Marketing to a dual audience: The human and the machine
Algorithms, recommendation engines, and search systems increasingly mediate the path to purchase. What does that mean for marketers who are still largely designing strategies for human audiences? Andrew Slot of 5D explores.
We live in a technologically driven world, something which is both a blessing and a curse. Marketers obsess over audience personas, customer journeys and funnels, as though every choice still sits squarely in the hands of the consumer. But it doesn’t. We are no longer just marketing to buyers; increasingly, we are also marketing to technology.
Technology has crept so deeply into the mechanics of decision-making that it now shapes the very way people think. New research from 5D shows technology induced declines in conscientious behaviour, self-efficacy and even optimism, but showed increases in apathy, anxiety and over-reliance on external systems to make decisions for us. That means when buyers feel overwhelmed or uncertain, they turn to shortcuts. Those shortcuts are rarely human; they are digital. AI recommendation engines, social feeds and search algorithms now act like gatekeepers between intent and action.
That jumper you never meant to buy? The one that appeared in your Instagram feed just after you’d clicked on a similar brand’s website? That wasn’t you simply making a choice; that was an algorithm reframing your options and nudging you toward a click. This same process plays out in more serious contexts as well. Mortgages, insurance, health providers – buyers search, compare, evaluate and increasingly surrender their final decision to technology, whether through a ranking system, a chatbot or an LLM. The research shows that the higher the personal risk of the choice, the greater the reliance on technology to validate it.
Andrew Slot
