
AI is merely a tool and like all tools it exists for humans to use effectively or not. The message from Emily Ketchen, HP’s regional head of marketing, Americas, is that automation without humanness is less effective. AI can ferret out the signals of customer intentions, but if there is no human intervention or there’s the wrong intervention, chances for a sale are reduced.
Intent behavior may be signaled “when customers make purchases, look for products online, click on banner ads or leave comments about a brand on a social media site.” But the signal alone has little value if it is not acted upon. It’s time for the humans to read the tea leaves – to know where in the buying cycle the potential customer is and to respond in kind. Earlier in the process suggests one response while later in the process requires another.
Ketchen says its has been HP’s experience that when the right response delivers a “personalized ad or landing page combined with humanness, response rates jump an average of 20 to 30%.” By contrast, if the response in not timely, if the response takes “more than 10 minutes [it] can decrease the odds of qualifying that prospect by up to 400%.” Source: AdExchange