Let’s face it: The world of performance marketing has said goodbye to the purely manual control and optimisation of campaigns for a long time. There is more and more talk of automation, AI or artificial intelligence. Yet many advertisers or agencies still don’t understand the great added value behind this progress. In the following blog article, I would like to review the current progress and development of data-driven marketing and explicitly classify the significance of AI bidding once again, so that no one can claim in the future “I wish I had known that earlier…”.
How has the world of online marketing changed in recent years?
Online marketing with its various disciplines and possibilities has changed constantly and deeply over the last 20 years. Once upon a time, people booked advertising banners on well-known websites or tried to get their own domain to rank organically on the first search results page with simple tricks. But the niche market of that time has quickly developed into a global billion-dollar business. With the rise of social media, its monetisation and Google’s ever-increasing status as a digital advisor in almost every situation in life, two poles have manifested themselves that are the fundamental drivers of millions of daily consumer decisions. Consequently, this has also attracted at least the same number of advertisers to the market: on the one hand, companies that advertise their own products and services and, on the other hand, agencies that, as service providers, take over the management of the campaigns, among other things.
Online Marketing & AI: The current situation
And that is exactly what makes the whole thing so complex in the meantime. More and more participants and especially big players are getting involved in this market. The current Corona pandemic has accelerated this process many times over. Now, at the latest, even the last remaining hardliners are dealing with the topics of e-commerce and online marketing. Although overall spending on search engine marketing declined in 2020, this is due to the fact that numerous industries, such as tourism and the event industry, have been deprived of their business basis. The trend towards growth will nevertheless continue in the future. The following situation results from this: high competition in a wide variety of industries, a battle for visibility and keywords, and more and more protagonists trying to outbid each other to get the best positions in Google search. The majority of managed advertising budgets are most likely managed without the use of AI, i.e. a real person reacts to decreasing conversions, new potential keywords or changes in click prices during the daily account check. I am not disputing the fact that this can work and in many cases is promising for the time being. Nevertheless, one has to admit that the human individual reaches his or her limits at some point – if only because working hours, weekends and holidays or, for example, absences due to illness do not allow 24/7 support.
AI in online marketing as a game changer
At least for these reasons, automated bidding algorithms and artificial intelligences have an advantage and can do a better job. We had been aware of this for a long time, as we had been working with Google’s automated strategies for quite some time, but BiddingLab changed our understanding of the importance of fully automated bidding algorithms. (see Case Studies). In the before and after comparison, we achieved significantly better results with our bidding technology for almost all clients. BiddingLab is your invisible employee, reacting to market changes at any time of the day and making changes and optimisations accordingly. In view of the already mentioned increasing competition and automation of processes, everyone who does not manage small advertising budgets should at least think about whether such a technology can be an asset for their own company. What is a well-known and at the same time provocative saying? “Either you move with the times, or you move with the times…”. Automation technologies are on the rise and will become widespread in the future. With this in mind, I hope that this article has given some of you food for thought. Let’s talk about your individual goals and plan a free trial with BiddingLab.
We had been aware of this for a long time, as we had already been working with Google’s automated strategies for quite some time, but BiddingLab changed our understanding of the importance of fully automated bidding algorithms once again.
