Digital retailers will invest in voice search and machine learning to improve their content and digital marketing efforts during the next 12 months, according to the CMO Performance Report 2018 released this week by QueryClick.
Two-thirds of the 150 chief marketing officers at large UK consumer brands said that they funnel more investment in transformative tech such as artificial intelligence and machine learning to make it easier to serve up more relevant content and messages to customers across an ever-growing number of digital touchpoints.
More than half of retailers also said that voice search will be a focal point for digital spend. The voice recognition market will be worth more than £450m by 2019, and 50% of all searches will be carried out by voice by the end of the decade, so it is no surprise that brands are eager to make moves now to get ahead of the pack.
Ranking near the top of voice-led search is important for retailers, and 75% are planning to optimise SEO to ensure that their content performs well in these cases. Four in ten will do so by summer 2019.
“Consumer attention is under an unprecedented assault from brand messaging and content across more channels than ever before, and retailers are fiercely competing for their share,” QueryClick’s Founder and Chief Executive Officer Chris Liversidge said.
He added: “Amidst the challenges however lie opportunities for retailers able to rebuild their strategies using data science to truly understand what consumers want, and consistently engage with them.”
