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Artificial Intelligence Marketing

HOW MARKETER AND MACHINE WILL LEARN TO WORK TOGETHER


How Marketer and Machine Will Learn to Work Together 2

Contents

Introduction 3

Perfecting the Balance 4

AI Marketing Technologies Makes Sense in our Big Data World 6


SILOED DATA, SILOED ORGANIZATION 6
HOW COGNITIVE TECHNOLOGY CAN HELP 7

Blackbox Marketing vs. Glassbox Marketing 8

AI Technologies Free Up Human Brain Power and Intellect 9


NEW ORGANIZATIONAL STRUCTURE FOR LARGE COMPANIES 11

Best Practices for Implementation 12

Conclusion 13

About Adgorithms 13

New York | London | Tel Aviv | www.adgorithms.com | info@adgorithms.com


How Marketer and Machine Will Learn to Work Together 3

Introduction
Cognitive technology, or artificial intelligence changed our work from creating things to
(AI), has always had a way of capturing the overseeing machines that create things for us -
public’s imagination. For tech enthusiasts, cognitive technology could free us to start doing
constantly imagining how new technology can the work we love doing once again.
improve the efficiency and quality of everyday
life, debates surrounding the open-ended Nowhere is this more true than in the world
potential of autonomous computing has of marketing, where digital media has reduced
generated plenty of excitement and optimism. much of what was an empathetic and creative
To the general public, however, the upside profession to data entry and machine
hasn’t been as clear to see. supervision. AI will not take marketing jobs
away, but enhance them, allowing marketers
Mention artificial intelligence to the average to refocus on understanding customers and
person on the street, and that person is crafting messages that appeal to their needs.
still likely to think of villains from dystopian But before this can happen, marketers must
sci-fi films like The Terminator or 2001: A learn to trust machines to handle a certain
Space Odyssey’s HAL 9000. More grounded amount of the work they do today so that the
predictions of an AI-assisted future are still two parties can effectively collaborate and add
fraught with concerns of job displacement and more value to organizations everywhere.
the de-personalization of everyday work: a Tech
Pro Research survey found that while 63% of
respondents agreed that AI would be good for
their businesses, 34% found the concept of AI
to be frightening on a personal level.

But the truth is that cognitive technology is


already an active part of the world around us,
powering everything from our smartphones to
our plumbing. More importantly, its advance
into the workplace should be seen not as
a foreign invasion, but as a boon to human
workers still adapting to an increasingly digital
marketplace. The rapid advancement of all
technology has heightened the scale and pace
of productivity across industries, but it has
removed much of the “human” element of that
work in the process. Much like the industrial
revolution before it, the digital revolution has

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How Marketer and Machine Will Learn to Work Together 4

Perfecting the Balance


Much of the groundwork that must be laid pilots refused to cede any control to automated
before cognitive technology can work effectively systems and equipment. This resulted in more
will involve carefully defining the roles that injuries and fatalities during training, as pilots
man and machine will play in day-to-day work. simply couldn’t keep pace with the technology
Machines are capable of many of the tasks that was supposed to be making their jobs
that humans do today, but there are limits easier.
- the trick will be determining the optimal
allocation of work between humans and their Engineers have been able to solve this problem
digital assistants. This mix will vary for each by allocating work between machine and man
organization, department, and even employee. literally on a pilot-by-pilot basis. Each F-35 jet is
programmed with input from the pilot so that
For an example of just how important and the entire machine is configured according to
individualized this balance can be, consider the her preferences and even her specific mission.
transition in aeronautics from propeller-driven The aircraft are so carefully tailored to these
to jet aircraft. Planes developed after World War needs that pilots report having dreams in which
II were so fast that it was impossible for humans their planes become a physical extension of
to fly them completely on their own, but many themselves.

Machines take over… so humans can focus on…

Translating entire documents line Making documents not only


by line so that they’re intelligible to intelligible, but well-written and
native speakers precise from perspective of native
Find out the nature of the problem speaker
customers are experiencing when Providing specialized assistance to
using your customer service line customers in need
Record symptoms and outcomes Giving more accurate diagnoses
of medical patients and apply and improving health outcomes.
findings to existing diagnostic
frameworks.

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How Marketer and Machine Will Learn to Work Together 5

It’s unlikely that this level of personalization will to grow by 29% in the next eight years. Human
be necessary in marketing, but the example translators are actually in higher demand
speaks to how key it is that humans feel because AI isn’t capable of tracking the small
comfortable with the role their computerized nuances of language and effectively mimicking
assistants play in the work that they do. That’s human speech. The computers eliminate much
not to say that marketers will be able to make of the basic translation work, leaving humans to
all the decisions about this balance - regardless work out the kinks.
of what they think, there are certain tasks
that AI will simply be better and faster at. But This kind of cooperative, calculated balance is
marketers are more likely to feel comfortable key to effective human-machine collaboration,
with cognitive technology if they have some but it’s still quite rare in the world of marketing.
input in determining its exact role. Because the ad tech most companies rely
on doesn’t feature artificial intelligence
Another key consideration in determining fully, humans still spend far too much time
AI’s role is to remember the limitations of this monitoring and programming their digital tools
cognitive technology. Translation services are just to ensure they do their jobs correctly. The
coming to rely more and more on artificial modern marketing landscape has become
intelligence, as machines are capable of so complicated that without more cognitive
translating a high volume of content that technology to back them up, marketers will
would not have otherwise been cost-effective become more bogged down than ever by
to produce. But that doesn’t mean translators menial tasks and less likely to reach their full
are packing up their things and looking for new potential.
work - on the contrary, the industry is expected

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How Marketer and Machine Will Learn to Work Together 6

AI Marketing Technologies Makes


Sense in our Big Data World
One huge factor contributing to the complexity allocation of messaging, frequency, channels,
marketers face today is big data - specifically, and spend. Even after user segments have
the difficulty of sifting through the large been identified and targeted with particular
quantities of information that brands collect campaigns, marketers must make adjustments
across various channels is a problem that for each channel, device, and format the
cognitive technologies will be crucial in solving. campaign is running on. In a marketing
landscape where conditions are changing every
Of course, marketers already realize that they second, it isn’t humanly possible to properly
can’t effectively analyze and synthesize the account for all these variables and make
deluge of data created by digital channels on decisions that maximize a campaign’s impact.
their own. Every marketing team has a suite of
software tools that help them comb through
billions of data points to find the insights
SILOED DATA, SILOED
that will inform the planning, execution, and ORGANIZATION
optimization of their campaigns.
Organizations typically react to these problems
The problem is that these tools tend to be by dedicating personnel - sometimes, entire
channel-specific, and the data they collect gets teams - to specific channels, effectively
trapped in silos. As consumers continue to siloing their marketing departments and
make more purchases that are influenced by their marketing efforts. This makes accurate
multiple channels (Forrester claims that cross- decisioning that is best for the end customer or
channel retail sales alone will reach $1.8 trillion consumer even more complex, and things such
by 2018), it becomes critically important that as organic, on-the-fly journey discovery, and
marketers are able to discover and react to attribution near impossible.
customer journeys organically and on the fly.
Understanding how user experiences across Such a channel-centric approach stands
various channels converge into a purchase - in direct contrast to the channel-agnostic
A.K.A. attribution - is extremely difficult without attitude that has been adopted by consumers
the ability to seamlessly access data from all in recent years. Marketers cannot continue
channels and combine them in a way that is to dedicate the bulk of their time to surfacing
coherent and consistent. insights from various channels and then
forcing those insights into a coherent cross-
Additionally, marketers are tasked with testing channel strategy. Organizations need a more
and optimizing campaigns against thousands accurate and efficient way of analyzing data,
and thousands of variables to achieve the right determining attribution, organically discovering

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How Marketer and Machine Will Learn to Work Together 7

journeys at the individual level, and allocating behavior that occurred mere hours ago so that
budget so that marketers can spend more the ad any one consumer sees at 12pm may
time understanding their audience’s needs and be different from the one she sees at 1pm. This
crafting messages that address them. kind of attention to the smallest details and
ability to adjust and optimize campaigns on the
level of the individual consumer is something
HOW COGNITIVE TECHNOLOGY
that cannot be expected of marketers or even
CAN HELP data analysts.

20% of executives who haven’t And because artificial intelligence can learn
from its choices without the need for human
yet adopted AI cite lack of supervision, it’s also able to both notice and
clarity regarding its value apply insights that human observers wouldn’t
proposition catch in the first place. Cognitive technology
could enable programmatic platforms to notice
Source: Forbes
and automatically outsmart ad fraudsters,
rather than wait for human assistance to create
new rules that dictate its behavior each time a
new way around the system is created. It could
also perform a kind of extreme multi-variant

20% testing that pilots hundreds of campaigns


variants at once, informing marketers of what
it’s learned from these tests and scaling or
stopping campaigns accordingly. It could even
identify a need for additional creative materials,
indirectly generating additional ads behind
the scenes, then automatically putting them to
Cognitive technology offers an obvious solution work.
to this problem. Provided that the software
can access data from across various channels, But for any of these benefits to actually be
an artificial intelligence platform is capable of realized, your marketers first need to trust the
handling most of the work that keeps marketers AI platform to do their former job correctly.
hovering over spreadsheets and dashboards Ceding control over important tasks is always
instead of telling compelling stories. Not only difficult, but if the kind of balance between
that, but cognitive technology will be able to machine and man mentioned earlier is to
do this work with more accuracy, vigilance, and be achieved, it must be approached with
efficiency than the humans who had done it confidence and in good faith. It’s crucial,
previously. therefore, that whatever AI platform is
implemented has a degree of transparency: in
For instance, unlike human marketers, other words, it needs to be a glassbox tool, not
machines can optimize customer offers in a blackbox one.
real time, 24/7, incorporating learning from

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How Marketer and Machine Will Learn to Work Together 8

Blackbox Marketing vs. Glassbox Marketing


All artificial intelligence depends on machine outcome of these decisions, that information
learning, the ability of a computer to learn from can be analyzed for relevant business insights.
past actions and observations and apply those These transparent tools offer what’s called
learnings to future decisions. However, just glassbox marketing.
because a computer can operate independently
of human supervisors doesn’t mean that it An artificial intelligence marketing platform
should - at least, not for everything. may see, for example, that an available display
space is showing particularly good results,
There are some decisions that a computer and therefore see it as an excellent placement
simply can’t be relied upon to make in the best for your most recent campaign. But unlike a
interests of the company. Say, for instance, that blackbox tool, which would simply purchase
your AI platform notices that the space and hope for good
there’s a potentially valuable results, a glassbox tool would let
audience for your products in the advertiser know exactly which
Canada and decides to start placement it’s purchasing and who
targeting users who live there. the publisher is. A great tool would
This isn’t a decision that should even give her a recommended
be made without your approval: CPM in case she’s interested in
the computer doesn’t know doing a direct media deal with that
whether shipping to Canada publisher (if the option is available).
would be cost-efficient or even
possible, or how the exchange The key with glassbox marketing is
rate would affect profit margins. to strike a good balance between
Allowing a computer to make transparency and autonomy:
such decisions without human approval could you want to be able to remain in control
have disastrous consequences, and the mere of business-related actions, like budget or
possibility of such a scenario is enough to turn geographies you’re marketing in, but be
some marketers off from AI altogether. confident that the algorithm is making good
marketing decisions. A good cognitive marketing
A tool that makes such decisions and only platform will offer up plenty of information
gives you the output, rather than all the relevant to business leaders while working
calculations that led to that decision, is a within defined limits of marketing, taking over
blackbox tool: it offers you no transparency into many of the campaign planning and execution
its inner workings. By contrast, a good artificial actions from you without depriving you of
intelligence platform offers you plenty of the insights you’d normally get from those
additional information that went into informing processes.
each of its decisions. Depending on the

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How Marketer and Machine Will Learn to Work Together 9

AI Technologies Free Up Human Brain


Power and Intellect
The ultimate goal of artificial intelligence is to have to be dedicated to overseeing and refining
allow us to focus all our attention and effort the work of machines and marrying marketing
on the high-level thinking of which only human data with other offline and customer data
intelligence is capable. points. The crucial difference is that this work
will be much more challenging and rewarding:
One excellent example of a company putting low-level data entry work will be eliminated and
this philosophy into practice is LinkedIn: replaced with high-level machine supervision,
the professional networking site relies on data analysis, and content curation.
algorithms to determine which content will
be most appealing to its users, but its robust Even the high-level expertise of human
Influencers program ensures that the algorithm professionals can be learned by cognitive
has high-quality content to choose from. A technology and applied through a kind of
computer does the dull work of sifting through human-computer feedback loop. A recent
content and surfacing it for specific users; Forrester report lays out an excellent example
talented humans do the more interesting work of how this kind of advanced machine learning
of creating new ideas and stories that users will can be applied to data synthesis:
find appealing.
“Goldman Sachs, in partnership with machine
In much the same way, marketers must come learning platform Kensho, has implemented
to rely on computers to identify and display event-based performance reporting...The
relevant messaging to users - on the channels
machine scrapes data from the National
they prefer - so they can invest more time in
Bureau Of Labor Statistics website and then
high-quality creative and strategic work. At
compiles an impact summary, with 13 exhibits
its core, marketing has always been about
predicting stock performance based on past
understanding people, creating a message
that will appeal to them, and positioning responses to similar employment changes. A
that message directly within their line of human used to do a good job at any individual
vision. Digital technology has led marketing instance of this - but the robot completes each
professionals astray from that fundamental analysis a mere nine minutes after the data
mission - artificial intelligence is the arrives and can repeat it for thousands of
breakthrough that will bring them back. numbers from dozens of databases.”

This doesn’t mean that modern marketing will While the process of shifting from machine
look much the same way it did before the digital supervision to collaboration will require
revolution - plenty of time and effort will still retraining, these new jobs are likely to produce

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How Marketer and Machine Will Learn to Work Together 10

greater employee satisfaction and engagement. to focus on particular audience segments


Research shows that, when propped up rather than particular channels, collaborating
with powerful tools, employees tasked with to ensure that campaigns are both as wide-
challenging, high-level work are both more reaching and highly targeted as possible.
productive and happier at their jobs. In order
to support that work, however, marketing Teams will evolve to focus on strategic
organizations must undergo structural changes capabilities, interpreting the insights fed to
that empower employees to work both smarter them by their AI platform and converting them
and harder. into engaging, original, effective messaging.
A continual feedback loop should develop
Certain roles within the organization will have between these teams and the AI: as marketers
to evolve in response to the obstacles that roll out campaigns, the computer will give them
cognitive technology will help marketers clear. a sense of what’s working and what isn’t for
Especially within large companies, a recent which customers, and teams will collaborate to
trend has been to create multiple channel- create new approaches and strategies to more
specific roles for individuals and teams in effectively capture their respective audience
order to deal with the challenge of planning, segments.
executing, and optimizing campaigns across
channels, a task that will likely be made This is just one way that an organization -
significantly easier with the implementation of particularly a large one - can adjust its structure
AI software. to accommodate AI. For smaller companies
with less resources and more marketing
Employees who fill such roles as Paid Search “generalists”, the AI companion is a perfect
Managers, Social Media Managers, and even addition to fill the deep-channel “expertise” gap.
Data Analytics teams should shift their focus Companies can choose any number of routes
from the media and tools they use to reach to accomplish this goal, however, depending
consumers to the consumers themselves. Along on their specific industry, size, or philosophy.
with these individual roles, the organizational Regardless, business leaders and CMOs should
hierarchies that support them must be adjusted see restructuring as an opportunity to create
in order to fully advance the capabilities and value, cut costs, and boost morale, rather
performance of the organization in general, than as a burdensome task. The more sincere
finally moving away from a channel-centric your efforts to transform your marketing
marketing approach to a consumer-centric one. organization for the better, the more likely
those efforts will translate into real results.
That doesn’t necessarily mean that the
expertise of these formerly channel-based
marketers will go to waste: different channels
reach different audiences, and it takes someone
with a strong understanding of that specific
audience to craft effective campaigns on those
channels. Marketers will accordingly begin

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How Marketer and Machine Will Learn to Work Together 11

NEW ORGANIZATIONAL STRUCTURE FOR LARGE COMPANIES:

The above is a modified version of a proposed customer-centric Forrester organizational structure.

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How Marketer and Machine Will Learn to Work Together 12

Best Practices for Implementation


Only 12% of organizations OBSERVE EACH INDIVIDUAL EMPLOYEES
INTERACTIONS WITH AND USE OF COGNITIVE
feel they’re prepared for the TECHNOLOGIES:
organizational changes that will Along the same lines, cater the implementation
come with cognitive technology process to the level of the individual. Everyone
Source: Forrester uses technology differently, and you want to
encourage innovative use while also preventing
human misuse or error. The training process
should involve as much learning on your part
as it does for individual members of your
marketing team.

12% SELECT THE RIGHT MACHINE LEARNING TOOLS


THAT MAXIMIZE HUMAN PRODUCTIVITY:
Not all artificial intelligence is created equal
- do in-depth research before selecting a
cognitive technology platform that’s powerful,
transparent, and intuitive enough to support
the needs of your organization.
While cognitive technology has immense
potential for any and all marketing WORK WITH VENDORS TO SET UP CONTROLS
organizations, how best to implement it will AND PREVENT MALFUNCTIONS:
vary for each organization. Based on what Again, transparency is incredibly important to
we’ve covered so far, however, there are a few building trust with marketers and preventing
consistent principles that all organizations mistakes. Both vendors and the technology
should keep in mind when preparing for the AI itself should support your efforts to develop
revolution: controls over what kind of decisions the AI
platform makes so that marketers aren’t forced
EMPHASIZE TRAINING AND ENCOURAGE to oversee the computer’s decisions constantly.
FEEDBACK: Cognitive technology that is too independent
It’s impossible to create a collaborative of its creators can make mistakes that damage
environment between marketers and cognitive revenue and even brand reputation - you
machines without trust. Crucial to building that don’t want to confirm people’s sci-fi-inspired
trust is an effective and patient training process, skepticism by publicly failing to get control over
one that truly recognizes how vital the input of your AI platform.
trainees is to the effectiveness of the software
that will be working under them.

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How Marketer and Machine Will Learn to Work Together 13

Conclusion
Cognitive technology promises to solve Cognitive technology is easy to implement
many of the problems that plague modern and even easier to use - the hard part for
marketing today, but only if companies marketers will be letting go of the control
are honest with themselves about what they have over menial aspects of their work
problems are relevant and what causes and to start considering the opportunities
them. Carelessly inserting cognitive that AI marketing will create. That goes
technology into your employees’ work not only for individual marketers, but for
processes will only cause confusion and entire organizations, which must reshape
resentment, and likely have the opposite of themselves to maximize their value.
the desired effect on productivity. Proper The more faith marketers put into the
implementation requires communication, possibilities this new future could bring
flexibility, and perhaps most importantly of about, the more productive the eventual
all, plenty of patience. solution will be.

About Adgorithms
Founded in 2010, Adgorithms liberates marketers from the pain and complexities of
modern marketing. Their signature offering “Albert” is the first-ever artificial intelligence
(AI) marketing platform, and acts as a highly intelligent and sophisticated member of a
brand’s marketing team. Albert is able to perform many of the manual, time-consuming
tasks that exist throughout a marketing campaign – from digital media buying to execution
to optimization, and analysis. Albert additionally offers proactive, ongoing insights and
recommendations on information he has learned and uncovered along his journey. Leading
brands such as Harley Davidson, Evisu and Made.com are leveraging Albert to increase and
accelerate revenue, make more informed investment decisions and reduce operational
costs – all at a pace and scale not previously possible. For more information, visit www.
adgorithms.com

To learn more about Albert, Request a Demo today.

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