Artificial intelligence and machine learning algorithms have drastically changed the digital marketing landscape. Google Ads new features enable marketers to spend less time on manual campaign optimizations and shift their focus on strategy and expansion instead.
Technological developments have been so rapid that AI and machine learning might soon make keywords – the backbone of paid advertising – obsolete. What’s next?
With smart bidding strategies, responsive search and display ads, dynamic search ads, and ad variation testing, machine learning algorithms have cut in half the manual work a PPC account manager used to do.
No more long hours of bid adjustments for Single Keyword Ad Groups. Today, broad match type campaigns give both marketers and algorithms much more freedom in terms of word combinations and intent.
With an automated bidding strategy in Google Ads, you designate your maximum budget and the platform will adjust the bid to give you the best chance of winning the auction. Similarly, Facebook’s campaign budget optimization delivers results based on what you’re willing to spend on a campaign.How does digital marketers’ job evolve, once all the drudge work that used to take weeks is no longer a necessity?
Eventually, all the ad platforms will be capable of simply getting customers or leads at your desired price with limited guidance needed from the marketer.
What's left, then, for marketers to give to the systems to make them work optimally? The only two things that AI cannot provide – empathy and creativity.
Creativity in marketing is a reflection of deep empathy for a narrowly segmented customer persona. It’s about truly understanding your audience’s needs and wants, empathizing with them, and enabling the user journey.
A marketers’ job is to meaningfully engagе people across their increasingly complex online journeys. Creativity is and will continue to be the X factor in delivering on this claim.From messaging and visuals to services and landing pages, creativity can bring a well-thought-through marketing strategy to life.
To achieve this, marketers need to shift their resources to better understand their ideal customers and provide genuinely relevant content and offers. Tools are readily available for those deep-dives, appreciating, and analyzing the data is where we need to do more work.Focusing on audience segmentation, in-depth data analysis, and creative work are the three elements marketing teams are likely to adhere to through the 2020s.
Empathy for people’s pain points and goals allows marketers to effectively deliver on what really matters to their audiences.Armed with big data and a team that can understand consumers’ emotions, marketing can really provide value. This formula can create more meaningful advertising experiences and set new standards for relevance.
Instead of spending hours on optimizing campaigns, marketers will be able to deliver more meaningful ads that not just satisfy the searchers’ intent, but also speak to their deeper needs, motivations, and interests.
For more thoughts on paid marketing, explore our blog.