Any small-business owner who uses paid online advertising can tell you that “AI-powered” is becoming the new normal. But Meta is doubling down even further – it wants to fully automate advertising with AI by next year.
Zuckerberg’s dream is for every step of the digital advertising process – from copy to targeting – to be handled by AI.
But is it a good idea to hand over your digital marketing to the algorithm? Or is Zuckerberg’s dream just that – a dream?
Is AI up to the task of making your ads?
Like anything that promises to redefine an entire industry, the proposal has stirred up concern. Firstly, there’s the fact that Meta’s current AI capabilities aren’t necessarily up to scratch, according to marketers.
“Right now it’s clunky, has so many mistakes, and nothing I have seen looks professional,” said Joel Brooker, who runs the digital marketing agency JBE Digital. “With its current AI abilities, Meta wouldn’t be able to run profitable ads for most businesses.”
Brooker told ISB he thinks the idea could work for very small businesses with zero budget for professional marketers, but only for those with a generic product or service – not those with complex brands and offerings.
“Tone of voice, particulars around brand guidelines are things AI cannot get right. Past that, creative strategy and ideas are not able to be replicated by AI yet,” he explained.
Will it ever work?
Marketer Jason Le, who runs JRNY Digital, has concerns about the removal of human agency from the marketing process.
“Marketing today is about troubleshooting,” he said. “You don’t just hit ‘go’ and cross your fingers. You push the algorithm when needed, upweight or downweight based on market conditions, and make judgment calls based on business needs, not just machine learning.”
For this reason, Le doesn’t think fully-automated ads will work. He added that, if Zuckerberg’s proposal is realised, there will be no way for business owners to learn why they’re not working, either.
Megan Winter, whose marketing agency Lume Marketing specialises in Meta ads, agreed with the need for human oversight when it comes to optimising outputs.
“AI-powered advertising works best when we focus on creating strategically-aligned creative content, let the machine do what it was designed to do (personalised media placement to achieve a defined objective), then analyse and optimise the outputs to ensure it’s going in the right direction,” she told ISB.
On the other hand, she’s much more optimistic about AI’s ability to accurately target the right customers.
“We don’t need to build out funnels anymore because the machine knows what ad to put in front of which person at what time,” Winter said. “TOFU, MOFU, BOFU are dead – RIP funnels.”
Human control
Meta has just expanded its AI ad control options, which it says will “help businesses achieve better overall advertising performance.”
Funnily enough, the new suite of products gives human advertisers more control over the AI’s operations. It seems human input is still needed, despite Zuckerberg’s big talk of complete automation.
But the issue isn’t just whether or not AI can do a good job at advertising your business. It’s also a question of whether or not it should be advertising your business. While fully-automated AI could be appealing for those with fewer resources to spare, it might be a good idea to carefully consider giving full control of your ads to the same platform that sells them to you.
