The Future of Marketing Automation: 12 Trends for 2024

What does the future of marketing automation look like? Although we all wish we could gaze upon a crystal ball for the answers, we have a more reliable trajectory to guide us: trends!

Automation trends point toward what could come down the pike and change how automation drives marketing in this decade.

In this article, we will outline the major trends that are steering the future of marketing automation and reshaping the customer experience, email marketing, social media, omnichannel marketing, and more.

Table of Contents

1. Predictive AI Will Become More Widespread

Artificial intelligence is wildly intelligent and rampantly growing its smarts by the day. One example of that is predictive AI.

Marketers can use predictive AI in many ways. An AI automation tool can parse through large quantities of data to guess which leads will convert, how much a customer will spend for the coming quarter or year, which customers might drop out of the funnel, and how much your company will earn for the year.

Predictive AI can save companies tens of thousands, sometimes millions of dollars. They can determine if their sales will fall short of current goals and quickly pivot before facing a lackluster sales quarter, turning around their fortunes.

As AI becomes more intelligent and more businesses realize the value of predictive AI, especially in combination with an automation tool’s quick data processing, its predictive functions will become more widely embraced and enhance the future of marketing automation.

2. Automation Will Continue in Omnichannel Marketing Campaigns

Omnichannel marketing is the future. If you’ve been living under a rock, omnichannel marketing refers to an encompassing campaign that reaches customers on all touchpoints, including social media, email, website, and text messages.

As today’s consumers have more options than ever for engaging with brands, omnichannel marketing dominates the landscape. Companies that don’t have omnichannel measures in place will fall behind, as consumers will prefer the businesses that do.

Marketing automation simplifies omnichannel outreach. Automation software allows businesses of all sizes to reach customers seamlessly. The hands-off element to marketing that automation tools present gives businesses more time to focus on the trajectory of their campaigns.

3. More Images Will Be AI-Generated

Images have always been a critical part of a successful content marketing campaign. According to meeting operating software ZipDo, content shares increase by 80 percent if your content has images.

Most marketers use images in their content in the 2020s. Doing so requires answering a few tough questions – like where will you get the images from?

Stock images are plentiful and prevalent. However, they’re also generic. If you thought to search a keyword and got a stock image, you can expect your competitors also did, so who’s to say you aren’t both using the same photo?

Paying for photos can milk a startup’s budget dry, but it’s the only way to ensure original images. Or is it?

AI image generators were in their infancy as the 2020s got underway, but between 2023 and 2024, we’ve seen the power of these tools. Many of us remember hearing about the newsworthy story of Pope Francis being photographed wearing a puffer coat. It was a unique style for the pope, never seen before. Well, that’s because it was fake.

However, millions of people initially believed the image was real and not AI-generated. The days of AI struggling to generate images are over. Its capabilities to produce realistic imagery will only get stronger as the decade continues.

Using AI for image generation ensures your content has unique images every time. You can also illustrate abstract concepts.

4. Mobile-First Marketing Will Be Paramount

The future of marketing automation is a mobile-first approach, which means tailoring marketing strategies, channels, content, and campaigns to a mobile audience.

The style, appearance, and type of messaging will vary compared to those who use their computers to access your marketing content.

For example, you would create a mobile-optimized version of an email message so users who open your email on their phones or tablets would not have to worry about images or copy that doesn’t fit the screen size of their devices.

The type of campaigns you select also differs with mobile-first marketing. SMS marketing is a great example, as this marketing style is catered to those who can receive text messages.

If your business is yet to take a mobile-first approach, make this the year you change that. With more than 90 percent of people in the world owning phones, marketing in any other way means ignoring the needs of most of your audience.

5. Personalization Will Remain Paramount

Personalized content is more than a trendy buzzword in the 2020s. It’s a must. According to Blogging Wizard, almost 90 percent of companies have invested in personalization.

Why such a high rate? Today’s consumers have more options than ever to whom they will give their hard-earned money. They want to feel like individuals, even if you have thousands or millions of other customers.

Consumers also want to feel understood. Personalizing content, from product recommendations to email subject lines, proves you know your customers. You remember their birthdays are special anniversaries. You know what they bought and can suggest what they should own based on their purchasing history.

Automation makes it possible to personalize customer communications to a large degree. You can confidently grow your audience and still deliver the kind of personalized experiences that keep customers engaged with your business.

AI also allows you to personalize content. Artificial intelligence systems can review customer data to quickly determine your audience’s likes and use machine learning to understand their needs and preferences more deeply.

As the AI system gets to know your audience, it can make appealing product suggestions and even write subject lines or email content based on what it knows about your customers.

You can also rely on AI for lead scoring and segmentation to keep your audience groups airtight.

6. AI’s Role in Copywriting Will Grow

Unless you’re an adept copywriter, you can hire freelance copywriters or a permanent writer on your staff. Then, you must convey your ideas, including the tone, and wait for the content to be written.

Trying to write copy yourself if it’s not your strong suit takes even longer. You can put hours into writing copy you don’t even feel confident about.

Enter AI.

AI in copywriting is already redirecting the future of marketing automation. Artificial intelligence has already begun creating content. What we’ve learned is that it’s better at producing some types of content than others.

For instance, blog copy isn’t an AI specialty as we roll into 2024. That’s because AI struggles to nail down the human element. However, copywriting, which is more straightforward and doesn’t require as much of that human element, is easier for an AI tool to produce.

You should still edit the copy AI generates before publishing (or hire someone to do it for you), but this will take far less time than writing it.

7. Chatbots Will Stick Around

the future of marketing automation giphy — *Image courtesy of Giphy*

Another marketing automation trend to know for 2024 is chatbots’ role in our campaigns’ future. Chatbots are already a common feature on many websites, but how frequently do the bots offer very little helpful information?

Chatbots have generated enough of a poor reputation that most internet users will click out of the chatbot the second they see it.

As AI has gotten better, so have chatbots. They can now understand what customers are asking for and provide more detailed information to answer their queries. Among the many benefits of chatbots is the reduced burden on the support teams.

This can keep your customer service reps available to handle a greater call or message volume, including complex, time-consuming requests. Your customers will feel heard and their problems adequately addressed, whether they contact your company by phone, email, or chat.

8. Machine Learning Will Continue to Sharpen AI

How is AI able to achieve these innovative marketing automation functions? Through machine learning.

Machine learning teaches AI via data. For example, if your company always has a great first half of the year, but your sales slump in the third quarter before picking back up in the fourth, machine learning will teach AI that your third quarter is your weakest.

Based on the data it’s received, its predictive abilities will assume that you will again have a poor third quarter in 2024. Here’s the thing with machine learning: it grows and evolves as the AI receives more data.

Your quarterly income reports won’t be identical from year to year. You could have a great third quarter in 2024. If you do, then based on that information, the AI tool will make a more accurate projection of how 2025 will look.

The more data the AI has, the more nuanced its projections and predictions.

9. More Social Media Content Will Be Automated with AI

With billions of users across social media in the 2020s, your business must have a strong social media presence to keep up with the future of automated marketing.

However, with an ever-increasing number of people using social media, the number of new platforms likewise keeps growing. Businesses must have a presence on every platform that’s more than a flash in the pan, making the demand to keep up difficult.

You don’t want to post the same content from Twitter to Instagram and Facebook. That’s boring and gives audiences little reason to follow you. You can post some overlap, but you should prioritize uniqueness as often as you can.

Marketing automation can already schedule your social media posts and comb platforms for social mentions, but why stop there? AI makes it possible to write your social media posts, so the future of marketing automation involves automated content.

An AI tool can generate perfect bits of copy that fit within the character requirements of Twitter or Instagram. It will recommend hashtags for you to use based on the content of your post.

All you have to do is edit the AI-generated copy and press send or let your marketing automation software take care of that for you.

Automating social media posts so efficiently like this will allow your business to craft compelling presences across all major social media platforms, edging out your competition.

10. Automation and AI Will Help More in Data Cleanup

Companies produce massive amounts of raw data by importing customer contact information, launching and archiving marketing and advertising campaigns, generating and storing sales data, and customer service logs.

Since it’s all digital, companies don’t necessarily concern themselves much with data volume … until they must seek a piece of data deep within their files. Then, it becomes a matter of finding the proverbial needle in the haystack.

It’s not impossible, but it will chew up so much time that retrieving older data becomes a hassle if a company must do it too often.

Companies can already rely on automation for data cleansing, and with AI at the helm, the process becomes even more expedient. AI can go through all the steps of data cleanup.

The process begins with data validation using parameters like uniqueness validation, consistency validation, data format validation, data range validation, code validation, and data type validation.

Next, data formats must align, which becomes more difficult if members of your company don’t use a standard naming convention for all the data. Duplicates must be dumped off, and then incomplete or missing data must be normalized.

The following step is finding and rectifying any database conflicts.

It sounds complex and confusing because it is! AI will perfectly commit to data cleansing, making it a regular part of your company workflow.

Consistent data cleansing will prevent the above scenario, where you’re seeking one small piece of data from a mountain of it. Of course, AI can retrieve data in those situations, but you’ll appreciate how much less often they arise.

11. Reinforcement Learning Will Make AI Smarter

You’re now aware of machine learning, the basis of how AI gains its intelligence. A subset of machine learning known as reinforcement learning should continue to gain momentum, increasing AI intelligence and making marketing automation software much smarter.

Let’s explain reinforcement learning so you can appreciate its capacity and propensity for growth.

This form of machine learning allows AI to make decisions. In other words, it can learn the maximum requirement to generate the maximum reward through observing and interacting.

Like other areas of AI, reinforcement learning uses algorithms to expand the “mind” of the AI, so to speak. Some algorithms are model-based, and others are model-free, with the difference being that the latter are more about trial and error.

Reinforcement learning is highly beneficial, as it can lead to sustainable, performance-driven change. AI will become smarter and more efficient.

However, too much of a good thing can go bad. Reinforcing to the nth degree overwhelms the AI and makes it less effective.

12. Social Shopping Will Continue Its Ascent

Another trend we think will shape the future of marketing automation is social shopping. This is an easy one to anticipate, as it’s already happening.

If you aren’t aware, social shopping is an immersive blend of social media and eCommerce. Customers can stay on a social media platform and complete their entire purchase.

They receive a confirmation in their email like they would with any other product or service they buy, but they complete their order wholly through your social media eCommerce platform.

Social shopping is advantageous, allowing businesses to reach larger audiences. You can recommend related products or services in your digital storefront. You can also automate said storefront.

By far, the biggest benefit of social shopping is reducing the steps required for conversion. Rather than make a customer open their email, click a link, visit your store, go through checkout, and then go back to their email for confirmation, you expedite the process, more than meeting them halfway.

It’s unsurprising that social selling is poised for an even grander ascent.

Bottom Line

Marketing automation won’t slow down anytime soon. If anything, we’re only scratching the surface of its potential.

Automation has evolved in a major way in recent years with the advent of AI and its growing pervasiveness. As AI becomes more intelligent and efficient, the barriers of what marketing automation can be will continue to be broken. Marketing automation trends shape how we use workflows and AI to aid us in day-to-day business tasks.

For an incredibly affordable marketing automation and CRM solution, try EngageBay.