SAP Emarsys Customer Engagement has announced its June 2024 product release, featuring a host of omnichannel additions, enterprise enhancements, and AI-infused features that build on the platform’s long-standing heritage in artificial intelligence and reflect a new study showing that AI is one of the most powerful streamlining tools available to marketers.
The latest research from SAP Emarsys, surveying over 250 marketers and 2,000 consumers in Australia, has found that 74 per cent of marketers see AI as essential to increasing customer engagement in 2024; similarly, 43 per cent of consumers support its further integration into retail experiences. 72 per cent of marketers have seen an increase in customer loyalty since the introduction of AI, while another 77 per cent will be increasing their investment in AI as a result.
With that in mind, the updates reflect the desire and urgency of marketers to use AI to supercharge personalised campaigns and productivity, strengthening the platform’s AI features and functions and enabling marketers to benefit from the time-saving powers of generative AI:
- AI Subject Line Generator. Powered by OpenAI’s ChatGPT-4, SAP Emarsys’ Subject Line Generator is set for General Availability in July. It enables marketers to generate unique, context-specific subject lines that factor in language preferences, natural language prompts, and the desired level of creativity — all directly within a user’s email editor. 63 per cent of marketers agree that email subject lines written by AI get higher open rates, according to SAP Emarsys research.
- AI Preheader Generator. Having a symbiotic relationship with subject lines, preheader copy is another important element to capturing readers attention and increasing email opens. Capitalising on the groundwork laid by the Subject Line Generator, the Preheader Generator will also enter General Availability in July, empowering marketers to create engaging email preheaders that reflect the context of the email, chosen subject line, user prompts and settings.
- AI Product Finder. Announced in pilot by SAP Emarsys in March, marketers can reduce the time it takes to find and insert specific products across their marketing campaigns from hours or days to seconds, using keywords and heuristics to seamlessly search and map product catalog fields to the content template. Upcoming functionality will even allow users to “talk” to their product catalogs and identify the best products for campaigns using natural language prompts, such as “show me top selling shoes that are not on sale but have excess inventory”.
- AI Segment Generator. Entering pilot phase this summer, the AI Segment Generator will generate a human-readable description of existing segments – distilling hundreds of potential criteria, logic, and operators – to aid comprehension and improve searchability. It can also be reverse engineered, turning natural language prompts into a new segment.
These features build upon an established history for SAP Emarsys in the AI space with tools like AI Segments, Product Recommendations, and Send Time Optimisation already used by customers like Brand Alley, Nike and Puma.
“It was very easy to integrate the Subject Line Generator (SLG) into the newsletter production workflow. With the SLG, we no longer have to switch to another tool to create the subject line, we waste less time with the prompt, so we are faster and have less hassle. The subject lines generated were always helpful and could be used straight away or with minimal tweaking. We now use SLG for almost all of our campaigns and wouldn’t want to be without it!” said Tanja Beeler, Digital Marketing Specialist at Betty Bossi, part of Coop Group.
With marketers consistently expected to do more now to scale personalised marketing campaigns than ever, often with less resources, AI adoption and innovation is only set to continue.
“Responsible, relevant, and reliable AI innovation has been a cornerstone of SAP Emarsys’ AI heritage for over a decade. We are committed to being a data-driven platform that boosts marketer intelligence to ensure the brands we work with stay head of the competition. Continuing this tradition, we’re relentlessly expanding the capabilities of our time-saving solutions, empowering marketers to foster true loyalty and create winning customer experiences,” said Silvana Tagand, regional vice president of revenue for APJ at SAP Emarsys.
Beyond AI, the platform has also seen the introduction of new channels and features that connect additional data sources, enhance marketer intelligence and enable cohesive integration with key collaborators and technology partners:
WhatsApp conversational messaging. Announced for early adopters and in partnership with Sinch, Emarsys users can now design, personalise, and launch WhatsApp marketing campaigns and automations.
- LinkedIn Ads integration. Following its February pilot, integration with LinkedIn Ads has now reached General Availability – allowing marketers to better connect with over 1bn users through personalised ads, real-time contact importing, and seamless lead acquisition.
- Unified dashboard. This summer’s update introduces a new enterprise reporting dashboard in Pilot stage, that provides a cross-account view of key metrics, such as engagement levels and revenue. These metrics can be compared across all business units within an organisation, providing a clear frame of reference with which to review campaigns and performance.
- Solution connectors and integrations. Updates across the SAP Emarsys partner ecosystem include: a Real-Time SAP CDP Connector available to all users for the import of data from SAP CDP to the Emarsys platform, unlocking enhanced segmentation, personalisation and automation of privacy-first customer engagements; a pilot for a new mParticle connector, enabling one-way synchronisation from the 3rd-party customer data platform to Emarsys; plus, the Google Analytics integration becoming Generally Available, enabling web activity to power marketing campaigns and automation.
