There are seemingly thousands of artificial intelligence solutions for marketers — but only four questions marketers need to ask to differentiate between them.

Does this problem really require AI?
Brands should have a defined problem set or desired outcome in mind before considering AI. Their challenge or objective should guide their AI journey — and reveal whether they actually need AI or not.

For example, if creative optimization is the goal, consider whether adding an AI vendor into the mix will change results significantly. For brands with a strict, relatively small creative set, no AI system will help them better understand if changing “click now” to “buy now” will have impact.

On the other hand, for brands with hundreds of thousands of creatives, AI can help sort the performers from non-performers by revealing the signal in the noise.

Vendors should also be able to explain why traditional methods have failed until now, and why AI is necessary to succeed.

What does the machine do — versus what does your marketing team do?
Do you want the AI to step-analyze data and provide you with recommendations you can execute on your own? Or do you want it to take actions on your behalf in pursuit of KPIs?

An AI that helps with decisioning vs. an AI that makes and acts on the decisions in real time operates at two very different altitudes. For organizations that aren’t particularly wedded to one option, an alternative question to ask is, “What level of automation is sufficient to solve our workflow and scaling challenges?”

Will it play well with other systems and data?
AI requires massive data sets to perform best, so marketers will want to be able to integrate it with other systems, giving it access to many datasets created by their efforts. The two questions to ask here are: Can the AI at hand be integrated with your brand’s other systems? And, straight to the point, can this AI be enriched with external data sources?

If the AI can be integrated with existing systems, how long does the vendor’s typical integration take?

Weigh time to market and ability to integrate large datasets against the end benefits among the vendors under consideration.

Who’s building it?
AI is very challenging to build, so it’s important to understand the DNA of the vendor’s team. How much of the team is dedicated to research and development? If, for instance, they have 100 people but only five of them are in R&D, it’s likely they have relatively simple technology.

Also consider who is on the R&D team. Do they have backgrounds from high-profile research universities and have on-the-ground practical AI experience? Or, are even the most senior members of the team learning AI on the job?

AI comes with a price tag, so it’s important for marketers to know exactly what they’re paying for.

Article previously featured in MediaPost’s Marketing Insider, Do You Really Need Artificial Intelligence? How To Decide December 31, 2018

As ads are bought and sold on an increasingly minute-to-minute basis in an effort to create more personalized experiences for more users, the line dividing programmatic from other types of advertising is blurring. Some companies are even erasing it completely.

This December, the New York Times collapsed its programmatic sales department into the larger sales team as one part of a broader reorganization, Digiday reports. While their team had traditionally consisted of two parts — direct and programmatic sales — the new arrangement renders this distinction completely moot. The Times is only one of the many publishers, agencies, and brands who have begun to recognize programmatic as the de facto channel for the buying and selling of ad inventory.

Buzzfeed is another notable example of this trend. Earlier this year, the content aggregator announced that not only would their programmatic team be joining the larger sales department, but also that their programmatic inventory would be opened to the entire sales team. A long-time programmatic holdout, BuzzFeed’s move into automated ad purchasing indicates the skyrocketing importance of digital media sales. It’s also creating urgency within the industry to break down operational silos that might hinder programmatic performance.

The Factors at Play

While several factors are at play in the push to push to merge programmatic and direct sales teams, the most clear-cut reasons lie in the numbers: over 80% of digital display ads are now being bought and sold programmatically. That’s why the Times’ entire sales team received in-depth training on programmatic advertising after the recent reorganization: specialized expertise in other kinds of ad sales is no longer valued the way it once was.

However, the numbers also hint that the industry’s increasing reliance on programmatic is creating some discord. According to the World Federation of Advertisers, less than half of marketers believe their programmatic partners are sufficiently transparent. Many programmatic buyers offer their services as walled gardens, meaning that many of their methods and decision-making practices are hidden from their clients. Distrust over transparency is likely responsible for the recent shift from agency trading desks to media agencies for programmatic buys.

This new focus on transparency extends beyond the buyer-publisher relationship — eMarketer points to discrepancies in knowledge and planning between different sales teams in the same company as one of the primary culprits behind the programmatic silo breakdown. Dan Davies, Senior Vice President and Director of Media Sciences at Mediahub, says he’s seen programmatic and direct sales teams compete with each other over sales opportunities.

“In some cases, the direct salesperson intentionally left the programmatic salesperson out of the situation,” Davies recalled to Digiday. “I’ve seen it be that internally contentious.” Publishers have thus worked to stem infighting and improve lines of communication by merging the two sides of sales into one cohesive team.

On the buyer side, brands and agencies are seeing frustration in their efforts to amp up their programmatic capabilities, with just 18% of brands and agencies reportedly satisfied with their programmatic training. Clearly, brands need help bridging the gap between programmatic and non-programmatic — and AI may be just the thing.

Streamlining the Process

Trying to match your team’s capabilities to an increasingly automated media buying landscape can seem impossible, but it doesn’t have to be. A tool like Albert™ — the first fully autonomous AI marketing platform — can be an invaluable addition to your brand or agency in the digital age.

Fully equipped to handle media buying and campaign optimization autonomously, Albert is already a programmatic expert — and he’s learning more every day. By partnering with Albert, marketers and publishers can ensure that their media buying teams are ready to face the shifting digital landscape.