The future of advertising: Gen AI’s role in automated ad creation and optimisation
Every other day, or so it seems, we hear about the wonderful possibilities that AI presents us. We hear of healthcare miracles and revolutionary strides towards greater efficiency; however, surprisingly few people are using AI on a day-to-day basis.
What isn’t news is that our relationship with AI is complicated. Most people agree that AI offers opportunities with 77% believing that AI will change the world, according to TechRadar. And yet, a lack of trust continues to create resistance to the implementation of AI in our everyday lives.
This was made apparent with a recent study at Washington State University which surveyed over 1,000 US adults and assessed the link between AI disclosure and purchase intentions. This study highlighted the prevalence of emotional distrust in AI and their potential to hurt sales. Mesut Cicek, the lead author, went on to say,
‘We found emotional trust plays a critical role in how consumers perceive AI-powered products.’
Do you agree?
With only 4% of people using AI in their daily lives, according to 3M, many people are clearly missing out on generative AI tools out there that can save time and effort.
Indeed, especially in the world of marketing, gen AI is proving to not only be efficient but valuable: a recent McKinsey report estimates that gen AI contributes up to $4.4 trillion in annual global productivity. This blog is here to walk you through the benefits and share some advice to help you optimise your campaigns using this technology, demonstrating along the way that you make AI work for you and not the other way around.
What is generative AI?
To put it simply, generative AI (or gen AI) is a form of artificial intelligence that can create original content in response to a user’s description or prompt. It uses sophisticated machine learning models which are algorithms that mimic the learning processes in the human brain. The more data they have the more they improve, using that new information to better understand requests and respond with better content.
Generative AI is not a particularly recent development, however, the leaps forward in sophistication have been astonishing. It is highly probable that you have already been consuming media that is AI generated and perhaps not even noticing.
What is generative AI for marketing?
There are three strategic ways to implement generative AI in marketing campaigns and flows. The differences between these approaches are largely down to the degree of trust you have in your AI tool and the extent to which you rely on AI to build, manage and optimise your campaigns.
Typically, organisations integrate these tools over time, both as staff become more proficient and trusting of AI solutions and as the AI itself develops.
Before we delve into the benefits of using AI and seek to better understand best practices when it comes to using it, it is imperative to have a strong grasp of the scope of this technology.
Prebuilt or ‘off-the-self’ generative AI tools.
This first type of AI tool is probably what you are most familiar and have perhaps had a go at using once or twice. These tools are designed to appeal to all and are highly versatile.
When implemented into workflows, ai marketing software increases general efficiency within marketing teams, relieving the pressure that can be felt from constantly having to create innovative and impactful campaigns from scratch.
There are three key forms of content that these tools can create that are pertinent to a marketing professional’s needs.
Text:
From blogs and website copy to brochures and emails, text generated by AI can be both used as a first draft and to reduce time wasted on repetitive or tedious writing tasks.
Especially when it comes to the written word, the human touch is still noticed by many and a truly original witticism is always appreciated. Nonetheless, it is a useful tool. Perhaps you are struggling to come up with a snappy tagline for an ad or need help getting an email just right, then AI certainly presents opportunities.
Images and video:
AI generated images, both good and bad, are all over social media and have caused plenty of contention in the headlines. Not all AI is created equal and certainly improves as it learns from user feedback, if you have seen an awful image or maybe generated an image where the person had three too many arms, don’t give up just yet!
A particularly useful AI tool though is editing software. It may not have the same humorous appeal, but it certainly saves you time when applying special effects, removing backgrounds, changing colours or whatever else you may need.
Sound and speech:
If you use audio ads, then this could be a lifesaver for you. Gen AI can create natural-sounding audio content that will significantly reduce costs and time-spent on creating these ads
Customised generative AI models
These models are somewhat trained and customised to an organisation’s needs. This is the next level of sophistication since it requires your AI tool to work with your data to better understand the company and its audience. Rather than simply creating a one-off social asset, it is trained to understand specific use cases. This means that it is capable of, for example, recommending SEO keywords, analysing data to forecast consumer behaviour or suggesting which audience segment should be targeted.
This is where humans and gen AI work closely together maximising performance at all stages of campaign management and optimisation, from content creation to data analysis.
Large-scale AI transformation
This implementation of AI is highly transformative. Humans define objectives and monitor performance but otherwise your gen AI tool just gets on with it, generally working alongside other AI tools too and in doing so changing the core marketing processes. This model is capable of providing guidance to customers as they shop, analysing customer intent and even suggesting new products.
How to use ai for marketing
Gen AI presents many opportunities, but it does come with risks and challenges. Data privacy and security is of course the first thing that comes to mind. While you should be meticulous and rigorous in your own efforts to ensure that you are not compromising yourself or anyone else with the data you input, you should also make yourself more knowledgeable about the ways AI tools can be exploited.
Moreover, inaccuracies and biases occur. AI is not infallible, so you need to be sure to have safeguards in place to monitor any use of these advanced tool. The implementation of these technologies needs to suit your business and your audience. Efficiency for efficiency’s sake may not be a good approach and the human touch, especially when it comes to copy-writing and content creation, could very well be an essential component for your marketing and a powerful draw for new audiences.
As previously mentioned, the sophistication of these tools is only set to increase so even if it is something you aren’t convinced of quite yet, it is not something you can dismiss entirely. As more companies/agencies choose to become more reliant on gen AI and AI models in general, you may find yourself left behind.
However, like with everything in the world of marketing, the way you approach these new, exciting technologies and their capabilities needs to be carefully considered. Sadly, everything needs careful consideration and cutting corners is not often possible.
The benefits of AI marketing tools
With that slightly sombre word of warning, we can move onto some of the incredible benefits of this technology. In general, gen AI allows even small teams to scale up their marketing efforts and makes it easier to make informed strategical decisions about the future based on real-time data. The benefits though are wide in scope and although we tend to focus on the ways in which we, as marketing professionals, can save time, we shouldn’t also forget about the enhanced experience it gives our audiences too.
Increased efficiency
This has already been touched on since AI and efficiency have become virtually synonymous. Being able to rely on automation for tedious tasks, frees teams to focus on higher value marketing efforts. It is a tool that makes their life easier, whether it is taking a task completely out of human hands or providing a step-up on those difficult days.
Better decision-making
If there is one approach that seems to generate results time after time, it is data-driven decision-making. However, much success it generates though, there is no denying that it is a time-consuming process to manage enough data to make your decisions sufficiently informed. AI models can not only summarise but interpret and analyse huge amounts of data with ease. Moreover, it can use that data to forecast future consumer trends and needs – imagine not always being a step behind!
Cost-effectiveness
When discussing best practices of ad creation and optimisation, you’ll hear us repeating the same thing: A/B test! With AI it becomes far easier. By lowering the cost of experimentation your digital marketing strategy can become more innovative and effective.
Scalability
Similarly, as your strategy becomes more effective and your audience grows, generative AI will help you to manage and market as your customer base expands. If you are looking to become more global, you will be able to reach audiences in their own language with no trouble.
Increased personalisation in marketing campaigns
By using customer data and by analysing consumer behaviour, gen AI can deliver more personalised messages. Personalisation is becoming increasingly important in marketing campaigns as more and more audiences expect to see marketing campaigns that are highly relevant to them. Indeed, a study from 2021 by McKinsey & Company even showed that 71% expect personalisation and a whopping 76% get frustrated when they see content that isn’t relevant to them.
AI makes it easier to adapt to the ever-changing and highly specific customer needs.
Better customer experience
It follows therefore that the more you understand about your audience, the better targeted your campaigns will be and the more effective they will become. It is a win-win for both you and your audience.
The more engaging the experience is for customers, the more conversions you will see. Moreover, you will be able to create brand-consistent but tailored messaging across multiple channels. This will allow you to better make the most of the unique benefits on different platforms, such as advertising on Microsoft vs Google or LinkedIn ads.
AI and marketing: generating content to revolutionising processes
What to do next? The best advice is to just dip your toe in the water and see how it feels. Generative AI have the power to quickly drive you and your marketing campaigns onwards in the ever-increasing strength of their capabilities (or currents to extent the metaphor). They can also support you and help your float peacefully along in the chaos that is the world of digital marketing.
Tools are what you make of them and what is right for you, your businesses or agency, is simply something I can’t help with. However, no matter how much trust you place in AI, it will undoubtedly reduce some stress and make your life easier to some degree. It may not create success overnight but to paraphrase the Sorting Hat from Harry Potter, ‘Gen AI will help you on the way to greatness’.
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