"AI" was the most widely used word in 2023.
According to a recent survey conducted by DesignRush, 85% of marketing agencies incorporated generative AI tools in their daily business operations.
These tools allow us to create hyper-personalized messages to potential and existing clients through AI chatbots that react to their comments and questions in real-time, effectively increasing conversion rates.
Driving conversions is one of the primary services offered by Leadoo, a conversion platform whose marketing chief Greg Landon we had the opportunity to interview.
Who Is Greg Landon?
Greg has an extensive background working in U.K. marketing agencies. He has managed digital activity within agencies based across Cardiff, Edinburgh and London, for clients including Airbus, Sage, the White Company, Rohde & Schwarz, Crew Clothing and the Welsh Government. Greg is now the Head of Marketing at Leadoo, which he was drawn to because it simplifies so much of the conversion and website work he used to do in agencies.
DesignRush: Could you give us a brief overview of Leadoo, particularly focusing on your core services?
Greg: Leadoo is a 5-year-old Conversion Platform headquartered in Helsinki with around 1000 customers globally.
Leadoo turns businesses' passive website traffic into active leads through conversational tech.
Our forensic insights then tell you where your website visitors work, how they access your site, and how their buying journeys develop.
Leadoo enables you to:
- Identify your website visitors
- Nurture them during their buying journeys
- Convert more of them into customers
Leadoo integrates AI chatbots into existing digital marketing strategies. Can you tell us about the main advantages of utilizing this technology?
The advantage of using AI in conversational tech is that it provides real-time answers to user questions. For example, users don't have to rely just on having live chat agents this way.
Our AI model is trained on your website and branded materials. So an AI bot can act as a real-time customer or sales assistant as users have specific questions while they browse.
Because it's AI, it works 24/7 and can answer users in almost any language, wherever they are in the world. When users begin to show buying intent through their questions, AI can serve dynamic link suggestions to increase the likelihood of a conversion.
Can you tell us about Leadoo's process to personalize chatbot interactions, and how it has evolved with advancements in generative AI?
We've always had a large dedicated customer success team — our "conversion experts."
They work with all new customers to build conversion pathways through our tools, with an emphasis on personalization.
This could mean differing bot content and pre-set prompts based on variables such as:
- Whether the user is a returning visitor
- What onsite pages they've already viewed if they came via a paid ad
- What industry do they work in
A common use case might be having specific in-page bots on different product pages that answer questions or provide info solely about that product.
Research shows that website users expect personalized service.
Responses created by generative AI supercharge this because you aren't providing responses to pre-set FAQs. The AI generates a real-time bespoke response to your specific question as a user.
Can you provide data illustrating AI chatbots' impact on customer interaction?
As a conversion platform, our goal is all about driving conversions and raising conversion rates — the likelihood of a website visitor converting into a customer.
A conversion means many different things to different customers. It could be a sale, a job application, a phone inquiry or a PDF download.
Whatever a conversion means for a specific business, Leadoo's tools help them increase conversions.
A study of over 800 Leadoo customers showed that our tools raised their conversion rates by over 70% compared to average conversion rates.
This spans a huge variety of sectors, with some pertinent case studies including:
- Rolling out AI chatbots in 12 different languages for a global robotics manufacturer
- Quadrupling year-on-year conversion rates for a U.S. marketing agency
- Tripling quarterly leads within a year for a specialist insurance provider
How relevant are user data and analytics in the process to ensure relevancy and effectiveness in customer interactions?
Data and analytics underpin all of our conversion experts' recommendations when it comes to both content and journeys.
By tracking each response and user path, we can see exactly where users drop off in their conversion journeys and what content they most and least engage with.
Unsurprisingly, this can differ massively by industry and type of user.
This is why personalization backed by data is so important — it suggests how our chatbots and conversion pathways are constructed.
How effective are Leadoo's AI chatbot solutions in adapting to different industries, such as telecommunications and finance?
The breadth of case studies shows that our conversion tools work across almost any industry. However, we often find the most success when customers have very considered purchases.
Telecoms and finance are perfect examples of this.
If you're buying network or fintech services you're not going to choose a provider on a whim. You'll research extensively, probably enquire with several providers, and you might visit a provider's website anywhere from 10 to 50 times over a couple of months.
If that's the kind of considered journey your buyers are on, it is invaluable to know what questions they ask onsite, what content they engage with, what makes their conversion journeys end and which other stakeholders in their companies also visit your site.
How does Leadoo measure the return on investment (ROI) for AI chatbot implementations?
We measure this through revenue generated from onsite leads and conversions, as we believe raising conversion rates is the most efficient way to increase revenue.
Because we know how much we raise average conversion rates across industries, we actively invite prospective customers to test potential ROI with us.
For businesses looking to implement AI chatbots, what key advice would Leadoo recommend to ensure successful deployment and high user acceptance?
Integrating with businesses' existing tech stack is something we work hard on during onboarding.
It's great to raise conversion rates and capture analytics about how users engage with our tools. However, value is taken to another level when those insights are passed into businesses' CRM or marketing automation systems.
At the same time, this is also crucial as it helps marketing and sales teams remain aligned.
What are your predictions for the future of AI chatbots in digital marketing in 2024?
Generative AI will continue to be the hottest topic in digital marketing in 2024.
We know from research that the most common use cases C-level executives identified for AI within marketing are conversational tech and chatbots.
Expectations placed on marketers will be that they continue to integrate and develop AI solutions across websites and digital strategies to deliver both marketing results and commercial efficiencies.
In a tough year for the global economy, marketers have consistently been asked to do more with less. AI is only likely to keep those expectations in place.
With traffic becoming more competitive and expensive to acquire in many instances, we predict digital marketers will need to maximize performance from their existing website traffic through tools like AI chatbots, rather than focusing as much on traffic acquisition.
