Artificial intelligence plays a transformative role in the ever-evolving digital advertising industry, unveiling proven but untapped opportunities. However, in a world of potential use cases, ad operations leaders don’t always know which practical AI applications will drive the most impact.
One thing is for certain: AI must be combined with automation to maximize its benefits, and harmonize with human supervision to be effectively leveraged.
Why automation is increasingly important for advertising success
Today’s advertisers face a variety of challenges to growth. Escalating execution complexity, increasing margin erosion and mounting time constraints at all levels consistently rank among the top concerns for ad-ops leaders.
Conventional operational approaches, manual campaign implementation and increased talent investment often only compound the problem. Simply put, advertisers can’t hire their way to scale.
By embracing automation along with existing resources, ad teams have the ability to tackle tasks that were once bottlenecks. Best of all, automation creates a vast improvement in the productivity and overall engagement of existing ad-ops and strategist teams.
When these team members finally have the time to start contributing to strategic initiatives, their overall engagement improves. Often, so does the bottom line.
Real-world advantages of automation and AI in advertising
Much of digital advertising was once restricted to the day-to-day operations of inherently repetitive and predictable tasks. From creating new accounts and generating reports to managing budgets and pacing, digital advertisers have had a lot to keep up with. Delegating essential tasks to automation doesn’t just open up more time for strategic initiatives, but also holds the potential to significantly enhance service levels, thus elevating the customer experience and overall satisfaction.
When managed appropriately, AI is in many ways a perfect complement to automation. While automation drives execution efficiency by addressing the processes, settings and nonhuman-to-human interactions, AI can streamline and accelerate more cognitive work, transforming potentially cold messages into compelling interactions.
For instance, AI can enhance ad-content variation by combining content libraries with business data to generate high-quality messaging. It also facilitates customizable reporting, allowing creativity to flourish and convey value to clients. Ultimately, AI's potency in advertising shines brightest when it simplifies execution, with automation being the key enabler of large-scale implementation.
How to combine AI with automation for maximum impact
Once the groundwork of automation is set, its synergy with AI can be optimized. It’s important to note that while automation comes with myriad advantages for organizations, reaching "intelligence" also comes with potential risks that leaders need to be cautious of, including compliance and data-usage rights.
It’s true that AI can augment a well-defined strategy, but while automation enhances predictability, the more AI takes on, the less control remains over predictable outcomes. This is why striking the right balance is critical.
Fortunately, rule systems are emerging to enable self-auditing of AI usage, promoting safer adoption. Additionally, concerns related to compliance can be alleviated through the use of Robotic Process Automation for Advertising—aka, RPA4A—which is designed to align with brand compliance rules and pertinent industry benchmarks.
Evaluating readiness and preparing for implementation
It's essential to recognize that the benefits of automation don’t manifest themselves instantly. The good news is that, in most cases organizations are more prepared for automation than they realize. Think about this as a journey to be approached holistically. To succeed with automation, ad-ops teams must consider brand compliance, the need for advanced experimentation and customization, consistent business data hygiene, organizational inertia and a willingness to embrace new technologies and approaches.
The journey toward unlocking the potential of AI in digital advertising requires seamlessly blending AI and automation under the guidance of human insight. Recognizing the nuanced interplay between these technologies, and addressing potential challenges, pave the way for an era of streamlined operations, heightened creativity and unmatched scalability.
The combination of automation and AI becomes an obvious choice for sustained growth.
