Artificial Intelligence (AI) is revolutionising the advertising industry. According to a survey, 60% of marketing executives believe AI will assist them in running more effective programmatic advertising.

In the marketing department, artificial intelligence is becoming more real. According to our most recent State of Marketing Report, marketers ranked AI as their top priority when asked where they expected to invest this year. AI adoption is on the rise: 84 percent of marketers said they employ AI in their acquisition and retention engines, up nearly threefold from just two years ago.

How Do Marketers Use AI?

From increased personalisation to improved segmentation, insight finding, predictive modelling, and process automation, reported uses are continuously expanding.

According to Accenture, AI capabilities can "coalesce" with existing systems in the information and communications industry, generating US$4.7 trillion in gross value added by 2035. When we talk about artificial intelligence in the advertising sector, we usually target our ad inventory, but we forget to factor in advertising sales.

AI in ad sales can provide specific income and performance analytics to publishers, marketers, and agencies. Machine learning algorithms can monitor their customers' behavior and use that information to remain ahead of their wants using massive data obtained from first or third-party sources.

As programmatic platforms transformed the business of buying and selling digital ads, advertising technology likewise rode the trend of big data-driven AI adoption. According to eMarketer, programmatic ad revenues are expected to grow from $60 billion in 2019 to $97 billion in 2022. From some perspectives, ad sales could resemble a self-driving car, requiring only the occasional redirect but little else from the salesman.

Despite a natural dread of the unknown, there are compelling reasons to believe AI will improve the advertising industry and, yes, ad salespeople's existing jobs. It helps people sell more while allowing them to do what they do best: be human.

AI can level the playing field for advertisers and publishers, providing tools to even hardworking salespeople who don't work for Fortune 100 tech or media businesses. These AI-powered superpowers can aid salespeople in increasing both their effectiveness and their efficiency.

AI In Ad Sales

  • Better Data Harmonization And Unification

With the third-party cookie's imminent deprecation in Chrome and Apple's continuous privacy reforms, marketers turn to first-party data to run their programs, including media packages. According to Merkle's 2021 Customer Engagement Report, an impressive 88 percent of marketers stated first-party data was a strategic goal for them in 2021. Publishers rely on first-party data to develop the audiences that advertisers require, while advertisers rely on first-party data as a seed for matching, targeting, and lookalikes.

To considerably increase identification matching, AI is frequently paired with a solution such as a Customer Data Platform. Algorithms can be used to resolve inconsistencies by performing "fuzzy matching" on IDs. Additionally, AI can ensure that data from many systems is translated to a single data model for consistency.

  • Improved Segmentation And Audience Identification

Customers nowadays, particularly digitally native millennials, demand relevant experiences or communications that are valuable and timely in the context of their digital lives. Providing a tailored experience necessitates using organized data and clever algorithms to identify segments and wants that are not easy to detect using manual approaches.

Intelligent segmentation identifying customers and prospects with common characteristics is something AI excels at a scale and depth that human analysts can't match. AI algorithms can sift through billions of rows of consumer data in search of trends that could differentiate a potential publisher audience from the same old "18-to-35 mom."

  • Communicating Natural Language With Technology

Natural-language processing (NLP) and picture identification are two areas of AI with the most significant potential for effect on our lives. We've already witnessed the quick emergence of conversational chatbots in the service industry. Voice interfaces are recognizable to everyone who has asked Alexa to tell us a joke or told Siri that we're hungry for sushi.

Call center software and some analytics tools now include voice, but marketing technology is still in its infancy. Imagine an ad salesperson never having to touch a keypad or, even better, having to sift through drop-downs and menus to find the exact command they need.

As speech recognition improves to 95 percent or higher accuracy and voice navigation becomes more popular, AI can help eliminate these time losses. Efficiency and thoroughness will also improve.As a result, you'll spend less time searching and editing and more time selling.

  • Efficient Back-End And Production Operations

We've already discussed how artificial intelligence can aid in the automation of tedious data plumbing and "munging" operations like ID mapping and harmonization. It can also assist salespeople in being more efficient by prioritizing their efforts, sorting through tasks and leads, and concentrating their efforts.

Lead scoring was one of the first aspects of the sales process to benefit from AI. Many people now utilize algorithms to update their priority lists regularly. The same may be said for duties ranging from summarising call notes to determining the optimal route from one customer meeting to the next and in what order.

  • Measurement And Optimization Improvements

The rise of digital advertising has been phenomenal, aided by the epidemic. More than half of all ad spending is digital, with the major platforms and publishers accounting for an increasing share. AI can help publishers and advertisers evaluate the impact of campaigns on intended outcomes, such as sales, by ingesting and analyzing all of that data.

Conclusion

AI is perfectly adapted to assist ad salespeople in sorting through the noise and determining what works and doesn't. Some of the most popular AI-driven solutions provide automated optimization recommendations based on past marketing and ad effectiveness.

AI is particularly good at automating routine operations and filtering through massive amounts of data at breakneck speed. Humans, however, do not. We are already making AI in ad sales positions less artificial and more intelligent by allowing AI assistants to perform what they do best.

So, if you wish to include AI in ad sales, contact the ONPASSIVE team.