As ad-tech companies consider AI alternatives to cookies and other third-party trackers, the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) is releasing new guidelines and best practices for the use of machine learning at every level of digital advertising production.
The guide draws on experiences from various publishers, agencies and ad-tech companies to outline nine uses ranging from creative production and contextual video to internal process automation and data migration. The release marks another step towards the working group’s ultimate goal of developing agreed-upon standards for the use of AI across the industry.
Ads without personalized data
The report comes after Google doubled down on its privacy push last week, clarifying that it will not build or use alternative identifiers like hashed email addresses after it phases out third-party cookies from Chrome next year. Companies like IBM Watson Advertising, which co-chairs the IAB’s AI standards working group, have been positioning AI-driven analysis as another way for companies to target ads without using personalized data.
“Now is the time for AI to move forward and bring end-to-end value to the advertising industry as a foundational technology for the future,” said IBM Watson Advertising head of product, David Olesnevich, a co-chair on the working group.
The guide spans interviews with agency execs, marketers and technologists, along with a breakdown of the nine uses with explanations. It also includes a list of best practices meant to help those new to AI differentiate between hype and concrete applications. Companies consulted for research include IBM and the working group’s other co-chair, Nielsen, as well as Dentsu, GumGum, AnyClip and Iponweb.
The creative process
Olesnevich said one of the report’s goals is to expand the scope of the industry’s thinking beyond just AI targeting. It also hopes to look at how machine learning can play a role in other levels of the production of ads, such as the creative process.
“What we’re really starting to do is expand AI’s value throughout the entire value chain,” Olesnevich said. “Taking monotonous tasks out of the hands of people to automate processes and putting those people to work on higher value activity—that’s going to help us reinvent the industry.”
The two co-chair companies of the AI standards working group, IBM Watson Advertising and Nielsen, recently teamed up to launch a suite of targeting tools to help connect sales to anonymized behavioral data. This represents one important way to replace the need for cookies and third-party trackers.
