From personalized customer journeys to dynamic landing pages and programmatic media buying, marketers are always on the lookout for technology that can save them time and money. More than half of marketers currently use artificial intelligence and its adoption will become more pervasive among marketers in years to come.
AI is the ability of a computer system to perform tasks that normally require human intelligence, such as visual or auditory recognition and interpretation, as well as decision-making. Online advertising giants like Google and YouTube are already taking advantage of AI and applying new technologies to make digital advertising affordable and accessible to marketing teams large and small.
Marketers aren’t the only ones embracing AI. Seventy-nine percent of customers are now willing to share data in exchange for contextualized engagement, and 88 percent will do so for personalized offers, according to Salesforce. Using AI to improve personalization will increase lead generation, customer acquisition, upselling and (if done correctly) customer service. That said, now is the time to invest in AI.
Here are three simple ways you can apply AI to your digital advertising campaigns:
1. Use chatbots on your website
Well-programmed chatbots can improve customer service by creating a 24/7 support mechanism, sparing your customers the headache of waiting in a queue to speak to a rep. Chatbots can also reduce your staff’s redundant, low-value work, freeing them up to engage with customers who require a human touch, and even increasing sales. Julie, a conversational chatbot developed for Amtrak, generates $1 million in cost savings annually by reducing customer service emails; Julie also helped to increase booking by 25 percent.
Consumers also prefer chat. According to HubSpot, 55 percent of buyers would prefer to communicate with companies through messenger. Forty percent do not care if a robot or human talks to them when they get what they need.
Marketers are always on the lookout for technology that can save them time and money.
2. Use YouTube Bumper Machine
YouTube supports six-second bumper ads, skippable in-stream ads, and non-skippable in-stream ads. But many marketing departments don’t have the time and resources to create multiple ads of different lengths. That’s why YouTube launched Bumper Machine earlier this year.
Bumper Machine uses machine learning to take relevant moments from longer videos and automatically convert them into six-second bumper ads, which are ideal for increasing brand reach. Bumper Machine will review your existing ads (up to 90 seconds), identify well-structured moments, brand logos, human faces, motion or contrast and automatically convert those moments into multiple, editable, six-second bumper ads, creating more opportunity for your business without increasing the workload of your creative team.
3. Let Google Draft Your Text Ads
Can a computer program write advertisements for your business effectively? See for yourself. Google Ads uses AI to create text ads for advertisers. See the Google Ads Recommendations page of your ad account for autogenerated ad suggestions.
Google has also launched a number of other tools to help marketers create multiple, dynamic ads, including:
- Responsive search ads that mix and match multiple headlines with multiple descriptions to test which combination works best with user intent.
- Dynamic text ads that insert a user’s search query into the ad.
- Responsive display ads that allow marketers to upload multiple images, videos, logos, headlines and descriptions to automate the production of display ads.
Letting a computer help you with such important tasks can exponentially increase your digital marketing success. However, just as you would review a colleague’s work, you should carefully evaluate all AI work products and processes before implementing them to protect your brand in case the robot gets it wrong.
Although there is no perfect AI (yet), using these tools can save you time and optimize your marketing to improve customer service and personalize your customer communications.