Bend Rules-Based Marketing with Self-Optimizing Journeys 

Bend the rules-based marketing. Why?

An overreliance on rules-based marketing likely disconnects marketers from their customer’s shopping journey.

My personal example, which I have written about, was attempting to get a rental car—never getting it—and then getting an email from the rental car company asking me how my rental was.

Some of the time, manually creating rules to segment consumers according to their interests, needs, and demographics helps drive their business. But certainly not all the time.

Research from Gartner underscores this point: nearly half of customers (48%) unsubscribe from brand emails deemed irrelevant, leading to potential loss of business. While once cutting-edge, the rigid “if/then” structure of canvass-based journey building fails to account for the unpredictability of human behavior and the diversity of customer journeys.

Today, marketers can adapt and start marketing with the customer, not the product or service. Plus, marketers cannot assume that larger groups of customers will take “similar next actions” in their purchase journey.

To address the needs of thousands of micro-segments of consumers, in 2024, message journey orchestration powered by Self-Optimizing Journeys starts with the customer adapting to individual characteristics and behaviors, effectively allowing customers to lead their own journeys.

Self-optimizing journeys identify all the campaigns each customer is eligible for and evaluate all journey possibilities, response probabilities, and potential impact on customer lifetime value to determine and serve the next best campaign for each customer. It does this over all the channels that a consumer prefers, be it email, Facebook, Google, TikTok, Snapchat, SMS, WhatsApp, another channel, or a combination of channels.

Businesses can deliver highly personalized, relevant, and timely messaging and offers by knowing where a customer is in their journey. This is real-time marketing that connects with the customer, boosting engagement and driving conversions.

Message journey orchestration emulates a great salesperson. It is nuanced and precise in dealing with the vast differences in how customers move from initial product exploration to an actual purchase. And it does a much better job than the dull instrument of rules-based marketing.

Self-optimizing journeys then orchestrate hundreds of these micro-moments, providing each customer with a personalized customer-led journey.

The following is an example of how Self-Optimizing Journeys orchestrate the marketing campaigns following a customer’s purchase to provide the most personalized customer journey possible.

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Post-Purchase Follow-Up Journey Example: John is a highly engaged customer of an activewear retailer. Following his latest purchase, he is eligible for three campaigns, each triggering subsequent ones. The first campaign focuses on discovering a new category for cross-selling. The second campaign starts a series of campaigns leading to the unveiling of the upcoming collection for the same category he just purchased. The third campaign is an offer for his forthcoming birthday. Additionally, there is a fourth option: for him to receive no campaign at all.

Without Self-Optimizing Journeys, marketers rely on intuition, experience, or their highest strategic priority to decide what campaign to send. As a result, a series of campaigns would be sent to all customers like John. Therefore, all customers would always receive the same campaign and journey, or none.

In addition, when marketers build rule-based journeys, they either cater to the average/minimum common customer denominator or to their own creativity. The point is that they do not cater to each customer’s needs and desires.

However, with Self-Optimizing Journeys, marketers can offer individual customers the best journey that suits them. Self-Optimizing Journeys consider the history of each customer’s interaction with the brand and calculate the expected increase in the lifetime value of serving each campaign, or none, to every eligible customer.

We have found that marketers are using Self-Optimizing Journeys to deliver results like these:

• 4x higher incremental uplift per customer when compared to rule-based journeys
• 46% increase in total incremental uplift for brands with over 20% of total campaigns included in Self-Optimizing Journeys when compared to rule-based journeys
• 450,454 weekly average autonomous decisions made

Self-Optimizing Journeys create hundreds of campaigns that answer customer micro-moments.

That said, there is still a place for rules-based marketing. Following up after a purchase for customer feedback makes sense, and birthday emails still say a customer is special.

But rules-based marketing is no longer the rule. Rely on AI-Driven Message Journey Orchestration. It enables marketers to be freer and more creative rather than bogged down in choosing the right message for the right customer at the right time.

So, bend the rules.

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Also catch: Episode 184 of The SalesStar Podcast: Al and Its Influence on Marketing: with Adri Gil Miner, CMO of Iterable