Persado Reveals Top- and Least-Performing Words for Engaging Consumers

Generative AI Company Analyzes 21.6 Billion Impressions Across Retail, Travel, and Financial Services

Persado, the Motivation Artificial Intelligence (AI) company that generates personalized communications at scale, has released its lists of the 10 best- and least-performing words in consumer marketing for 2022—and what the findings mean for brands amid uncertain economic conditions in 2023.

The Persado Content Intelligence team analyzed 21.6 billion consumer impressions (emails sent), encompassing 8.6 billion permutations, between Jan 1-Dec 15, 2022. Messages spanned industries, with the largest concentration in retail.

Persado revealed the 10 best- and least-performing words in emails sent to consumers based on message engagement (clicks). Words were tagged to the most likely associated emotion as determined by the Persado Motivation AI Platform. The full lists of words, analysis, and top takeaways for 2023, are available on the Persado blog.

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“In 2022, we saw customers engage most when messages promised something tangible. For example, ‘re:’ indicates a specific item or topic and past-tense language—such as ‘dropped’ or ‘scored’—speaks to concreteness,” explained Lisa Spira, Vice President of Content Intelligence at Persado. “On the flip side, language that focused on a negative emotion—such as ‘miss,‘ which speaks of regret—fell flat. While context is always important, this data indicates that consumer sentiment post-COVID generally favored the sure thing.”

“As marketers kick off 2023, they should think of language—more so than the specific new product, or dollars saved—as a tool for highlighting the value a customer receives from the brand. By using words as assets, companies position their brand as a reliable partner, continually bringing welcome news to each customer’s inbox,” advised Spira.

Persado’s enterprise Generative AI is trained on a specialized dataset of real interaction and transaction data from 150 million U.S. consumers enabling marketers to motivate customers and drive significant business value across email, SMS, web, and social. The AI content generator understands the intent of a message, optimizes what language will motivate and engage individuals, uses machine learning to generate unique narratives, refines that language for elevated performance, and then produces content that is hyper-personalized to inspire action.

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