Embracing AI in Advertising: A Game Plan and Tools to Get Started

Artificial intelligence (AI) is changing how we approach marketing and advertising. By harnessing machine learning and ******, AI allows computers to analyze data, make informed decisions, and execute tasks that traditionally require human intelligence. 

So where does that leave you, the human marketer?

Our Think Big with AI report revealed that 67% of businesses already leveraged AI for content marketing and SEO in 2023. AI isn’t just a trend. It’s a tool for staying competitive and delivering precisely what your customers seek.

In this article, we’ll discuss several ways that you can leverage AI in your advertising campaigns–in your strategy, toolkit, and execution–to get more done in less time.

AI in Advertising: How is it Being Leveraged? 

Artificial intelligence can be defined simply as a machine’s ability to read and understand patterns and make predictions about what will happen next. 

Every day, AI works behind the scenes in advertising, helping decide which ads to show you based on what you like and do online. For publishers, it makes their platforms more intelligent and effective. 

According to the Marketing Artificial Intelligence Institute, both Google Ads and Meta Ads “use AI to sell, target, and place ads micro-second by micro-second.” 

For advertisers, it can help make campaign creation more efficient. 

With generative AI, advertisers can create copy and design in seconds instead of hours. This has clear benefits for publishers and advertisers, and AI is already ingrained in our daily lives. 

AI can transform digital advertising by dynamically monitoring performance, adjusting budgets and bids in real-time, and automatically turning off underperforming ads to optimize campaign efficiency.

Elena Guseva, Paid Traffic Channel Manager, Semrush

Consider the following examples of AI in everyday life:

• Personalized shopping recommendations on ecommerce sites
• Voice-activated assistants like Siri and Alex, 
• Social media feeds curated based on your interests
• Navigation apps based on real-time traffic data
• Personalized recommendations on streaming TV

But it’s not just about personalization. AI also makes advertising more efficient. Machines can handle repetitive tasks, like generating a large number of different ad designs, much faster than a human could. This saves time and money, allowing businesses to focus on other things.

However, it’s not all smooth sailing. When using AI, there are issues to consider, such as data privacy, ethical concerns, and the risk of over-reliance on technology. 

It’s important to navigate these challenges carefully, ensuring that AI is used responsibly and effectively to enhance the advertising experience for both businesses and consumers.

The Impact of AI on Advertising: Will It Work for You?

Are you using AI in your marketing efforts?

Although most companies have embraced AI, not everyone is ready to incorporate it. 

Many challenges were mentioned among the 33% of participants in the Think Big with AI survey who don’t utilize AI in their content marketing. These included comprehension of the technology and worries regarding plagiarism, quality, and legal implications.

 

Like any tool, AI in advertising has its ups and downs, and ultimately, it’s all about how you use it. 

Let’s break down the pros and cons of AI in advertising:

Pros:

• Personalization: AI can tailor ads to individual preferences at scale, leading to more effective campaigns that resonate with the target audience on a personal level.
• Automation: AI can automate many manual campaign processes, such as designing ads, writing copy, targeting audiences, and managing campaign budgets and analytics, freeing up time for other tasks.
• Dynamic Optimization: Google’s AI tools can optimize ad campaigns in real-time, adjusting variables like bidding, targeting, and creative elements to maximize ROI. 
• Time-Saving Content Creation: Generative AI streamlines the creative process, enabling copywriters and designers to produce content more quickly and efficiently​​​​.

Cons:

• Data Privacy: The extensive data collection required for AI-driven advertising raises concerns about consumer privacy and the potential misuse of personal information.
• The Human Factor: Often, generative AI misses the mark on the emotional connection that only humans can bring. In addition, people don’t often enjoy conversing with a machine (i.e., chatbots)
• Algorithm Bias: AI algorithms can perpetuate biases in the training data, leading to unfair targeting or exclusion of certain groups.
• Overreliance Risk: Leaning too heavily on AI can lead to a lack of human oversight and creativity, damaging your reputation instead of enhancing it

Ultimately, AI excels in efficiency but may struggle to capture human emotion. 

The key is combining AI’s strengths with human insight. This approach should begin with a well-thought-out game plan that leverages the best of both worlds.

Crafting Your AI Advertising Game Plan

Incorporating AI into your marketing strategy doesn’t have to be complicated. It’s all about making your life easier. 

Start by constructing a strategic game plan for incorporating AI into your advertising campaigns. This plan should outline your objectives, the AI tools you’ll use, and how you’ll measure success. 

Let’s explore a sample strategy to kickstart your AI journey. 

Step 1: Assess Your Current Advertising Landscape 

Any good strategy starts with an audit. Begin by thoroughly reviewing your existing advertising strategies, channels, and outcomes. 

This includes:

• Analyzing your target audience demographics, their online behavior, and engagement patterns
• Examining your ad spend efficiency across different platforms and identifying which campaigns have yielded the best ROI 
• Considering your brand’s market positioning and how your current advertising aligns with your overall marketing objectives

This initial assessment will provide a clear picture of where your advertising stands and where there’s room for improvement with AI integration.

For example, let’s say you’re advertising a local coffee shop. You examine your current social media ads to gauge reach and engagement. You hypothesize that while the ads hold potential, they might need better personalization and targeting.

Personalization is key in digital advertising. AI can support this by testing different ad copies, languages, and images to find the most effective combination for engaging the target audience.

Elena Guseva, Paid Traffic Channel Manager, Semrush

Step 2: Define Clear Objectives 

Set specific and measurable goals for your AI advertising efforts. These objectives could include things like:

• Reduce the average time to launch campaigns by 20% within the next quarter
• Increase the number of audience segments used for personalized ad testing by 30% within six months
• Improve the return on ad spend for key assets by 15% over the next year

Defining your objectives early in your campaign strategy ensures your goals align with your broader business objectives and are achievable with the AI tools you decide to use.

For example, using AI-powered ads, your coffee shop can aim to increase foot traffic for a new seasonal latte. You aim to boost in-store visits by 25% over the next month by targeting local coffee enthusiasts with personalized ads ​​​​on social media platforms that feature the drink.

Step 3: Understand AI Capabilities and Limitations 

Artificial intelligence offers immense potential in advertising, but it’s essential to remember its capabilities and limitations. 

Where AI excels:

• Rapid Ad Creative Generation: AI can quickly produce a variety of ad creatives, streamlining the design process.
• Data-Driven Targeting: By analyzing customer data, AI can help create detailed audience segments for more personalized ad campaigns.
• Efficient Campaign Management: AI automates repetitive tasks like ad placement and optimization.

AI limitations:

• Creativity: AI may struggle with the subtleties of human emotion and creativity, which are crucial for compelling ad content.
• Context Understanding: AI can sometimes miss the context, leading to inappropriate or ineffective ad placements.
• Data Dependency: AI’s effectiveness depends on the quality of the data it uses or on user input.

In addition, when using AI tools, pay attention to privacy and security concerns and ensure your AI applications respect confidentiality.

For your coffee shop’s campaign, you might use AI to automate the targeting of your ads, ensuring they reach local coffee enthusiasts on social media. 

However, before running the campaign, you’ll still need to oversee the creative aspects of your ads to ensure they capture the unique essence of your seasonal latte and resonate with your audience.

Step 4: Select the Right AI Tools 

After researching, it’s time to pick the right tools for your advertising needs. Look for tools that match your advertising goals and integrate seamlessly with your marketing setup. 

Here are some features to consider:

• Dynamic design creation to keep things fresh
• Automatic copywriting tailored to your message and your audience
• Predictive analytics to foresee how your campaign will roll

Make sure the tool is user-friendly, scalable to accommodate your business growth, and backed by reliable support. Remember to check its privacy and security features to protect your brand and customer data.

For the coffee shop, you might choose an AI platform that excels in creating dynamic ads and segmenting audiences, enhancing your social media advertising efforts.

AI can be a game-changer in ecommerce by automatically pausing ads for out-of-stock products and turning them back on once they are restocked, ensuring advertising efforts are always aligned with inventory availability.

Elena Guseva, Paid Traffic Channel Manager, Semrush

Step 5: Run Your Ad Campaign

Now that you’ve set up your strategy and selected your AI tools, it’s time to launch your ad campaign.

How can AI help here?

• Launching with Confidence: Start your campaign based on the insights and targeting strategies you’ve developed with your AI tools.
• Monitoring Performance: Keep an eye on key metrics like click-through rates and conversions to gauge the success of your campaign. You can manually monitor performance or choose an AI-powered tool that automates the process (for example, Google Ads has this feature built-in). 
• Adjust as Needed: Use the data you gather to make real-time adjustments to your ads, ensuring they resonate with your audience and achieve your objectives.

Let’s say your coffee shop launches a series of social media ads targeting coffee lovers in their area. As the campaign progresses, they notice that ads featuring their new seasonal latte are getting more engagement. 

From here, you can allocate more budget to those ads or even use AI generation to make more ads related to the seasonal latte quickly. 

Step 6: Scale AI Integration

If all is going well, consider expanding the use of AI in your marketing strategy. Pick AI tools that fit your bigger marketing goals and ensure your team knows how to use them. Keep an eye on how these AI-powered efforts are doing and tweak as needed. 

AdCreative.ai – Your AI-Powered Solution for Effortless Ad Creation 

AdCreative.ai in the Semrush App Center is one of the best AI tools for generating ads on a large scale across various platforms. 

This app eliminates the need for time-consuming design and copywriting sessions by generating custom, brand-specific ads that can be specialized across social platforms and the Google display network. 

While the process can be fully automated, you can edit and provide input at every step, ensuring the final ads align with your brand and goals.

Getting started is as easy as entering your URL and letting the app scan your website. 

AdCreative.ai will automatically detect your brand name and colors, and logo. Once you review and confirm the information, click “Create Brand” to proceed.

Once your brand is created, you can pick the assets you want to generate. For this example, we’ll use the Ad Package. 

To generate your ad package, enter your URL and choose your goals, tone of voice, and language. You can also edit your auto-generated product name, audience, call to action, and description. 

Once you’re happy with this information, click “Next Step,” and AdCreative.ai will guide you through platform selection and creative sizes.

First, choose your platform.

Next, pick out the ad size you want to run.

To illustrate your ad, you can choose from free stock photos, paid options, or upload your own images.

Once you’re happy with your image and copy, click “Generate” to create ads. 

In seconds, AdCreative.ai generates conversion-focused ad creatives specific and copy specific to your brand. It also offers a conversion score to aid in selecting the ideal creative for your objectives. 

You can download and use the creatives as needed. Repeat the process whenever you need new assets for your campaigns.

Pricing: AdCreative.ai offers a free one-day trial, after which you pay $109 per month per 5 brands and 100 credits. 

That means if you’re an agency with five clients, you can create one brand per client and download 100 ads per month for their campaigns.

For an extra $50 per month, you can stack another 100 credits and 5 brands. 

AdCreative Real World Use Cases 

From startups to established brands, here’s how businesses can leverage AdCreative.ai to transform their advertising efforts. 

Ecommerce Retailer Boosts Conversion Rates

Goal: You’re an online clothing retailer that aims to enhance ad performance and update its ad creatives and product photos for a fresh look across platforms.

Scenario: Using AdCreative.ai, you input detailed brand information and high-quality product images. The platform then generates a variety of visually stunning ad creatives and optimized product photos specifically tailored for platforms like Instagram, Facebook, and the Google Display Network.

Result: This strategic use of AI-driven visuals and copy leads to a noticeable increase in click-through and conversion rates, showcasing the power of AI in creating ads that resonate with the target audience and drive engagement.

Startup Leverages AI for Launch Campaign

Goal: You’re a startup that aims to maximize its advertising impact for an innovative gadget launch with a limited budget.

Scenario: Your startup turns to AdCreative.ai to create ads without the cost of a professional agency. They input their product details and brand identity and quickly receive tailored ad creatives and copy optimized for their target audience on social media and display networks.

Result: This approach allows them to swiftly test various ad sets, identifying the most effective creatives that boost visibility and sales for their launch, all while keeping their marketing budget in check.

Ad Agency Increases Efficiency and Client Satisfaction

Goal: Your ad agency seeks to efficiently meet the varied advertising needs of your clients with limited resources.

Scenario: Your agency, tasked with creating customized advertising for a diverse client base, integrates AdCreative.ai into its workflow. This tool enables them to swiftly produce tailored ad creatives and copy, meeting each client’s specific requirements for their products and campaigns.

Result: Leveraging AdCreative.ai enhances the agency’s operational efficiency, facilitating extensive A/B testing and leading to better-optimized ad performances. This approach elevates client satisfaction by delivering personalized, results-oriented ad campaigns.

More AI Advertising Tools to Try 

While AdCreative.ai offers robust AI-driven advertising capabilities, let’s highlight a few more AI advertising tools available.

Here are three more options that can complement or enhance your advertising strategy:

AI Ad Copy Generator

AI Ad Copy Generator in the Semrush App Center is designed to streamline the copywriting process for Google Ads by using AI to analyze successful ad copy and generate new, optimized content tailored to specific marketing goals. 

With just two clicks, you can generate compelling copy for your Google Ads. It saves time and boosts ad performance with data-driven suggestions, minimizing the need for extensive A/B testing. Plus, you can add a human review to your subscription for extra precision if desired.

Pros:

• Saves time by automating the copywriting process
• Optimizes ad copy for better engagement and conversion rates
• Provides a variety of copy options to choose from

Cons:

• Primarily geared towards Google Ads 
• Ad copy sent via email or .csv download rather than appearing in the interface

Pricing: AI Ad Copy Generator starts with a free trial; subscriptions begin at $29/month.

Jasper.ai Ad Copy Generator

Jasper.ai Ad Copy Generator is a specialized tool within the Jasper.ai platform designed to supercharge your ad creation process. It provides a streamlined approach to generating persuasive, engaging ad copy that resonates with your target audience. 

Pros:

• Speeds up the ad copywriting process, allowing for rapid campaign deployment
• Learns and maintains your brand’s tone and style across all ad copy
• Optimizes copy for conversions, driving better campaign results.

Cons:

• Learning curve to familiarize yourself with tool features
• Output can become repetitive, requiring edits

Pricing: Jasper.ai offers a free 7-day trial. After the trial, subscription costs for limited users and features begin at $39/month. 

Smartly.io

Smartly.io is an advertising automation platform that enhances social media ad campaigns on platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and Pinterest. 

Smartly.io’s features include automated ad optimization, creative scaling, and detailed analytics, making it a good solution for advertisers aiming to optimize their social media presence and engagement​​​​. 

Pros:

• Uses AI to automate ad optimization for better performance and ROI automatically
• Allows for the centralized management of ad campaigns across multiple social media platforms
• Provides ad targeting options so you can reach specific audience segments 

Cons:

• No free trial
• Pricing format may end up being a higher-priced option 

Pricing: Smartly charges users based on percentages of their advertising spend.

AdRoll

AdRoll is a marketing tool that focuses on retargeting, assisting companies in reconnecting with their website visitors through tailored ads. With its AI, AdRoll analyzes user behavior to create personalized ad campaigns that improve conversion rates and drive sales. 

Pros:

• Can run ads on various platforms, including social media, search engines, and websites
• Able to use machine learning to target users based on their behavior, interests, and demographics 
• Integrates with popular ecommerce and marketing platforms

Cons:

• Ad approval process can be slow
• Ad customization may be limited

Pricing: AdRoll offers a pay-as-you-go plan for display and native ads. Subscriptions for display, native, and social ads begin at $36/month. 

The Future of Advertising: Will AI Take Over? 

The future of advertising will undoubtedly be intertwined with AI, as it offers unprecedented efficiency and personalization. 

However, keeping your human touch remains irreplaceable, providing creativity and emotional intelligence that AI can’t replicate. 

As AI tools evolve, they will become indispensable in crafting data-driven campaigns, but the art of advertising will always require a human touch to truly connect with audiences. 

Get started today by trying out AdCreative.ai in the Semrush App Center.