Use cases of artificial intelligence are all around us, and many businesses are already benefiting from it. Thanks to its strong potential, AI can become a powerful tool in the hands of marketers aiming for growth.
From Siri and Alexa to self-driving cars, AI means different things to different people. In the world of marketing and advertising agencies, AI could become an agency’s new best friend, claims Mitesh Lakhani, Senior Solutions Consultant at Adverity. In the latest Adverity Bitesize Webinar, Mitesh and Alex Handsaker, Strategic Relationship Manager at Adverity, chat about how AI could transform digital advertising and marketing activities for good.
Intelligent Solution for Agencies of All Sizes
AI isn’t going to magically solve all of your problems, but it can help digital marketers and advertisers automate particular tasks and navigate their data more easily, freeing up time and internal resources to focus on activities other than number crunching, explains Mitesh.
Too much agency time is spent tracking reports on a daily basis, across multiple digital channels, such as spend, cost efficiency and performance, says Mitesh. And they’re relying on the platform publisher to provide an answer to the next step in their campaign journey, rather than having time to research it for themselves.
Secondly, although most of them have implemented some automation, periodical reporting is still pretty manual in nature, reliant on spreadsheets, time-consuming data sifting and human interpretation. True automation can’t solve all of these issues, however. it can take the human element out of the data processing and deliver solid, granular analysis on trends such as market share and segment growth, for example.
Use Your Resources Where They Bring the Most Value
The big issue for businesses, and agencies in particular, is a lack of resources. So, can AI help to solve this problem? Yes, it can, argues Alex, and in a number of ways. It can free up more time for data, performance and accounting teams by auto-optimising campaigns. AI can provide much deeper insights and added value to clients. It enables agencies to take a more strategic and analytical approach to client briefs. And it can help you produce better quality work, retain business and create a deeper trust, says Alex.
So, what do you need to get started with AI? The first thing is regular, reliable data to power your machine learning algorithms, says Alex. Second, you need an automated, harmonised approach to your data: so you can compare ‘like with like’ across different channels. And thirdly, it’s important to know how to report your results and use them to provide efficiency and value.
AI at Work
You can use AI-powered technology in a lot of different places. Primarily, you can use it to make sure your data is clean and consistent, for quality and data governance purposes. It’s great for forecasting, based on the full range of signals and metrics associated with campaigns and channels. Proactive analytics is another ideal application for AI, anticipating conversions in advance, so you can act quickly on issues and opportunities.
Lastly, AI is very good at continuous marketing mix modelling (cMMM) - using systems to query the effects of changing budgets across multiple channels and knowing the output can be built across campaign segment-level forecasts. This can be updated daily with the latest data from every single channel, eliminating the need for laborious, manual marketing mix modelling.
The bottom line is that AI, coupled with visualisation-rich marketing dashboards, can overhaul your marketing reports and empower your teams, says Alex. And in doing so, agencies can become the experts in translating AI-led insights and predictions into actionable marketing strategy and added value for their clients.
