Four Skills Every Marketer Needs 

In our upcoming report, The secret lives of marketers, 65% of those surveyed told us AI helps them get work done faster. For the first time in a long time, the familiar feeling of never having enough hours in the day is starting to ease.

But that creates a different question: what should you do with the time you’ve gained?

As AI takes on more manual work (like building reports, analyzing data, creating content, and building segments), marketers’ day-to-day is changing. The to-do list is still long, but now there’s more room to improve campaigns, analyze results, and plan campaigns that deliver stronger results.

So, where should you invest your time? Here are four marketing skills that can help you get even more from every campaign, along with practical ways to start developing them.

1. Turning data into decisions, not dashboards

Getting answers from your marketing data is becoming much easier. Connected platforms and integrated AI assistants mean you can spend less time building dashboards or digging through reports, and more time understanding what the data is telling you.

You’ve now got more time to dedicate to spotting patterns, challenging assumptions, identifying what’s worth testing, and deciding what to do next. AI can bring insights to you, but turning them into better marketing decisions still depends on you.

Skills to focus on

The insights you get depend on the questions you ask of your data. Whether you’re using AI features built into your marketing tools or working with an AI assistant like ChatGPT or Claude, thoughtful prompts help uncover insights you can act on.

Understand campaign performance

Start by understanding what happened before deciding what to do next:

• How much revenue did email generate compared to the same period last year?
• Which campaigns contributed the most assisted revenue?
• Which customer segments generated the highest revenue per recipient?
• Which campaigns performed above or below expectations, and why?
• Were there any unusual changes in open rates, click-through rates, conversions, or unsubscribe rates this week?
• Which journeys generated the highest revenue with the fewest sends?

Spot trends you can repeat

Knowing what performed well will help you find patterns you can apply to more campaigns:

• What do my top-performing campaigns have in common?
• Which subject line styles consistently drive higher open rates?
• Do shorter or longer emails generate more clicks for different audiences?
• Does sending at different times change engagement for different customer segments?
• Which calls to action (CTAs) generate the highest click-through rate?
• Are there content themes that consistently lead to more conversions?

Turn insights into action

Finally, move from reporting to planning. Ask AI to help prioritize your next steps rather than simply summarizing performance: 

• Based on this data, what are the three biggest opportunities to improve performance?
• Which campaign should we test first, and why?
• Which audience segments are underperforming, and what should we change?
• Where are we losing customers in the journey?
• If you were planning next month’s email calendar using this data, what would you prioritize?

Knowing which insights deserve your attention and which ones are worth acting on is one of the most valuable marketing skills you can spend time developing. With data backing up your decisions, it’s much easier to create customer journeys that deliver real value.

2. Owning the strategy behind the automation

A clearer understanding of your customer journey helps you identify the moments where automation will have the biggest impact. Focus on the journeys that will make the biggest difference to your customers rather than trying to automate everything.

Skills to focus on

A strong automation strategy isn’t about creating more journeys. It’s about choosing the ones that solve a genuine customer need.

Identify the moments that matter

Check whether key moments in customer journeys have automation flows in place:

• New email subscriber or account creation
• Abandoned cart 
• Abandoned browse
• Post-conversion (e.g., post-purchase)
• Review request 

With those covered, use your reporting to uncover the moments unique to your customers:

• Are customers churning thirty days after a purchase? Build a re-engagement flow to keep customers engaged
• Does customer engagement spike around a specific date in your calendar? Create a journey that builds anticipation ahead of the event
• Is there a specific product customers love above all others? Turn every new product launch into an automated journey for your biggest fans

These insights help you decide which customer journey flows to build next.

Build a testing calendar

Once your core journeys are running, your time shifts from building more automations to improving the ones you already have. Regular testing helps you understand what resonates with your audience and gives you the confidence to keep refining your campaigns over time.

Here are some top testing tips: 

• Test one automation flow at a time 
• Choose one element to test at a time, for example
  • Subject lines 
  • Content length
  • Email style or layout
  • Images used 
• Keep track of your results 
• Run your optimized campaign for three months before testing again

With key customer moments automated, the next step is to make every message feel relevant, so you’re addressing them directly in the moment.

3. Making every message more relevant

Only 15% of 4,000 shoppers surveyed in the Customer trend index consider the marketing they receive to be relevant in the moment. That doesn’t mean you have to personalize every message, but you do have to go further than a first name. AI can help you personalize at scale, but deciding who needs a different experience and when is still up to you.

Skills to focus on

Personalization should be intentional. As you build your campaigns, decide which audiences need a different experience and what will make that journey more relevant.

Identify your most important audiences

AI agents can help you build the segments in seconds, leaving you more time to decide which audiences matter most. Try prompts like these:

• Build a segment with customers who haven’t engaged with an email in the last 90 days
• Create a segment of customers who have made two or more purchases in the last six months
• Find customers who browse regularly but haven’t completed a purchase
• Build a segment with customers who are close to becoming VIPs based on their purchase history
• Create a segment of customers who have never redeemed a loyalty reward
• Identify customers who bought from a specific product category but haven’t purchased again in the last six months
• Find customers who consistently open emails but rarely click through
• Build a segment with customers who joined in the last 30 days but haven’t made their first purchase

Personalize the experience

After you’ve identified the right audience, think carefully about what actually needs to change. Sometimes it’s the offer, sometimes the message, and sometimes simply the timing. 

The most effective personalization solves a customer problem or makes the customer journey smoother. Here are a few ways to do that:

• Win-back campaigns
  Tailor messages in your win-back campaign to speak to customers differently depending on their customer lifetime value (CLV). Customers with higher CLV receive a free gift with their next order, while those with lower CLV see an offer of free shipping to tip them over the line.

• Localized banners
  Update messages or images based on the segment’s geographic location, like showing winter clothes to a shopper in New York in December and your summer collection to those in Sydney. 

• Replenishment campaigns
  Send replenishment reminders based on when customers typically reorder, rather than a fixed number of days, so it lands at the best time for them.

Every relevant interaction gives customers another reason to come back. Over time, those moments strengthen the relationship and create more opportunities to keep customers engaged.

4. Building relationships that last

The strongest retention strategies give customers reasons to come back long before they’re at risk of leaving. AI can now identify customers at risk of churning, uncover loyalty opportunities, and recommend the next best action. That gives you more time to think beyond reactive marketing and create experiences that keep customers engaged for the long term.

Skills to focus on

Retention works best when it’s planned with the same care as acquisition. Instead of treating it as the final stage of the customer journey, build a strategy that continually engages customers.

Build retention with intention

Loyalty programs are one of the most effective ways to turn retention into an ongoing strategy. Our Customer Trend Index found that loyalty programs influence 53% of shoppers to feel more loyal to brands, while loyalty program members spend 67% more than non-members on average. A well-designed program gives customers a reason to come back between purchases, rather than only hearing from you when you’re trying to win them back.

Here are a few ways to build a loyalty program that customers genuinely value.

1. Reward the behaviors that matter
   Build your loyalty program around the behaviors you want to encourage. If customers naturally buy from you again, rewarding repeat purchases makes sense. If they don’t, or if you have a longer buying cycle, consider rewarding other actions that build a stronger relationship, such as reviews, referrals, or product engagement. 
2. Create rewards customers actually want
   Customer data gives you a much clearer picture of what drives your audience. Use those insights to shape rewards that feel genuinely worthwhile rather than offering the same incentives to everyone. When rewards reflect what your customers need, they’re far more likely to keep engaging with your brand.
3. Keep improving your program
   Launching your loyalty program isn’t the final destination. Customer expectations change, new opportunities emerge, and what motivates one audience today may not work tomorrow. Set aside time to review performance, listen to customer feedback, and refine your rewards so the program continues to deliver value for both your customers and your business.

There’s a lot more to loyalty program design than these three points. The Dotdigital Academy course on building customer loyalty covers it in full.

Where to invest your time

Now that AI is doing more of the manual work, how you spend your time matters just as much as the tools you use.

Understanding your customers better helps you design more thoughtful customer journeys. Those journeys create more relevant experiences, and relevant experiences build stronger customer relationships over time.

With more of the execution handled for you, there’s more time to focus on the decisions, creativity, and customer understanding that shape better marketing.

The more you invest in these skills, the more valuable every campaign, customer journey, and customer relationship becomes.