Artificial intelligence has entered our work routines, from the way we analyze data to the way we communicate with customers. In email marketing, AI empowers us not only to write messages faster but also to create emails that feel like personal, one-on-one conversations. And that’s why it’s important to explore how to adopt AI technologies.

But here’s the catch: to make the most of AI in email marketing, you have to know where it fits best in your strategy. How can you implement it without sacrificing authenticity? Also, are there ways to avoid common AI pitfalls? Especially in email marketing, where everything has to do with trust, you should ensure AI helps you reinforce that trust rather than jeopardizing it. 

This blog post will share the most effective use cases of AI in email marketing. Also, we’ll navigate through potential pitfalls, so you only keep the positive aspect of AI technology.

How to Adopt AI in Email Marketing the Right Way

There are right ways to use AI in email marketing. And these include not compromising the human factor that flesh-and-blood professionals bring to email communication. So, let’s explore the most common use cases, and how AI tools can lead to high-level email marketing. 

1. Idea Generation

AI in email marketing helps you save a lot of time and effort from email creation. This doesn’t necessarily mean you have to create entire emails with AI tools. In fact, we recommend starting from idea generation. 

More often than not, even the most experienced writers may face writer’s block. AI systems help you overcome it, serving as a source of inspiration. HubSpot’s 2024 State of Marketing Report confirms that most marketers have picked up on this AI use, as a large percentage of them invests in it for ideas:

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So, instead of asking AI to craft the entire email content, try using it to produce topic ideas and outlines or proofread the ones you already have. You could do so for different email components like subject lines, CTAs, or part of the email copy. 

To unlock its full potential, you should feed it with detailed customer personas. When you decide to promote an upcoming offer, for example, ask AI to come up with a few hooks that match each persona’s interests and pain points. 

But make sure you mix these hooks with human-generated email content, focusing on the emotional and personal touch that only you can achieve. Remember that using AI in email marketing isn’t about changing what you do – and works – but infusing it with some AI magic. Also, only you know whether or not AI’s suggestions fit your overall branding. 

2. Email Content Personalization

Dynamic content is on the rise. And artificial intelligence is an excellent way to create dynamic content blocks easily. The idea behind dynamic email content is that it changes based on each subscriber’s past interactions and patterns. 

Let’s put some context into it: You own a grocery store that wants to target different audience groups. You could train AI to include different product categories in each email based on subscriber preferences, purchasing history, or location. Here’s an email from Good Eggs, an online grocery store dedicated to delivering fresh and sustainable food supplies to its clients:

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Now how could AI help a brand like Good Eggs elevate their grocery store email marketing? AI could create two segments, one for people in California and the other for out-of-state customers living in colder climates. By analyzing which products are most popular with locals versus non-local customers, it will automatically create location-specific product recommendations. 

For example, AI would display more seasonal local fruits to California-located subscribers, whereas out-of-state readers would receive a bundle of the most popular tropical fruits. The grocery store could adjust the email copy, too. With the help of AI, they could emphasize the freshness of the products in the first case and highlight the exotic qualities of the Californian products in the second.

There’s even the option for real-time personalization. For example, if AI tools adjust email content in real-time, they’ll use stock availability data to display different content every time specific products run out. 

However, sometimes AI may get it wrong. So, double-checking what AI produces is key to ensure the relevance and effectiveness of your message. Plus, it’s not uncommon for this type of technology to go too deep with personalization. In that case, everything depends on the marketer’s understanding of their audience. Some information might feel too personal. So, you should count on human empathy to detect and remove any data that could make your subscribers experience discomfort. 

A famous brand that uses AI to target subscribers with tailored email content is Sephora. With AI, the brand generates personalized product recommendations based on each subscriber’s browsing and purchase history. Then, they deliver targeted email content promoting these products—a tactic that has resulted in more sales. Here’s a sneak peek of such a product recommendation email from Sephora:

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3. Data Collection and Processing

AI helps businesses out with a different part of email personalization. And that’s what comes before email creation: data. The more customer data you have at your disposal, the more effective your email personalization efforts will be. But gathering and managing data is usually a time-consuming process. 

When AI tools enter the game, they minimize the time you spend on data collection and processing. By constantly monitoring customer interactions with your brand across multiple touch points, they gather unique insights that you can use to make data-driven decisions. Some of these insights include their website behavior, email engagement, and social media activity. So, you get to remove manual data processing out of the equation while better identifying your subscribers’ individual needs. 

Still, there might be some concerns regarding data privacy and quality in AI email marketing. The following research demonstrates that both are common challenges to AI adoption: 

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Ensure that the information you get aligns with ethical marketing practices and your email marketing is compliant with data protection and privacy laws. And don’t forget to communicate that dedication to your audience to build trust. Also, sometimes the data that AI collects could be inaccurate or out of date. So, double-check to avoid bad campaign performance due to poor-quality data.

4. Send Time Optimization

Email marketing isn’t just about creating email campaigns and sending them to your list. You want to deliver your messages when it’s most convenient for your subscribers instead of making assumptions based on aggregate send times. For this, you’ll need some AI assistance to identify the optimal time to reach your target audience. 

To truly personalize the email experiences, it’s essential to optimize your send times based on your subscribers’ habits and preferences. AI tools analyze your email metrics and use predictive analytics to evaluate patterns in subscriber behavior. In other words, they can identify when recipients are most likely to open and click through your emails. That way, they help you establish the best send times, which may translate into increased opens, clicks, and ultimately, more email conversions. 

Using AI to nail your email marketing timing works wonders for your strategy. But is it enough? The key here is not to lose the open line of communication provided by email. So, ask your audience when they’d like to have your emails land in their inbox through a dedicated poll or survey. Not only will you be accessing valuable insights directly from the source, but you’ll show your audience that you’re willing to take the extra mile to improve their experience.

5. List Management

To keep your email marketing efforts effective, you need an effective email list. But maintaining your contact database sanitized and updated is an email practice that takes significant time and effort. Especially if you do it at least twice a year as you should. That’s another use case of artificial intelligence that you can benefit from, making sure your email deliverability stays high, and ESPs don’t mark you as an untrustworthy sender.

AI algorithms can detect and remove false, invalid, or outdated email addresses to ensure your mailing lists stay healthy.  Artificial intelligence may even alert you to false email addresses during the signup process. AI solutions use real-time validation to check email addresses, saving you the trouble of adding them to your list in the first place. 

Having a healthy email list by deleting invalid contacts is one thing. But turning the inactive ones into engaged recipients is another—and no one can do it better than you. AI’s most important contribution is to take tedious and time-consuming tasks out of your schedule. That way, you can focus on what matters: finding the right tactics, email types, and content to re-engage inactive customers, nurture existing ones, or even predict and prevent customer churn.

Train AI Instead of Feeling Intimidated by It

The biggest problem with AI adoption seems to be that we, marketers, don’t know how to make the most of it. Using AI in your email campaigns comes with many benefits, such as saving time for more creative tasks. So, replacing human creativity isn’t one of the things AI’s here for.

What you should do is dive into the AI use cases discussed in our post, but ensure you keep doing what you do best. And that’s writing amazing copy with a human touch. Train AI tools to match your brand’s voice and make the necessary tweaks so readers can tell that your emails come from a real person, not a machine. 

Your recipients still crave and deserve a human-to-human email experience. Refine your email marketing with AI. Still, you must use it wisely, turning it into a powerful assistant instead of your replacement.

Author

Maria Fintanidou works as a copywriter for email marketing automation software Moosend, having created the Help Articles (FAQs) and overseen the platform’s translations in Greek and Spanish. She loves exploring new cultures and ways of thinking through traveling, reading, and language learning.