The Four A’s of Advertising in 2019

ROI Revolution; the US based digital marketing agency defined the four A’s of Advertising in 2019 within its 2019 US Ecommerce Paid Search Report that has been released recently.

1. ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE: Rise of the Machine

According to the report, Artificial Intelligence is currently being used to predict product and content recommendations, better understand shoppers that are likely to convert/bounce and gain a clear understanding on buyer intent through customer data.

Moving forward, the role of AI is going to continue to grow as more businesses look to automate marketing tasks and free up time to focus on big picture ideas to grow.

AI will make it easier to understand which channels are driving traffic and conversions, how to target and segment your audience based on shopping preferences and demographics, and the individual and combined impact of multiple touch points in the buyer’s journey.

Google and Bing themselves have turned to machine learning and AI to refine their search algorithms, ad rank thresholds, smart display campaigns, automated bidding strategies, chatbot extensions, and more.

• ATTRIBUTION: Weighing What Matters Most

Did you know that only 17% of consumers browsing on an ecommerce site for the first time have an intent to purchase? So what happens if your attribution model is only recording first touch? How do you get an accurate idea of your sales funnel if you can’t track where that other 83% of your traffic goes, and how you can get them to come back and convert?

Multi-Touch Marketing: The Future of Attribution is here

While first- and last-touch attribution still have their place in many marketing functions, according to a 2017 survey by Marketing Attribution Think Tank, 75% of marketers said they are already using or will be using multi-touch attribution within two years4.

What sets multi-touch apart? To put it simply: more data points. Instead of simply looking at the first or last touch point, you are looking at every touch point in the buyer’s journey.

With this information, you can weight individual marketing campaigns or initiatives based on ad budget, conversion rate, impression share, ROAS, revenue share, or any other metric that makes sense for your business.

• AUDIENCES: Targeting the Right Customers

Once you’ve got an attribution model in place that makes sense for your specific business needs, it becomes so much easier to target the right shoppers that are most likely to convert. The key lies in segmentation.

Segmentation Leads to Sales

By understanding where your conversions come from, as well as the path that customers took to get there, you can easily segment your customers into more granular buckets for more unique and personalized advertising opportunities.

Segmenting by demographic, location, time of day/day of week, platform, time on site, add-to-carts, site abandonment, and even the types of content that users consume, allow you to make much more intelligent decisions about where to invest your marketing budget.

It also allows you to personalize your content based around shoppers with similar interests, preferences, and shopping behavior. This personalized content has a much higher chance of resonating with consumers, as it directly correlates to their likes and dislikes.

• AUTOMATION: Pairing Technology with Talent

Have you ever heard the legendary tale of John Henry?

John Henry was a folk hero of the 1920s who competed against a machine, hammering a steel drill into rock tunnels to make holes for explosives. In the legend, John Henry was trying to prove that a human is every bit as efficient as a machine. To prove this, John went toe-to-toe with the machine in a 2-day competition. And wouldn’t you know it, when the dust had settled, John was the winner!

This is definitive proof as to how pointless automation is, right? Man is greater than machine!

Bzzzzzzzt, wrong!

This narrative isn’t telling the whole story. What you may not realize is that John Henry died shortly after the challenge from overexerting himself and falling ill.

The moral of the story:

While sheer manpower can get a job done, automation allows for that same job to be done with less effort, less exertion, and less human interaction.

Think about that statement as it relates to your advertising efforts. By increasing the amount of tasks that are automated by technology, it frees you up to focus on the big picture strategy that truly moves your company forward.