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Whether you wish to save time, to efficiently cover for repetitive tasks, or to quickly navigate through immense amount of data, machine learning is a technology worth incorporating in your process.You add campaigns could become more cost-effective and could take you less time to analyse and fine tune. Read the following expert tips on how to leverage machine learning ad tools.
Our founder and managing partner, Terry Tateossian, gives her take on the subject as well. You could read her opinion under number 7. Optimizing Smart Bidding Strategies
(The Expert Panel was initially published at Forbes.)
Machine learning is a method of artificial intelligence wherein the system learns from mistakes. While many artificial intelligence platforms using ML models still need a human supervisor, they can be invaluable tools for ad agencies.
By using ML to train the AI on what works and what doesn’t, the agency can create systems specifically designed to provide more accurate predictive feedback. The result is a more effective and optimized advertising and marketing campaign guided by real numbers and not guesswork.
Below, 11 experts from Forbes Agency Council discuss some of the ways agencies can leverage ML ad tools to facilitate the creation of ads that will reach target customers with more accuracy and efficiency.
Table of Contents
1. Gathering Audience Insights
Machine learning is great for gathering audience insights. You can target more specific audiences and create more customized content for each based on the data you obtain. In fact, the more data you have, the better off your advertising will be, but it should be the right kind of data. – Solomon Thimothy, OneIMS
2. Understanding Audience Interactions
The best way to leverage ML is for increasing conversions from paid and free traffic. This technology can help you understand how the audience interacts with your content and products at a much faster pace than before. You can capitalize on this by making informed decisions regarding your marketing and website that helps your customers support your brand, as they feel your business truly understands their needs. – Katie Schibler Conn, KSA Marketing
3. Improving Your Targeting
When it comes to ML, there’s no free lunch, so there can’t be one algorithm to rule them all. Even marketers with small budgets are overwhelmed with data and limited on time, so training algorithms to hunt for the nuggets of gold is the first step. Machine learning can also help improve your targeting by identifying what’s not working and blocking it, which will naturally improve your results. – Benjamin Collins, Laughing Samurai
4. Optimizing Creative
Machine learning can be used both for creative optimizations (such as with Google’s responsive display ads) and for automated bidding engines (including native ad-platform tools, such as Google’s Smart campaigns). Brands and agencies need to arm ML tools with enough creative assets and landing pages to test at a high volume and find the winning combination. – Dan Golden, Be Found Online
5. Powering A 360-Degree View Of The Customer
The beauty of ML is its ability to power a 360-degree view of the customer. With algorithms gathering and processing data, marketers can glean insights faster than ever and adapt campaign messaging and placements much more nimbly than in the past. Harness its power to gain greater insight into the voice of your customer, and then apply that knowledge in real time to your campaigns. – Mary Ann O’Brien, OBI Creative
6. Identifying Locations In Search Terms
Build tools that allow your team to deliver better service. For example, we have built a tool that dramatically increases the performance of Google search ads by using AI to identify locations in search terms. Our team, rather than reviewing 100% of the location data, only needs to examine the small percentage where the AI is not confident in the result. It delivers a higher-quality, faster result. – Robert Warner, InvisiblePPC
7. Optimizing Smart Bidding Strategies
The most effective usage of ML in ad tools is for optimizing smart bidding strategies where the goal is to maximize target cost per action, return on ad spend, conversions and cost per click. This technology is currently built into the default Google Ads interface, and it helps launch new campaigns by allowing advertisers to use ML campaign data from all previous campaigns, thereby wasting less time and ad budget.- Terry Tateossian, Socialfix Media
8. Identifying Patterns To Make Predictions
Machine learning is best used to identify patterns and make predictions based on large, disparate datasets, such as cross-screen consumer engagement. For advertisers that have access to accurate TV ad-run data, along with granular web engagement and online/offline sales data, ML can be used to optimize TV media plans to drive increased sales in ways reports and dashboards could never uncover. – Brian Handrigan, Advocado
9. Powering Lookalike Targeting Campaigns
Machine learning powers prospecting and lookalike targeting campaigns for advertisers, which allows marketers to find more of their next best customers. After feeding your “ideal” audience to the ML, it scours the web to identify more users who share your audience’s attributes and behaviors. Then, you can add them to your next targeted programmatic campaign across screens to engage with them. – Jason Wulfsohn, AUDIENCEX
10. Completing Repetitive Tasks Faster
With ML for marketing, companies can grow faster and work smarter. The best applications are repetitive, data-driven or predictive. These may include hunting out duplicate contact records, writing email subject lines, extracting social quotes or even developing new content. To keep up with the shifting landscape, check out the Marketing Artificial Intelligence Institute’s blog. – Wendy Covey, TREW Marketing
11. Optimizing Ad Auction Bids
When it comes to improving conversions, not every ad auction is worth bidding on, and some are worth more than you might think. Make the most of your advertising strategy by using an automated tool like Google’s Smart Bidding, which uses ML to optimize bids for conversions. This enables you to utilize your time and advertising budget more effectively by taking out the guesswork. – Adam Binder, Creative Click Media
