As AI begins to shape the landscape of digital marketing, content managers, copywriters, and digital marketers are starting to explore its potential applications for copywriting.
It’s been predicted that AI would take over a lot of the grunt work associated with creating and managing content – from doing basic research to developing detailed editorial calendars.
Others believe that machine learning can complement human skills and help writers produce better content. So far, artificial intelligence hasn’t quite taken over copywriting as a whole, but it is nonetheless having a huge impact on it in significant ways.
It’s not just copywriting that has seen the beneficial effects of AI. From AI-powered robo advisors that help improve return rates on different investments to impressive video filters that make social media more fun, pretty much all industries are finding ways to use this evolving technology.
Considering this trend is showing no sign of stopping, digital marketers need to understand how AI is impacting copywriting and what kind of opportunities this technology creates for their businesses.
Let’s explore four ways AI is changing the field of copywriting and discuss how marketers can take advantage of these changes to improve PPC performance.
A Short Introduction to AI
AI is short for artificial intelligence, a field of computer science and engineering focused on creating intelligent machines that work and react like humans. In other words, AI involves making computers smarter – something they’re already very good at, thanks to their huge data processing power and ability to learn from experience rapidly.
Put simply, AI works by using algorithms to analyze data so that computers can understand it better. This data might be in the form of text, images, or videos. Once the computer has understood the data, it can then use this information to carry out certain tasks – such as recognizing objects in pictures or understanding natural language.
Most AI algorithms work much in the same way. They start by learning from a data set we humans provide (a process known as “training”). The computer runs a series of calculations during training to develop an equation that relates all the data it was trained on. Then the AI uses this knowledge to make predictions about new data (known as “inference”).
In other words, an “AI” is no more than a piece of software that basically wrote itself to perform a particular task (like copywriting) after training on a given data set and following certain guidelines given by the programmer. Since no two data sets (collections of pictures, videos, or text) are likely the same, no two AI software are ever the same either, even if both were developed by the same publisher.
Companies with large volumes of data on their users can leverage AI for different purposes, from generating sales to improving customer satisfaction. For example, credit card companies and other banking and fintech businesses have been using AI to provide users with insight into their own spending habits, helping them budget more effectively.
Other industries use AI to detect possible scams and frauds based on behavioral patterns.
AI in Copywriting
Copywriting is one of the fields where AI has made a big impact. A copywriting AI is a writing assistant that can help you with the task of creating content. Copywriting AIs are usually powered by natural language processing (NLP), a branch of AI that deals with understanding and generating human language.
There are different types of copywriting AIs trained for different purposes. In general terms, they can be broadly classified into two groups: content generation and editing software.
Content Generation
A content generation AI is an AI that writes original content based on input from the user. These AIs are usually trained on a large data set of human-written text, such as news articles or blog posts. And when I say a large data set, I mean large. For example, Jasper (previously known as Jarvis) is one of the best AI copywriting tools trained on a data set of roughly ten percent of the internet’s written content.
Content generation AIs work by understanding the user’s input (usually in the form of keywords, although the more sophisticated software clearly understands instructions) and then generating new text relevant to the input. The generated text is usually not perfect, but it gives the user a good starting point that can be edited and improved upon.
Editing Software
Editing software, on the other hand, is designed to help users improve their writing by checking for grammatical errors and offering suggestions on how to rephrase certain sentences. These AIs are usually trained on a data set of well-written text, such as books or articles from high-quality websites. Some popular editing software includes Grammarly and ProWritingAid.
How AI is Used in Copywriting and Digital Marketing
Automated content generation tools have taken the digital marketing landscape by storm. In particular, they have been a godsend for content marketers and SEOs who are always on the lookout for new and original content at the lowest cost possible.
The rise of AI has also led to new tools and strategies for copywriting and digital marketing. Here are some of the ways AI is being used in these fields:
#1.) To Enhance Copywriting Productivity
Copywriting AIs can help content marketers and copywriters be more productive by taking on some of the grunt work involved in creating content. For example, content managers can use a copywriting AI to generate ideas for new articles or blog posts based on a set of keywords provided by the user.
The AI can then produce a list of potential topics that the user can choose from. Similarly, once a copywriter chooses a topic to write about, they can then use the same AI to generate an outline for the blog post if that’s what they plan to write.
You could keep breaking each section into subsections to go as deep into a topic as possible. Finally, once you’re satisfied with the outline, you can ask the AI to write out the content under each subheading.
By fact-checking here and there and ensuring that everything ties into a seamless narrative, you could have a high-quality, 2,000-word blog post fully written and proofread in under two hours.
Talk about productivity!
#2.) Editing for Spelling, Grammar, and Style
Editing AIs can help copywriters improve the quality of their writing by checking for spelling and grammar errors, as well as offering suggestions on how to rephrase certain sentences.
For example, suppose you’re writing an ebook about the benefits of nano-influencer marketing, and you want to make sure that it’s error-free. You can run your document through an AI editing software such as Grammarly or ProWritingAid, and it will highlight any errors in your text. The software will also offer suggestions on fixing the errors, making your message clearer, and adapting it to a particular writing style.
In addition to correcting errors, you might also find that your text sounds more polished after running it through AI editing software. This is because this software is often tuned to identify style issues such as overuse of certain words or phrases, sentence length variation, and so on.
Making these style corrections lets you ensure that your writing sounds natural and easy to read, which is essential.
#3.) To Improve Conversions
Copywriting AIs go far beyond writing blog posts and correcting your grammar. Since they’re trained on massive amounts of online written data, and much of that data is marketing copy, they’ve become increasingly efficient at producing highly-converting copy based on different frameworks.
This means it will only take you minutes to craft an ad copy based on the Problem-Agitate-Solution (PAS) framework or the classic Attention, Interest, Desire, Action (AIDA) framework. Or you could go for the Before-After-Bridge framework and see which one works best for your audience.
This is particularly appealing to PPC marketers who need to write the most eye-catching and compelling copy to attract the attention of short-attention-spanned internet users.
But, how do you know which framework works best for your audience and leads to more conversions?
The answer is A/B testing, an experimental technique to compare two versions of a web page to see which one performs better. A/B testing has long been the gold standard for optimizing conversion rates, but it can be time-consuming and expensive, especially for small businesses and startups. However, copywriting AIs make this extremely easy since writing out entire ads in different frameworks, styles, and tones only takes a couple of minutes.
Also, there are now AIs that specialize in conversion rate optimization (CRO). These work by constantly testing different versions of website copy and design elements to see which ones result in the highest conversion rates.
These tools essentially automate A/B testing to make it cheaper, faster, and more effective. A good example of this is Unbounce Smart Traffic, which was the first AI-powered CRO tool to hit the market. Many more followed suit.
#4.) Generating Targeted Content
Digital marketing is all about creating content that resonates with your target audience. You can use copywriting AIs to generate targeted content for your specific niche if you know your audience well. You can do this simply by instructing the AI to write a copy for that particular audience.
But that’s not even half of it. Other variations of these software tools, such as evolv.ai, tweak and adapt the ad and landing page content dynamically for every user based on a set of predefined criteria such as location, keyword use, and other factors. This is micro-segmentation marketing on steroids, and it’s only possible thanks to the way AI understands where each internet user is coming from.
#5.) AI for SEO
We already discussed the power of AI for improving copywriting productivity by helping writers come up with new topic ideas based on given keywords. But how do you know which keywords to target?
This is where AI comes in handy again. You can use AI tools for contextual targeting purposes: they work perfectly with keyword research and help to develop a list of relevant keywords that you can then target with your content.
In addition, copywriting AIs are also getting better at understanding SEO best practices and can help you tweak your copy accordingly to make it more search engine friendly. Surfer is one of the most popular SEO optimization tools out there, and, guess what? It’s also an AI.
The Bottom Line
As digital marketing evolves, copywriters and content managers must embrace new technologies like AI to stay ahead of the curve. In particular, AI can help content managers and digital marketers in every stage of content production and delivery.
From coming up with relevant keywords to target and using them to come up with topic ideas and relevant subtopics, to actually crafting the content itself.
Additionally, You can use AI for several other important tasks, such as SEO optimization and improving conversions.
By understanding how AI works and using its capabilities to your advantage, you can create more effective PPC campaigns that connect with your target audience and improve your PPC performance. If you’re not using AI for your digital marketing efforts right now, you’re already falling way behind.
