Understanding AI: A new reality for marketers

Whether you’ve noticed or not, AI has carved out a sizable place in our everyday lives. Media platforms are curating the content we read, watch and listen to. Virtual assistants are making restaurant recommendations, organising our schedules and digesting our daily habits. Autonomous transportation is well on its way. AI is even starting to predict weather patterns to a T.

In marketing, AI is likewise playing an important and perhaps even larger role. It’s helped to narrow target audiences and find new demographics for relevant brands to reach out to, aided in modifying and contextualising meaningful creative, and evolved to assist in media buying and planning. Working in tandem with machine learning, the technology is making great leaps in both recognising patterns and predicting results for advertising campaigns and the CMOs heading them.

These developments are just the tip of the iceberg, when the advancements of AI are put at the forefront of digital strategy, it may very well change the entire framework for achieving business results. Are click-through rates, cost per thousand impressions and the like being kicked to the curb? Not likely, but the metrics are instead being integrated—along with advanced demographics—on a case by case basis for campaigns.

A large-scale auto maker recently adopted such a strategy in a recent campaign. The effort made good on translating into ROI by understanding consumer touchpoints, benchmarking their intent, and subsequently bringing more customers into dealerships.

A telecommunications company used Xaxis’ Copilot AI engine to optimise their dated programmatic advertising platform—retargeting spend, greatly increasing performance and acing viewability goals. In an A/B test, the new engine showed a 56 percent conversion rate boost when stacked against the control study.

In another instance, a luxury retailer took on Copilot. The project sought to nail down features with the strongest correlation to performance, and led to an increased conversion rate, more efficient cost per action and an increased click-through rate.

The team behind the tech

Don’t let all the talk of automation fool you, the human element in an AI-driven marketing world is still very much alive. Beyond creative elements, scientists are also needed to run necessary experiments, weighing the potential success rates of algorithms. Engineers are in the fold as well, building these algorithms to scale, fitting them to servers and putting the game plan into production.

This work isn’t siloed, but is rather based on communication, bouncing between stakeholders until even further improvements are tested and implemented. Although self-sufficient technological advancement may also be in the near future, it’s still imperative for a strong team to take the lead in executing AI-powered marketing. 

For further insight on AI's role in marketing, download the full Xaxis white paper here.