What marketers could do with an AI Assist

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Klara E[1] (1).jpgBy Klara Eichholz (left), digital media and data manager, Audience Group

It’s pretty normal these days to spend part of your time contemplating how Artificial Intelligence will impact your industry, your organisation, your role. I recently heard Or Shani, the CEO and Founder of Albert (an AI platform for digital marketing campaigns), downplay and debunk fears related to AI, and I realised it was resonating with me because I tend to have a positive outlook on where AI will take us. Here’s why I think you should too.

•    It can help us do what we do, better. With AI we can have measurability play together with automation and reporting. Deep segmentation can be done in the blink of an eye. Customer data can be analysed for insights we’d never think of because our brains just cannot process all the permutations of all the data and find all the trends as quickly as applied AI can. Think of the impact that could have on campaign performance

•    It can connect the channels. We create silos of specialists who focus on search, native, social and so on. What if we could use AI to remove those silos, rapidly handling, querying and analysing vast amounts of data and coming up with better, more effective ways of buying cross-channel in real-time?

•    It can do measurement and reporting better than we can. The industry is being maligned by accusations of and worries about fraud. We spend so much time reporting amid calls for greater transparency. Data management regulations are becoming stricter, and rightly so. Couldn’t we use AI to bear the brunt of measurement and reporting tasks, allowing greater transparency and automated compliance? It’ll take away tasks we’re not fond of anyway, freeing up the time of many a marketer to contribute in more valuable and creative ways.

“Sit back, put your feet up and let AI do the work for you”

Shani said something like that and while it sounds great initially, that isn’t exactly what I think we marketers could do with an AI assist.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for taking the robot out of the human by putting AI and automated processes in place to remove repetitive, routine tasks. Yes, take reporting off our hands so it can be done by robotic underlings. But I don’t intend to put my feet up. I intend to do more of the work that drew me to this gig in the first place.

I want to be part of the evolution of our industry. No longer are we buying TV based on TARPs, Display based on Impressions, Search based on Clicks; we’re buying to converting audiences. We’re sequencing messaging at a one-to-one level and tailoring creative to individuals. Gone are the days of so-called “vanity metrics”. Driving results for clients and fixing ad land is my M.O. and I welcome a little help from AI to see it through.

It doesn’t pay to be an ostrich

Fear of change can immobilise. Fail to embrace the changes impacting our industry and the inherent technology and skills requirements, and you risk career plateaus and job loss. AI will mean that some level of increased technical capability related to the use and implementation of AI will spread across more roles within the marketing and advertising industry. If we’re going to get the most value from adding AI applications to our business, then we have to be able to see its potential and direct it to where it will do the most good.

We need to be up for that challenge. A healthy skepticism is great, and it kind of comes with the territory in our world, but if we resist AI I reckon it’ll be pretty tough to stay relevant.

Click here to visit Audience Group’s website.