Are You Looking Forward to Ad Automation?

Google and Microsoft seem to be taking it on top of the online advertising world.

Photo by Joshua Earle on Unsplash

We hear about artificial intelligence being used in just about any domain these days.

How do you feel about ad automation with AI?

If you have mixed feelings, it might help you know that both Google and Microsoft have declared to have a crush on it.

Enter Performance Max campaigns from Google

Performance Max campaigns are rolling out over the World Wide Web after Google successfully tested it throughout the past year.

“If change is the challenge, automation is the solution businesses and agencies are using to stay ahead of ongoing shifts in consumer demand.” (Source)

Starting with November 2, Performance Max campaigns are available to all advertisers. If you want, you can buy Google ads across multiple channels, all from a single campaign, relying on AI for choosing the distribution channel.

Google says advertisers who have been running such campaigns “see an average increase of 13% total incremental conversions at a similar cost per action”.

Enter Smart Shopping campaigns from Microsoft

Smart Shopping campaigns will storm any market where shopping campaigns are accepted, as Microsoft announced.

The change will take effect beginning on Monday, November 8, and will blend several automation tools to help serve ads “to the right user at the right time”:

It’s a bit of a mouthful that Microsoft details here, the main point being that these smart campaigns will figure out where and when it’s best to place your ads for the maximum benefits.

AI-powered ad delivery, still relying on human creativity

To be clear, these new ways of running ad campaigns are AI-powered in terms of delivery. At least for now.

What’s not automated yet is the actual ad content.

I don’t know about you, but I would feel a bit more comfortable entrusting some AI tools to pick the display environment on my ads while creating the best ads I can.

Is it because I’ve always been more involved in the creation side than in the distribution aspects?

How do you feel about it if you are a copywriter?

How about if you’re a PPC specialist? Do you feel excited or somewhat concerned about this transfer of decision power over artificial intelligence?