We’ve entered a new renaissance of sorts in advertising with the hyper focus on AI and generative machine learning. The presence of AI in this space isn’t new; we’ve been using machine learning since the late 2000s. The big boom came when Meta and other ad platforms built machine learning algorithms that allowed you to leverage data and machine learning to swiftly deliver insights and opportunities. These advances in technology ultimately shaped how we as marketers, and especially media buyers, think about and deploy media.

As the landscape advances with new social platforms, new tech platforms to aggregate and analyze data combined with audience fragmentation across digital spaces, it makes sense to integrate AI solutions into your marketing wheelhouse. Marla Kaplowitz, president and CEO of the American Association of Advertising Agencies says that “AI-powered solutions are critical given increased fragmentation and complexity. But it’s essential for agencies to understand how AI and data are being applied to effectively yield the greatest return on behalf of clients”.

With solutions like chatGPT, StableDiffusion and other AI tools, it can be difficult to understand where to vest your time to drive the most value for you/your brand, so we’ve compiled a short list below.

• Media - Machine learning in the ‘media’ space is a broad and vast topic. This section focuses on the strengths when it comes to media planning and buying. Programmatic advertising is a solution that could grant you the most bang for your buck, being able to maximize on both efficiency and efficacy. Media buyers are moving towards practices like shifting keywords to broad match to unlock new search queries or creating Performance Max based campaigns in auction environments to allow systems to learn and optimize for the strongest results. Programmatic spaces such as DSPs or even the social auctions are all powered by machine learning that gets better as more data is ingested. While these platforms are powered by data and machine learning to create efficiencies, human oversight is key to avoid brand safety issues as well as instances of fraud.
• Measurement  - With cookie loss and accurate measurement increasingly becoming a hurdle in the industry, AI tools are becoming useful at filling in those gaps. “We found that responsibly collected first-party data — when combined with human expertise and applied intelligently across key areas of digital like audience development and measurement — can supercharge campaign performance and drive business outcomes,” said Di Wu, VP of Data Science at Jellyfish. Augmenting your existing data with a tool that has the ability to quickly analyze and synthesize information could give you the opportunity to make key business decisions in a timely manner. AI for decision making is only part and parcel of the benefits as there are also solutions for rapid data processing as well as predictive analytics, for example audience segmentation and media mix modeling.
• Creative - In a field where creative is king, it’s useful for brands to have a loaded content arsenal with multiple variations to aid in optimizations. Generative AI has allowed content teams and agencies to maximize efficiencies in these areas by allowing teams to not only produce high quality content but also deliver multiple versions in the blink of an eye at much lower costs. Teams can now create a large number of low-fidelity assets that can be tested across a number of variables, such as color, image or illustration, tonality and type of text. Platforms like Stable Diffusion allow users to generate multiple variations of images through text based prompts which could be useful for early qualitative testing before a flight begins.

While AI will continue to provide great value for businesses, the advantage comes when you combine machine learning with human expertise to provide contextual filters. At the end of the day, AI can streamline workflows and assist with decision making, but a brand should know what’s best for their  consumers and business growth. If you’re a small business that wants to lean more into innovation but doesn’t know where to start, reach out and let us know how we can help.

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