Whether we like it or loathe it, artificial intelligence, or AI, is something which has been forced into the forefront of conversation across all industries. How should one use it correctly though, if in fact we should be? This is the dilemma facing a lot of businesses this year, with the risks associated still being explored and understood with each new tool or update across the world.
For most businesses, including advertising and marketing agencies such as ourselves, the adoption of AI within some areas of work has the potential to boost productivity and efficiency within some processes. Marketeers and advertisers need to ensure that they have kept up to date with the latest updates and developments within this technology, as the risk of falling behind is ever prevalent. Here at BBJ&K we are no different, with a dedicated team who have the focus of understanding and exploring how best to introduce the usage of this software into our daily work.
This needs to be considered with a careful approach however, as there are potential security and privacy implications depending on the sort of information input into particularly the open-source options. We are very aware of the risks of sharing personal information, or business insights which would be inappropriate to be use within AI tools, so the team at BBJ&K take an incredibly cautious approach to usage. Indeed, this genre of tools are used within the agency as purely research or upskilling opportunities rather than anything specifically relating to a client.
AI in Digital Advertising
There are some areas of marketing, particularly digital marketing, where there are some developing areas of AI tools with a focus on just this area. A study by Precedence Research estimates that AI within the marketing world will rise to $217.33bn by 2034, a staggering rise of 741%. With such a clear indication of where the market is heading, it is clear that some form of integration will be required by all agencies or businesses just to be able to keep up with the industry. Some elements are built within the platforms and services we all use daily already, and these are often considered separately to such as the standalone tools which require more direct input and engagement.
This includes such as Advantage+ on the Meta platform, where artificial intelligence is used to boost campaign performance thanks to the ability to optimise campaigns in realtime, matching adverts to the people most likely, according to its algorithms, to take action. With iterations of the tool for sales, app and leads campaigns, the option is there across most campaigns to integrate AI from audiences and targeting to placements and budget.
We are also seeing the gradual rollout of artificial intelligence within paid search advertising, with Google’s latest foray into this field. There is, of course, already a wide range of smart bidding strategies within Ads itself which have been around and benefitting results for a long time. The new development takes things a step further though, with AI Max for Search campaigns. The developing rollout of this tool across the Google Ads platform is said to expand reach into new queries which weren’t being accessed previously, with an anticipated improvement in performance and return. The search term matching feature grows some of the existing elements further, although it remains to be seen (it is still currently in beta) how this is a step forward from auto-apply recommendations, a feature which a lot of accounts turn off because the understanding of the campaigns aren’t accurate enough to have confidence in these changes.
So what can marketeers / advertisers use AI for?
After some internal debate whether to title this section what can or should we use AI for, we settled on can because the usage of this tool is still developing and can be contentious as discussed above. So, assuming then that the agency or business has a proper artificial intelligence usage policy and the team is adhering to this, what are the potential benefits of adding AI into the tool mix.
It can be used as a useful sense check or rework for content creation across multiple formats, both long and short form. Whilst this blog itself has not seen an AI tool at all, perhaps time could have been saved if the title had been asked as a question looking for a response; or at minimum perhaps headings to guide the creation. By inputting the format style we want to see, as well as the target audience of the content, the tool is potentially able to guide tone and language for each option here. Email marketing for example, is something which could use AI to optimise and support content creation.
The most common usage is likely to be teams using AI tools to complement or support their own output and suggestions or efforts on tasks. With the ability to function almost as a search engine, pulling content from multiple online sources, it can be a useful addition to the research phase of a project or response. As long as, and this is important, the results and output of the AI tool are verified and referenced properly.
For the more advanced AI user, again assuming proper usage policies and data protection and privacy are in place, there is the functionality within some tools to automate repetitive tasks and processes. We know that some parts of this process are the everyday elements which we do without thinking, Google’s smart bidding strategies for example, but wider email automation and other task / reporting elements are the next step for many advertising (and wider) businesses who are developing down this path.
Overall it seems pretty clear cut that the trend, across not just marketing and advertising but business as a whole, is an increased usage of the newest tools on the market - AI. Whilst this is true and there are some well-defined benefits of the integration of these tools, caution must still be used to ensure that businesses are not falling foul of data protection, GDPR and privacy agreements both with internal data and clients.
Safe usage and team training are vital to maintain business security and give clients confidence that their data is safe and there are no risks of compromise both from a technical point of view and also from a quality perspective. Salesforce conducted some research into how AI and other autonomous technology is applied within marketing, with a staggering 70% of respondents stating that they have not received training on the tools. This is vital for both the most effective and also the most secure usage.
Finally, we are very aware that the thing which makes BBJ&K stand out are our people, so we are determined that any usage of AI within the business will only add to our strengths and reasons why our clients repeatedly book with us and refer our services to peers. We are looking at the smartest ways to integrate and enhance our own offerings through the use of autonomous technology, rather than become dependent on it and risk becoming the same as any others. Where usage can free up time for deeper strategic thought and other beneficial tasks then this is great and our clients themselves get the advantage of it, but we are clear that we will never use AI as a method to cut corners or limit our thinking or restrict what it is that makes us stand out: ourselves.
If you want to talk to us about any of the points discussed in this piece then please do contact us and we are happy to have a conversation. Likewise if you are interested in the paid social or search solutions we touched upon, reach out to the team and we’d love to understand how we can help.
Author: Elizabeth Moore
