanced segmentation and hyper-personalized email campaigns, ensuring your content reaches the right audience at the right time.
• Mailchimp: Features Intuit Assist, an AI-powered tool that suggests strategic choices such as optimal send times and personalized messaging for maximum impact.
• Klaviyo: Incorporates Sentiment AI to spot emerging trends, identify potential issues before they escalate and even create personalized product feeds tailored to individual preferences.
• ActiveCampaign: Provides an AI-powered brand kit, AI-suggested segments and intelligent scheduling tools to take your campaigns to the next level with ease.

When choosing a tool, look for features that align with your goals, whether it’s boosting efficiency, enhancing personalization or scaling your B2C marketing efforts.

Benefits and Best Practices for Using AI in Email Marketing

OK, we’ve convinced you that the bots aren’t here to destroy all email marketing alongside your hard drive. What should you actually expect, once you’re using AI?

Key Benefits of AI

• Time savings (for strategic thinking, not napping): AI cuts down on repetitive tasks, freeing you up for the good stuff — like strategizing your next big campaign. But here’s the catch: while AI crunches numbers, you still need to bring your A-game in critical thinking and creativity. After all, no robot’s going to dream up your next bold brand move.
• Personalization at scale (but keep it real): AI makes it easier to craft personalized emails for large audiences — a seemingly magical feat. But here’s the truth: personalization at scale is only as good as the effort you put in. Critical readers can sniff out generic copy faster than you can say “Dear [First Name].” Authenticity takes work, so don’t let AI get too comfortable doing all the heavy lifting.
• Performance and scalability (AI’s sweet spot): Where AI truly shines is in its ability to handle big data. From analyzing past campaigns to predicting future results, AI processes more data than a caffeine-fueled analyst ever could. That means smarter decisions, stronger campaigns and effortless scalability. Just remember: interpreting those insights still requires a human touch.

Which brings us to…

Best Practices for AI Success

Using AI effectively means striking the right balance between automation and humanity. Here’s how to do it:

• Keep a human in the loop: Let AI draft your content, but always add a final polish yourself. Why? Because AI doesn’t know your CEO’s pet peeve about split infinitives or your brand’s love for emojis (or disdain for them, 😬).
• Use AI to supercharge, not replace: Think of AI as your ultra-efficient sidekick, not the main character. Let it handle the grunt work — A/B testing subject lines, analyzing engagement data — while you focus on crafting killer ideas and connections. Be nice in those prompts, though, just in case.
• Audit AI outputs (unless you like surprises): Regularly review AI-generated content for compliance, bias or downright embarrassing suggestions. (Because trust us, “Buy now or else” is not the tone you’re going for.)
• Keep it ethical (and fun): Want to avoid being that brand? Be transparent about how you use AI and prioritize your audience’s privacy. And while you’re at it, inject a little humor and humanity into your campaigns. AI can’t tell jokes — yet.

The Do’s and Don’ts of Using AI Successfully in Your Marketing Strategy

If you or the AI-powered news app reading this to you take nothing else from this blog post, you should both remain mindful of the following rules.

Do’s

1. Leverage AI to supercharge efficiency and creativity, not replace them.
2. Combine AI insights with your team’s expertise for a balanced approach.
3. Focus on enhancing the customer experience through better targeting and personalization.

Don’ts

1. Don’t over-rely on AI. Human review is crucial for brand alignment and quality control.
2. Don’t prioritize automation at the expense of personalization.
3. Never ignore ethical considerations like data privacy or AI biases.

Embracing AI While Maintaining the Human Touch

AI has opened a new chapter in email marketing. It’s making campaigns faster, smarter and more effective than ever. But we shouldn’t forget that it’s not a magic wand, no matter how enthusiastic we are about the latest model. Thoughtful implementation and human oversight are what separate good campaigns from great ones.

Ready to elevate your email marketing game with AI? It’s time to embrace the future, one personalized, perfectly timed email at a time.

Note: This article was originally published on contentmarketing.ai.