It’s often been said that there’s no substitute for hard work. But hard work coupled with AI technology can get you even further in marketing.
With the power of AI, you can be a marketer who’s in the right place, at the right time, with the right offering to meet people’s fast-changing needs; 15% of the billions of searches on Google every day are entirely new ones.1
You’re likely already tapping into the power of AI in your everyday life, whether it’s skipping traffic jams with Maps, composing better emails, or running a visual search with Lens. And that same technology, in Google AI-powered ad solutions, can help you analyse data, find insights, and show up for customers at a speed and scale like never before, especially in a world where every customer and their journey is unique.
Advanced technologies can improve marketing performance by 20% but human input can take it 15% further.
To achieve your fullest potential as a marketer, you need to pair the power of AI with your unique expertise. Our study with the Boston Consulting Group shows that advanced technologies can improve marketing performance by 20% but human input can take it 15% further. In other words, as Michael Beresin, chief operating officer of the digital marketing agency Labelium observes, using AI in marketing alone won't turn marketers into winners; pairing your expertise with the power of AI is what will help you achieve your personal best.
Working smarter with AI-powered marketing then, is like finding yourself in the driver’s seat of a Formula One race car, where you’re able to pair your skills and ingenuity with AI technologies to manoeuvre expertly. With AI systems in place instead of manual levers, you can skillfully steer your AI-powered campaign. And by providing it with unique inputs such as first-party audience data, high-quality creatives, and strategies specific to your business, you’ll be able to outpace others.
In practice, what does this all look like? For a start, here are three ways you can work smarter, not harder, by pairing your expertise with AI-powered campaigns to achieve marketing objectives, grow business results, and unlock your fullest potential as a marketer.
Build customer trust and relationships with speed and ease
Building customer trust and relationships is fundamental to what marketers do to generate revenue. And by using Google AI-powered solutions, you can activate consented first-party data to better meet your customers’ needs, engaging them at speed and scale, and deepening relationships to grow your business.
Customer Match is an advertising tool that lets you use your first-party data in privacy-safe ways to attract new customers similar to your most valuable ones, and to connect with existing customers.
With the tool, your AI-powered campaigns like Performance Max can deliver tailored, timely messages to relevant customers across Search, Shopping, YouTube, Display, and Gmail. That was how online lending platform WeLend delivered relevant ads in creative formats that were customised to the channels its customers were on.
WeLend also partnered with Mindshare and GroupM Nexus in Hong Kong to improve its accuracy in identifying new customers. By logging in unique customer insights through Customer Match lists, it was able to expand upon its existing customer lists to unlock new audience segments and find incremental customers. The result: It acquired 220% more new customers at a lower cost per acquisition with its recent Performance Max campaign.
Find your most valuable customers with skillful prediction
Attracting customers who’ll bring the highest conversion value to a business is a marketer’s priority, especially when profit pressure rises. So predicting who your most valuable customers are and finding them is key. Target ROAS bidding can help with this.
To make the most of the AI-powered bid strategy, however, your marketing expertise is essential. You’ll need to first define values for the conversions that are worth the most to your business, to steer Target ROAS in the right direction to optimise toward them.
In particular, you should pick conversion goals that translate to actual value, such as profit or customer lifetime value, rather than intermediary metrics like sales volume. This lets Target ROAS drive conversions that maximise business impact and profitability.
The AI-powered bid strategy analyses and intelligently predicts the value of a potential conversion every time a user searches for products or services you’re advertising, or engages with your ads on various channels. It then automatically adjusts your bids to maximise your return on them.
Traveloka, a lifestyle superapp based in Southeast Asia, for instance, had an 11% increase in return on ad spend and a 14% increase in average booking value when it shifted from a Target CPA bid strategy to a Target ROAS bid strategy.
Maximise valuable conversions with winning creative combinations
Another way marketers can reach their fullest potential with AI-powered ad solutions is in the development of effective ad creatives, which account for almost 50% of ROI.
By using the AI-driven Performance Max, for instance, you can deliver an extensive range of creative combinations at scale. This lets you find the combinations that drive the best conversions and also uncover insights to help refine your creative direction and optimise your next campaign.
To get the most out of Performance Max, however, your marketing ingenuity is essential. When you provide it with a diverse and strategic selection of creative assets, including well-written copy, beautiful imagery, and attention-grabbing videos to mix and match, it’s able to create myriad ad formats and combinations that are meaningful to any audience.
Indeed, the digital-first furniture brand Castlery enjoyed a 9% increase in click-through rate, an 8% reduction in cost-per-click, and a return on ad spend of 600% as compared with its Smart Shopping campaigns, when it used Performance Max to drive online sales with compelling creatives across Google’s full range of channels and inventory.
If your goal for 2023 as a marketer is to work smarter and drive business results, accelerating the use of Google AI in your marketing can help you unlock your fullest potential. But like a driver in a Formula One race car, what will ultimately give you a cutting edge is the way you pair your expertise and ingenuity with AI technologies. So, lights out and away we go.
Contributor: Merlyn Koh, Product Marketing Manager, APAC Ads, Performance Max & AI
