Article

Dale Lovell
Dale Lovell 1 February 2017

Moving Beyond The Headlines: Marketers, AI Is Our Friend

Should marketers fear the march of the robots? Much of the conversation relating to artificial intelligence (AI), paint a picture of humans losing their jobs in the place of machines, with lists being bandied about of professions where jobs are at risk.

However, for the digital advertising industry, little is to be feared from AI, as in my opinion, it will enable us to do what the human brain is able to do, but at a much greater scale, while also providing efficiency that would not be possible without technology.

In a bygone era marketers and publishers relied solely on assumptions about consumer behavior, but along came targeting technology which could deliver ads to specific individuals based on their behavior online. However, we’re now at a stage in the industry whereby targeting, which once revolutionised the industry, is itself being forced to evolve due to the prevalence of new technologies which push it beyond its current limitations.

Regular advertising targeting focuses more on device, capping, a website and socio-demographic categories that are often not particularly relevant. Such an approach has huge limitations and ultimately results in poor user experiences, which can impact upon brands and publishers in a negative way. A by-product of this is that it may also have a part to play in why ad blocking is on the rise.

This antiquated type of online targeting is nearly seen as being a bit of an oxymoron in the industry at this stage, because it is so untargeted. Yet AI is going to completely change the targeting, and by extension the entire industry, beyond recognition.

Take the example of IBM’s Watson, it obviously wasn’t meant for advertising originally. Yet, since it has been applied to the industry we’re seeing its potential in helping to run much better digital advertising campaigns. At ADYOULIKE we’ve actually expanded into the AI space using Watson to create better semantic targeting for native advertising and we were also the first in the world to do so.

Watson offers an unrivalled ability to create vastly better and more accurate targeting for the native ad format and we’ve had a hugely positive response to the technology to date. In practice, Watson is able to analyse every piece of key data relating to every ad page generated , working on thousands of pages per second. Within this analysis, it is able to give detailed feedback on relevancy percentage on keywords, IAB categories, concepts and sentiment of the page, while also gauging emotions. All this information is also delivered in real time, enabling the industry to take control instantly and make a campaign more impactful and efficient.

From our perspective, the introduction of IBM’s Watson was a no-brainer, the industry deserves technology that achieves more sophisticated targeting. We strongly believe that everyone within the digital advertising ecosystem should be empowered with such a tool, like Watson. By doing so, end user audiences will be served with much more relevant ads that they actually want to see and interact with, and in turn this will bring better return on every pound invested. In the long run, I think that a partnership such as our’s will be the norm in an industry looking for increasingly deeper targeting.

Companies unable to integrate that level of AI into their digital advertising efforts will be marginalised and likely not survive.

Please login or register to add a comment.

Contribute Now!

Loving our articles? Do you have an insightful post that you want to shout about? Well, you've come to the right place! We are always looking for fresh Doughnuts to be a part of our community.

Popular Articles

See all
The Challenges of Customer Lifetime Value (CLV)

The Challenges of Customer Lifetime Value (CLV)

We all agree Customer Lifetime Value is important, but there’s not much agreement after that. This blog is about the challenges of Customer Lifetime Value (CLV). CLV is a fantastic concept but defining that value and...

Peter Rivett-Jones
Peter Rivett-Jones 24 May 2023
Read more
Artificial Intelligence in Content Creation

Artificial Intelligence in Content Creation

In this article, we will talk about AI in the field of content generation. We will look at what artificial intelligence is in terms of content, what AIs are on the market, and how we can interact with them.

Polina Kedis
Polina Kedis 12 May 2023
Read more
How These PIM Features can Create the Next Growth Opportunity

How These PIM Features can Create the Next Growth Opportunity

The increasing need for effective product information management solutions has become critical for businesses that sell products online. With the growing number of sales channels and the rising complexity of product...

Sudhanshu Singh
Sudhanshu Singh 31 May 2023
Read more
Exploring the Rapid Growth of Mobile App Development

Exploring the Rapid Growth of Mobile App Development

Smartphones have included mobile applications for more than ten years. The fastest-growing area of the mobile industry is the mobile app market. Only a few app developers were aware of the potential market opportunity...

Prashant Pujara
Prashant Pujara 24 May 2023
Read more
The Ins & Outs of Product Marketing

The Ins & Outs of Product Marketing

Product marketing is what drives products onto the market and keeps them there. Developing effective product marketing is the secret to your organization's development, expansion, and long-term success. It is a...

Pawanpreet Gill
Pawanpreet Gill 26 May 2023
Read more