What is marketing automation?

Running an online shop is a complex process. Fortunately, there are ways to automate some repetitive activities. One of them is the implementation of marketing automation. What is it all about? What can it do for you? What are the benefits for e-commerce?

Definition of marketing automation

The popularity of marketing automation in relation to e-commerce is constantly growing. The wide range of opportunities offered by this technology makes it possible to interpret it in different ways. To fully understand its operation, we refer to the basic definition of marketing automation. According to this definition, marketing automation defines the way marketing and sales campaigns are conducted by automating repetitive activities.

Advanced AI and machine learning software enables the collection of behavioural and transactional data about customers. These can be used to conduct not only automated, but above all, strictly tailored to the needs and expectations of the customer marketing campaigns in various channels. In this way, the time-consuming work so far, including data analysis and campaign planning based on the data, is automated. This in turn leads to increased operational efficiency and accelerated income growth in companies from almost every industry.  

Marketing automation can be used for various communication channels, such as e-mail, website or newsletter. It allows:

• lead scoring, i.e. evaluation of the customer’s purchasing potential and segmentation of target groups,
• lead nurturing, i.e. automatic personalization of marketing messages,
• cross-selling and up-selling, i.e. the post-sale of products and additives.

The use of marketing automation technology brings a number of benefits to online shops. First of all, it allows you to achieve:

• optimization of activities, and consequently – reduction of costs and increase of effectiveness of the campaign,
• getting to know the brand’s customers in depth and, as a result, offering them individually tailored products and services, 
• establishing and maintaining quality relations with customers by providing them with real value,
• an examination of the effectiveness of the actions carried out,
• optimization of processes and internal communication between marketing and sales departments.

Online shop owners can choose from a variety of solutions that automate their communication with customers. When choosing a tool, it is first of all worth considering the goal we want to achieve with the use of technology and on this basis make a decision.