How and Why Generational Marketing matters
The role of the “Millennial Pause” and how AI can keep your marketing relevant across generations.
Having Boomer parents, a Gen X brother, being a Millennial myself, with Gen Z in-laws and Gen Alpha kids, I’ve got a front-row seat to the difference in behaviours. One thing that always makes me smile is how real the Millennial Pause is.
That brief hesitation before hitting “record” on a video? It’s instinctive for us Millennials. We remember the days before seamless UX and algorithmic content delivery. We learned to pause, just to make sure the tech was working.
But Gen Z? They don’t wait. They jump straight into content creation, raised in an environment where personalisation and real-time delivery are default. Gen Alpha? They won’t even expect to ask for content. It will simply appear, predicted and pushed before they know they need it.
It’s critical for marketers and digital strategists to be aware of this shift in behaviour across the generations. Expectations are evolving fast and without a little help from AI it will be hard to keep up.
Here’s where AI transforms the marketing game.
Predictive segmentation: Instead of manually slicing data to decide who gets what, AI models can determine the best audience, timing, and message automatically. Tailored to your customer base, to ensure that they receive the most appropriate content.
Campaign acceleration: By allowing AI to prep data first and suggest insights for use, with human oversight to ensure adherence to guardrails, we enable campaigns to launch faster and more data-driven than ever, giving marketers more time to focus on creative storytelling and emotional resonance.
Insight optimisation: The more we send, the more data we generate. AI helps make sense of it; surfacing actionable insights, highlighting patterns, and turning reports into strategic recommendations without the back-and-forth guesswork. Measure the true impact of your campaigns and use the insights to optimise your contact strategy.
Scale: To meet the demands of AI engines, we need to leverage AI to meet scaled requirements on content and experience. Predictive AI can support highly personalised messaging for each of your customer segments on a large scale.
That’s not to say AI replaces marketers. Far from it.
AI handles the heavy lifting so humans can focus on the art: the emotion, the empathy, the nuance. AI may write the first draft, but we still add the heart.
So, as we look to the future of Martech, let’s not just follow generational trends. Let’s understand them and design experiences that feel effortless, personal and truly human.
Because whether you're serving Millennials who pause, Gen Z who scroll, or Gen Alpha who simply expect, it all comes back to connection.
About Katherine: A proud mum of two and self-declared foodie, Katherine is also a seasoned technologist who’s spent more than a decade helping brands deliver personalised experiences at scale. With deep expertise across marketing and IT, she’s led Martech initiatives from strategy through to implementation. Before joining DBZ, she played a key role in growing one of Australia’s leading marketing automation consultancies by building teams, capability, and impact along the way.