Marketers are struggling to keep pace with the latest advancements across the rapidly evolving media landscape while simultaneously deciphering vast amounts of data generated by consumer interactions. It’s hard to keep up because the traditional manual approaches used for media planning and creative optimization are time-intensive and insufficient in harnessing the full potential of the available data.
That’s where artificial intelligence (AI) excels, helping marketers gain efficiencies in their operations. Let’s explore some key benefits of embracing AI in retail media.
Task automation
Automating processes enables your team to focus on strategy instead of manual tasks for media planning and activation. A robust machine-learning model, using performance data from previous campaigns, can generate a media plan to determine an optimized strategy for meeting campaign goals. Generative AI could even automate media plans by mapping the language in media briefs on campaign objectives and KPIs to an optimal output of channel mix, budget and timeline. Tapping into AI automation allows your media planning teams to review, approve or modify the plan, affording more time for strategy and future planning rather than creating a plan line by line. You can also automate your campaign workflows, such as flight schedules, status notifications or client updates.
Creative optimization
AI shines as a tool for creative optimization because it can generate different versions for brand testing and can help you learn what messaging and imagery resonate most with consumers. It can even create personalized ads. In retail media, an ideal scenario involves dynamically optimizing creative content to showcase products aligned with a consumer’s preferences and the store they shop the most. To achieve this, generative AI facilitates the creation of engaging content at scale, incorporating dynamic versioning, calls to action and personalized offers. Additionally, AI can be used for quality assurance, ensuring the correct placement of creative elements such as logos or branding.
Advanced insights in real time
AI transforms media reporting by swiftly providing performance insights. This expedites media analysts’ and planners’ understanding of holistic performance, enabling them to identify outliers requiring adjustment and review AI-suggested campaign optimizations for enhanced media performance and optimal results.
Deeper learning for media strategy
Because AI can analyze large amounts of data far beyond a human’s manual capability, you can gain insights for real-time campaign optimization and post-campaign performance analysis, as well as use AI models to more effectively understand what strategies resonate with consumers. Using predictive analytics, AI and machine learning can recommend campaign-specific media strategies, whether the goal is awareness, sales, or attracting new or lapsed customers. Machine learning can also assist with identifying trends for seasonality or specific shopper moments, offering recommendations on the best ways to connect with consumers throughout their shopping journey.
As the demands on marketers intensify, AI offers a solution to not only streamline operational processes but also gain a strategic advantage in understanding and connecting with consumers on a deeper level. Although these new technologies are vast and could offer new growth opportunities, it’s important to also acknowledge the significant ethical and legal considerations before implementing them. While it’s impossible to make definitive predictions about the future given the vastness and still untested aspects of the emerging technology, AI and machine learning could open new possibilities for marketers that can’t be ignored.
