Marketers look to AI tools to boost experimentation

digital tech1UK marketers are increasingly implementing artificial intelligence to level up their approach to A/B testing and experimentation, with two-thirds adopting AI within their experimentation approach, and almost half having embraced the technology within the past year.

That is according to a new report by digital experience platform provider Optimizely, based on a study of 100 marketers and 1,000 consumers in the UK, which examines the current state of experimentation practices, and how marketers are using, and planning to use, AI to address rapidly changing business and consumer expectations.

The Tested to Perfection report reveals that nearly nine in 10 marketers (87%) believe experimentation is important for achieving their goals in 2024, with one in five (20%) feeling their current web experimentation approach is inneffective. Nearly a quarter (23%) would go as far as to describe their current approach as unsophisticated.

When asked what has been preventing marketers from experimenting effectively, Optimizely’s report identifies several recurring themes.

Lack of budget is a challenge for almost half of marketers (43%), while a lack of resources, time and focus is also a barrier for 39% of respondents. Other challenges include a lack of effective tools or technology (25%), silos between relevant teams (25%), and the small scale of experiments (18%).

However, 89% of marketers believe AI will be the answer to overcoming these barriers.

Almost half (48%) plan to use AI to create more targeted and personalised content in the future, with 41% setting their sights set on generating headlines, images and CTAs at scale; 37% planning to use AI to dynamically allocate traffic between test variations and 32% turning to the tech to create hypotheses for experiments.

Over two-thirds (70%) of UK marketers believe that AI will help make experimentation faster, and 62% believe AI will make experimentation more accurate.

Even so, in an age where every business decision is scrutinised, many organisations have yet to perfect their experimentation practices to improve personalisation and drive more conversions.

However, Optimizely reckons that, by combining the power of AI and experimentation, marketers can see with certainty what type of content resonates with specific customer profiles and adapt as needed to take digital experiences to entirely new levels.

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