At SAP, Machine Learning Is Imperative for Content Marketing Personalization

When SAP wanted to create a truly bespoke experience for readers of its content websites, the enterprise software company turned to machine learning. David Jonker, SAP’s vice president of thought leadership marketing, spoke with eMarketer’s Jillian Ryan about his team’s journey to implement artificial intelligence (AI) technology and why it’s an essential part of the company’s content marketing strategy.

Through machine learning, we’re building more sophisticated algorithms to understand our published content and match it to people’s interests. If people show up to our site and the article they see isn't quite what they're looking for, we could lose them. We want to make sure the content we deliver to them is as precisely targeted as possible. The better we can target the content, the more engaged visitors will be—and the more satisfied they'll be in the education they received on issues they're trying to address.

One of our clients, the Toronto International Film Festival, had a similar problem and we built this technology for them. The personalized experience more than doubled performance results and engagement for them, so we figured we could test it for our purposes.

We have two approaches to content creation as it relates to thought leadership marketing. First, we’ve very deliberate about curating high-quality original content and long-form research on topics like digital transformation. The second element is community-sourced content. We're building a community of experts, writers and thought leaders in their industries and lines of business to contribute to our content properties.