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This article reviews the quantitative marketing literature on artificial intelligence (AI) through an economics lens. We apply the framework in Prediction Machines: The Simple Economics of Artificial Intelligence to systematically categorize 96 research papers on AI in marketing academia into five levels of impact, which are prediction, decision, tool, strategy, and society. For each paper, we further identify each individual component of a task, the research question, the AI model used, and the broad decision type. Overall, we find there are fewer marketing papers focusing on strategy and society, and accordingly, we discuss future research opportunities in those areas.

In an increasingly technology-driven retail landscape, retailers face the challenge of making the most effective decisions regarding the selection and use of innovative technology. Although previous research provides insights into the added value of technology, it does not directly guide retailers in overviewing and selecting technology that supports their sales operations. This chapter contributes to the field of retail technology studies by introducing a sales-oriented model intended to assist retailers in inventorying available technologies and making decisions regarding the selection and use of these technologies for their physical stores. The model uses an updated version of the seven steps of selling as a foundation and, in line with the resource life cycle, decision support system and self-service technology literature streams, proposes applying technology in such a way that it supports the stages of the retailer's sales process. This chapter concludes with a discussion of practical guidelines for applying the model.

Missing in most of the research on selling has been an examination of the process from the point of view of the customer. When satisfaction in selling has been considered, researchers have focused on the satisfaction of the salesperson with his job and/or the impact of this job satisfaction on performance (e.g. Bluen, Barling & Burns, 1990; Churchill, Ford & Walker, 1979; Pruden & Peterson, 1971). To concentrate on salesperson performance while neglecting customers is to ignore the most important half of the relationship between buyers and sellers and entirely disregards the marketing concept and the streams of research in customer satisfaction. This research takes a different approach and examines customers’ satisfaction with salespeople.

It is generally recognised that companies spend approximately 50% of their marketing budget on promotional activities. Advertising belongs to the most visible areas of a company’s activity. Therefore, it should not be surprising that the average recipient associates marketing with advertising, competitions and leaflets about new promotions delivered to houses or offices. Advertising, especially Internet advertising, is one of the most effective forms of marketing and one of the fastest developing areas of business. New channels of communication are emerging all the time – the Internet, digital television, mobile telephony; accompanied by new forms, such as the so-called ambient media. Advertising benefits from the achievements of many fields of science, that is, psychology, sociology, statistics, medicine and economics. At the same time, it combines science and the arts – it requires both knowledge and intuition. Contemporary advertising has different forms and areas of activity; yet it is always closely linked with the operations of a company – it is a form of marketing communication.

The indices of marketing communication presented in this chapter are generally known and used not only by advertising agencies but also by the marketing departments of many organisations. Brand awareness, advertising scope and frequency, the penetration index or the response rate belong to the most widely used indices; others, like the conversion rate or the affinity index, will get increasingly more significant along with the process of professionalisation of the environment of marketing specialists in Poland and with increased pressure on measuring marketing activities. Marketing indices are used for not only planning activities, but also their evaluation; some of them, such as telemarketing, mailing and coupons, provide an extensive array of possibilities of performance evaluation.

The essential investments in new product development (NPD) made by industrial companies entail effective management of NPD activities. In this context, performance measurement is one of the means that can be employed in the pursuit of effectiveness.

In the context of digitalisation, issues related to the promotion of cloud technologies are becoming of paramount importance, including SaaS products, the demand for which has increased significantly. In the promotion of products, an important role is played by the marketing information system (MIS) of the organisation, the effective functioning of which allows one to obtain the necessary information for making informed management decisions.

The chapter aims to develop methodological approaches to evaluating the effectiveness of promoting SaaS products using MIS.

The chapter analyses the demand for cloud services on a global scale and in Russia. The authors identified and systematised the features, advantages, disadvantages and competitive advantages of SaaS products for owners and users.

A methodical approach to evaluating the effectiveness of promoting SaaS products using MIS based on a developed system of indicators is proposed and tested, including indicators that characterise work with customers during the sales funnel, indicators that characterise customer loyalty and economic indicators that characterise the efficiency of the funnel sales in general.

The authors developed a system of indicators for evaluating the functioning of the organisation's MIS for promoting SaaS products, by types of marketing tools that are subsystems of the MIS. The proposed methodological approach allows substantiating the directions for increasing the efficiency of promoting SaaS products and the directions for improving the MIS.

The purpose of this chapter is to set the stage for the rest of the book. It is based on a number of interesting observations illustrating contemporary activities in regard to a broad range of sales-related topics. Among other observations are a number of developments that have followed with digitalization.

The chapter presents the core themes of the book and provides rationales for the choices. The themes are: value-based offerings, solution-oriented business, and on-going efforts of organizing to manage the multitude of issues connected to sales and marketing.

A second issue is the presentation of a framework against which to position important core issues in sales management. This includes aspects of organizational design, leadership, technology support, and more. All these are organized into four main categories. This “map” is utilized to position the coming parts and chapters.