Victoria Secret Is Case Study of Using AI to Hyper-Personalize Emails

AI revolutionizes e-mail marketing: Artificial intelligence is transforming the landscape of e-mail newsletters, offering unprecedented levels of personalization and efficiency for customer relationship management.

The traditional approach: E-mail newsletters have long been a staple in marketing strategies, but they come with significant limitations.

• Newsletters are often prepared well in advance, with last-minute updates causing substantial rework and disruption.
• Customization is minimal, typically limited to basic A/B testing.
• Performance measurement tends to focus on large-scale averages rather than nuanced insights into individual customer preferences.

AI-driven transformation: Companies like Victoria’s Secret are leveraging AI to revolutionize their e-mail marketing strategies.

• Victoria’s Secret partnered with Movable Ink to implement AI-powered personalization through a platform called Da Vinci.
• The goal is to provide a 1:1 personalized experience at scale, moving beyond the manual, one-size-fits-all content strategy.
• AI considers factors such as storytelling, imagery, timing, frequency, sales channel preference, and tone within the brand voice to create tailored communications.

Technology behind the transformation: Movable Ink, along with competitors like Waxwing and OneSignal, employs a combination of AI technologies to enable this personalized approach.

• A vision model using deep learning analyzes potential imagery and copy.
• Generative AI creates copy based on customer preferences and behavior.
• An insights model evaluates creative performance in driving customer engagement and spending.
• A prediction model using classic machine learning fine-tunes offerings, providing more observable and explainable results.

Real-world impact: Companies implementing AI-powered e-mail marketing are seeing significant results.

• Victoria’s Secret rolled out the technology to its entire subscriber base after successful testing, now incorporating AI personalization in nearly every campaign.
• The company can now create thousands or even hundreds of thousands of versions of an e-mail campaign in less time than before.
• L.L.Bean, another Movable Ink customer, attributes $14 to $15 million in analyzed revenue last year to AI-powered personalization.
• L.L.Bean recently sent a single campaign with nearly 1.1 million unique content variations, a feat previously considered impossible.

Broader implications: The adoption of AI in e-mail marketing represents a significant shift in how companies communicate with their customers.

• This technology allows for unprecedented levels of personalization at scale.
• It has the potential to greatly improve customer engagement and drive revenue.
• As more companies adopt these technologies, consumers may experience increasingly tailored and relevant e-mail communications from brands.

Future outlook: The success stories from major retailers like Victoria’s Secret and L.L.Bean suggest that AI-powered e-mail marketing is here to stay.

• Both companies assert that there’s no going back to traditional methods.
• As AI technology continues to advance, we can expect even more sophisticated personalization techniques in the future.
• This shift may lead to a reevaluation of e-mail marketing strategies across various industries, potentially setting new standards for customer communication and engagement.