Genesis

Navigating the Future of Digital Marketing: Key Trends to Know in 2025 and Beyond

admin — Sat, 13 Sep 2025 11:47:36 +0000

If one thing’s for certain in digital marketing, it’s that change is the only constant.

But these days, the digital marketing landscape is changing more rapidly than ever, with evolving consumer behaviours, technological advancements, and increased privacy regulations impacting everything from ad targeting to performance measurement.

At the same time, marketers are increasingly expected to do more with less. A Gartner study found that marketing budgets fell 15% in 2024, down from 9.1% of overall company revenue in 2023. In 2025, it’s only expected to worsen, with budgets continuing to shrink amid economic uncertainty and heightened pressure from the C-suite for even greater efficiency.

To succeed, marketers need to know what’s shaping the future of digital marketing and adapt their strategies to stay ahead.

In this article, we’ll dive into key areas transforming digital marketing, now and in the future, offering insights on how to balance short-term performance with long-term brand growth, unify fragmented marketing technologies, effectively activate 1st-party data, leverage AI for advanced personalization, and measure campaign success beyond traditional metrics.

Here are eight key trends shaping the future of digital marketing and what they mean for you and your marketing strategy moving forward.

The Lines Between Brand and Performance Marketing Will Continue to Blur

Bringing in high-quality leads and driving conversions are top priorities for any marketing team. But today’s marketers are under increasing pressure to show quick wins while building a strong brand for the long haul, and that’s easier said than done.

According to a recent report from Ascend2 commissioned by StackAdapt, 36% of agencies struggle to align brand and performance goals.

With tighter budgets, there’s a growing need to make every dollar work harder. But most teams can’t afford to wait months for results.

Marketers can no longer afford to choose between brand building and performance marketing. The future demands a balance—one that prioritizes both short-term ROI and long-term growth.

Increasingly, high-performing agencies no longer treat brand and performance as separate efforts that operate independently. They’re using technology to build connected strategies that align teams, data, and messaging across the funnel—leveraging customer data platforms (CDPs), dynamic creative optimization (DCO), and cross-channel attribution in tandem to deliver campaigns that are both measurable and meaningful across the entire customer journey.

To stay ahead, marketers should prioritize integrating their brand and performance efforts, focusing on executing strategies that drive short-term wins while supporting sustained growth.

The Future of Martech and Adtech Is Convergence

In 2011, when Scott Brinker, VP of Platform Ecosystem at HubSpot, published his first Marketing Technology Landscape Supergraphic, a visual representation of all the marketing technology solutions in the industry, only 150 existed.

Thirteen years later, 14,106 were included in his 2024 edition—marking a 27.8% increase from the year before. This not only represents 9,304% growth since its inception, but also highlights the increasing complexity—and fragmentation—of the entire martech ecosystem.

With 28.8% of US ad agencies saying they use six to seven adtech and martech tools as part of their tech stack, it’s clear that fragmentation has become a significant barrier to overall efficiency and effectiveness in the marketing industry.

Disconnected tools lead to inconsistent messaging, inefficient operations, and missed opportunities. Integrated platforms that bridge the gap between martech and adtech by seamlessly connecting paid and owned media channels under a single unified platform allow marketers to orchestrate campaigns more effectively, reducing costs, enhancing performance, and delivering consistent, personalized customer experiences at every touch point.

In the future, marketers who embrace integrated platforms to streamline their tech stacks will gain a clear competitive advantage, enabling them to react faster, spend smarter, and deliver more impactful results over the long term.

Full-Funnel Marketing Becomes a Strategic Imperative

Marketing teams are moving beyond disconnected tactics. Real results come when paid and owned media work together—connecting upper-funnel brand awareness with lower-funnel conversion strategies to engage audiences across the entire customer journey.

But alignment isn’t always easy. Many marketers still grapple with fragmented tools and siloed data, making it difficult to deliver cohesive messaging and measure campaign performance across every stage of the funnel.

Adopting a full-funnel approach not only helps break down barriers but maximizes marketing efficiency. By consolidating technologies and aligning strategies, teams can reduce duplicated efforts, streamline communication, and deliver more consistent and personalized customer experiences at scale.

Integrated platforms play a critical role here, allowing marketers to unify their tech stacks and build cohesive, multi-channel strategies that seamlessly move prospects from awareness to conversion. When campaign data flows freely between upper- and lower-funnel tactics, marketers gain clearer insights into what’s working and what’s not, helping them optimize campaigns faster and allocate budgets more effectively.

Going forward, marketers who embrace full-funnel alignment will find themselves better positioned to cut through the complexity, improve collaboration across teams, and drive stronger results over time, turning fragmented funnels into streamlined pathways to growth.

First-Party Data Will Define Marketing Success

You’ve probably heard this countless times before: As 3rd-party cookies slowly disappear and privacy laws tighten, 1st-party data has become the most valuable asset in any marketer’s arsenal.

According to EMARKETER, 1st-party data—alongside contextual targeting—is one of the top strategies US advertisers plan to use moving forward to maintain targeting effectiveness, with brands that build direct consumer relationships and strong identity frameworks best positioned for long-term success. Those who don’t risk being left behind.

A 2024 study commissioned by Deloitte and the American Marketing Association found that 32.6% of CMOs were increasingly investing in CDPs that offered better information about the customer journey, 29.1% were forming strategic partnerships with agencies and partners to centralize data around customer touch points, and 29.1% planned to reduce internal data silos to strengthen their 1st-party data strategy.

To stay competitive, marketers must proactively shift their focus from relying on 3rd-party cookies and invest in technologies and partnerships that help them activate 1st-party data effectively across every channel and touch point to build resilient, privacy-friendly relationships with their customers at scale.

AI and Personalization Will Drive the Future of Customer Experiences

AI is a practical tool reshaping how marketers plan, execute, and optimize campaigns.

Still, while Ascend2’s survey found that 82% of agencies have either significantly or moderately integrated AI into their workflows, 18% said they had little or no AI adoption at all.

The potential for AI in digital marketing is high, and not just for automating routine tasks and improving efficiencies.

From audience targeting and DCO to campaign recommendations via AI-powered assistants, AI will continue to define the next era of digital marketing beyond surface-level generative AI applications, allowing marketers to deliver truly personalized and predictive customer journeys at scale.

With 81.3% of agency professionals saying that AI will be the biggest trend to shape the next decade of digital advertising, it’s clear that the question is no longer about whether you should use AI but how you can use it to drive deeper insights, build stronger relationships, and enhance overall campaign performance.

Advanced Data Attribution and Measurement Will Set Marketers Apart

Marketers need to prove ROI more than ever. But success today and in the future will be measured beyond immediate clicks or conversions.

According to the Ascend2 survey, while most agencies track common brand KPIs like social media engagement (58%) and website traffic (50%), the highest performers go further—shifting away from surface-level metrics toward indicators of sustainable growth, such as SQLs (56%) and customer lifetime value (54%).

Additionally, the IAB reports that 64% of US ad buyers expect to focus somewhat or significantly more on cross-platform measurement in 2025 to gain deeper insights into customer journeys and marketing effectiveness across channels.

Cross-channel attribution, incremental lift analysis, and engagement lift studies can help measure campaign impact beyond clicks, providing actionable insights for reinvestment and optimization.

Looking ahead, marketers who prioritize advanced attribution and measurement will be better equipped to justify budgets, enhance campaign performance, and drive long-term business growth amid ongoing economic uncertainty.

CTV and DOOH Are Becoming Performance Marketing Channels

Connected TV (CTV) and digital out-of-home (DOOH) advertising have traditionally been seen as awareness plays. However, technological innovations like shoppable ads, dynamic creatives, and enhanced measurement capabilities are increasingly transforming them into bona fide performance marketing channels.

According to EMARKETER, more sophisticated approaches to attribution, such as multitouch attribution and advanced measurement methods like incrementality testing and media mix modelling, are helping advertisers demonstrate the value of CTV investment relative to other channels, unlocking greater budget allocation.

Meanwhile, DOOH is becoming increasingly measurable and proving itself to be a powerful performance channel, with research finding that 76% of consumers take an action after seeing an OOH ad and 73% favour DOOH formats compared to traditional static OOH ads.

As a result, EMARKETER predicts that more ad dollars will be directed to CTV than linear TV by 2027, and programmatic DOOH ad spend is expected to grow 23.7% in 2025 and reach $1.23 billion by 2026.

Brands utilizing CTV and DOOH strategically can achieve significant performance gains, capturing valuable leads and driving measurable results alongside traditional brand-building benefits.

Email Is the New Performance Marketing Powerhouse

Despite its longstanding presence in marketers’ toolkits, email continues to be a high-performing channel in today’s digital landscape.

Part of that has to do with its sheer scale and reach. According to Statista, there are over 4.37 billion email users globally, with nearly 10 billion emails being sent per day in the US alone. But it also remains highly effective, with 69% of consumers worldwide citing email as their preferred communication channel with brands, and a study finding that 52% of marketing professionals saw double the ROI from their email marketing campaigns in 2023 compared to the year prior.

Email and programmatic no longer need to operate in separate silos. Platforms like StackAdapt support cross-channel orchestration so marketers can manage and optimize both email campaigns and programmatic media buys within a single workflow, triggering the right message at the right moment, whether it’s in the inbox or on the open web.

Prepare Today for the Future of Digital Marketing

In an environment where constant change is the only certainty, staying ahead requires marketers to proactively embrace new tools, strategies, and mindsets.

The convergence of martech and adtech, the blending of brand and performance marketing, and the shift toward unified, privacy-friendly approaches driven by 1st-party data are essential to achieving long-term success.

Marketers who successfully integrate their technology stacks, align their brand and performance goals, and tap into email’s unparalleled potential for connection and conversion will position themselves to thrive amidst tomorrow’s uncertainties.

The time to adapt and evolve is now.

Want to see how these trends are playing out in practice and gain actionable insights for your digital marketing strategy? Download Cracking the Code of Conversions: How Marketers Win the Battle for Attention.

AI Will Shape the Future of Marketing

admin — Sat, 13 Sep 2025 11:36:11 +0000

Did you ever wonder how Spotify compiles its daily mix of tunes you’d like to hear? Or how Netflix makes recommendations of films you’re sure to enjoy?

Thank the marketing professionals who are using artificial intelligence to zero in on what consumers most want to see, hear, read, and purchase.

From chatbots to social media management to full-scale marketing campaigns and automation, artificial intelligence is changing the way marketers do their jobs. Routine tasks like writing copy, mining consumer data, and creating visuals that once took hours can now be done in minutes.

Businesses should view AI as an opportunity to provide more customized and relevant marketing experiences for their customers and ultimately drive their business forward.

Christina Inge, author of “Marketing Analytics: A Comprehensive Guide and Marketing Metrics,” and instructor at the Harvard Division of Continuing Education’s Professional & Executive Development, calls AI both a challenge and an opportunity for those in marketing.

“There is a saying going around now — and it is very true— that your job will not be taken by AI,” says Inge. “It will be taken by a person who knows how to use AI. So, it is very important for marketers to know how to use AI.”

At present, many marketers are underutilizing AI, but the impact of AI in marketing is already transforming the business landscape, helping leaders make data-informed decisions with greater efficiency and accuracy. From predictive insights to immersive experiences, AI is redefining how marketers handle repetitive tasks, make decisions, and connect with customers.

While there are challenges ahead, the industry is changing, and professionals who want to future-proof their careers must master the use of AI.

The Current State of AI in Marketing
How will AI impact marketing? AI platforms like HubSpot, Constant Contact, Mailchimp, and ActiveCampaign are already being used by marketers to automate tasks and optimize campaigns.
The 2024 State of Marketing AI Report from the Marketing AI Institute says AI adoption is accelerating among marketing professionals, with many saying they use AI in digital tools in their daily workflows and “couldn’t live without AI.”
How marketers use AI tools
Reducing time spent on repetitive, data-driven tasks like content marketing, email, social media, or customer relationship management
Gaining more actionable insights from data
Accelerating revenue growth
Unlocking greater value from marketing technologies
According to Inge, marketers are using AI for market research, creating reports about the state of an industry or sector, and demonstrating ideas that can be later executed on.
“It really makes your work easier to be able to sketch something out through AI, show it to your client or boss and then have them give feedback on that, versus creating multiple iterations of the same product,” she said. “It’s a real efficiency driver.”
While use of AI technology is clearly on the rise, there are still challenges to full AI adoption, including the lack of:
- education and training
- awareness or understanding
- strategy
- talent with the right skill sets
- investment, both of time and of financial resources
“Right now, the vast majority of marketers are underutilizing AI. I’ll be honest with you; it will make your job a lot easier. Let’s take advantage of that,” Inge says.

Emerging AI Trends in Marketing

When marketers develop strategies to figure out what consumers want, they traditionally have examined demographic trends and surveys, plus intuition and assumptions based on past performance. AI has changed that approach dramatically.

Algorithms are now analyzing customer interactions in real time, predicting consumer behavior and personalizing content. Recommendation engines analyze browsing history and purchase patterns to suggest products that specific consumers might be interested in. Marketers who once reacted to consumer behavior can now predict it and create personalized campaigns.

AI marketing trends

Advanced data analytics
AI can collect, process, and analyze easily searchable information like names, purchase histories, and website interactions, but can also mine unstructured data such as images, videos, and social media posts to gain insights about consumer preferences, brand perception, and shopping trends.

Hyper-personalization
AI’s predictive power allows businesses to anticipate customer preferences based on behavior and customize marketing to individual needs and craft experiences that make customers feel seen and valued.

Chatbots and virtual assistants
Advanced chatbots and assistants can handle customer queries, recommend products, and complete transactions in real time. By identifying products in images, virtual assistants can personalize shopping experiences by informing customers about similar items they might like.

AI is transforming how companies engage with their audiences, making marketing more intelligent, data-driven, and responsive to individual customer needs.

AI Marketing Tools Spotlight

AI tools are empowering marketers to make faster, more informed decisions. Tools like Adobe Sensei and Google Marketing Platform allow marketers to streamline their workflow by integrating data analysis, campaign management, and predictive modeling into a single interface.

“I’m using a tool called Blaze that helps you schedule your social media posts. It will give you a whole week or month’s content calendar with the click of a few buttons. I’m also really enjoying using AI to create short explainer videos,” says Inge.

ChatGPT
Builds chatbots for e-commerce sites and social media platforms, generates leads and personalized email campaigns based on consumer behavior and interests, creates social media campaigns, assists customers through purchasing processes, helps to brainstorm ideas, formulate strategies, and produce content.
Copilot for Microsoft
Generates ideas, drafts marketing plans and blogs, and creates social media posts.
Gemini for Google Workspace
Crafts messaging, evaluates large amounts of information, summarizes documents, and automates regular tasks.
Jasper AI
Generates content and data analysis, analytics, and insights.
HubSpot
Attracts leads through ad campaigns and landing pages, manages social media accounts, personalizes marketing content, and tracks marketing progress.
Optmyzr
Offers pay-per-click management.
Synthesia
Creates video, personalizes campaigns, and creates training content.

Personalization At Scale

Today’s consumers expect brand interactions to feel customized to their needs, and AI can help make that possible.

AI enables marketing professionals to tailor campaigns by analyzing customer behavior and preferences, delivering highly personalized experiences from product recommendations to targeted advertisements.

Soon, personalization will become even more tailored to the individual, allowing businesses to customize their content to their audience’s needs with ever-growing accuracy.

Data-driven customer journeys

Imagine knowing exactly who will open an email, click through, and make a purchase. Through predictive analytics, natural language processing, machine learning, and programmatic advertising, AI allows marketers to process and analyze huge amounts of consumer data quickly. I can also extract insights about consumer preferences, motivations, and purchasing behavior, as well as broader trends.

Businesses are gaining deeper insights into their customers through social media, reviews, and customer service interactions, and this understanding allows brands to tailor messaging to inspire greater customer loyalty.

Hyper-targeted campaigns

In an age of information overload, AI is revolutionizing the way products are recommended to consumers.

Marketers can cut through the noise to deliver hyper-targeted campaigns that provide the right message to the right audience at the right time. Industries like health care, education, and entertainment can deliver individualized product recommendations and dynamic email content that enhance customer engagement, as well as chatbots for personalized conversations tailored to unique needs and preferences.

By understanding a user’s preferences and behavior, AI algorithms recommend products and relevant content, creating a seamless, personalized consumer experience.

Think of Netflix, which collects vast amounts of data on its customers, such as viewing history and search inquiries. By analyzing this data, Netflix’s AI algorithms generate recommendations tailored to personal preferences.

Amazon is another example: by analyzing purchase history, browsing behavior, and demographic information, the company’s recommendation engine delivers tailored product suggestions that are relevant to its users.

AI Opportunities and Challenges

While AI can make marketing tasks more efficient and productive, Inge points out that it is already impacting individual roles such as copywriting and design.

“How do we nurture new talent if entry-level tasks become automated?” she says. “While there are substantial opportunities, there are also important challenges that need to be navigated to ensure responsible and ethical use of the technology.”

Opportunities

Increased efficiency and productivity
Enhanced innovation and creativity
Automation and business growth
Greater return on investment
Stronger customer relationships
Improved brand loyalty

Challenges

The rapid pace of AI development and the potential to fall behind
Over reliance on automation
Misuse and abuse of AI, such as deep-fakes and copyright infringement
Privacy and security threats
Lack of resources and knowledge to fully leverage AI

Inge highlights the continued importance of nurturing future talent, bringing new professionals into the marketing industry, and seeking opportunities to boost what individuals offer, too.

“I worry about how we’re going to bring future marketers into the field because what it replaces the best is that individual contributor,” says Inge. “I got my start in marketing doing some basic work like designing email newsletters. Where’s that all going to come from?”

Predictive Analytics and Forecasting

Predictive models are essential tools for marketers, enabling hyper-targeted strategies and personalized customer experiences. The models use machine learning and statistics to extrapolate historical data and forecast future events, allowing marketers to analyze consumer behavior and market trends to inform campaigns and strategies and stay ahead of the competition.

Businesses can use AI to refine audience segmentation and identify emerging opportunities by: quickly analyzing vast amounts of data to gain deeper insights into consumer behavior; gaining more precise and actionable data beyond broad demographics; and predicting emerging trends and adjusting messages in real time.

Examples in action

Lead scoring helps businesses prioritize their potential customers based on the likelihood they will make a sale. By assigning a score to each lead, companies rank them and focus on those that are most likely to result in a successful sale.

AI can help improve lead scoring accuracy by analyzing audience engagement, demographics, and behavior. Machine learning helps marketers predict which leads to prioritize, improving strategy efficiency.

Lead scoring examples

Social media-based lead scoring: Data gleaned from social media engagement
Webpage-based lead scoring: Examining how users interact with a company website
Event-based lead scoring: Considers user participation in events
Predictive lead scoring: Uses AI and machine learning to forecast the likelihood of lead conversion
Dynamic scoring models: Uses machine learning to create models that adapt to changing behavior

Demand forecasting integrates historical sales data, market trends, and consumer buying patterns to help both large corporations and small businesses anticipate demand, manage inventory, optimize supply chain operations, and avoid overstocking.

Strategic Impact

AI provides real-time insights into how customers behave all across the sales process, from initial engagement to their final purchase.

The instant feedback allows marketers to adjust campaigns, messaging, and consumer recommendations on the spot, based on their up-to-the-minute behavior, ensuring that businesses can take advantage of opportunities as they present themselves.

By leveraging real-time data, businesses can make faster and more informed decisions to stay ahead of the competition.

AI-Driven Content Creation

AI is changing the way companies create blog posts, social media messaging, and ad campaigns. Marketers can input specific instructions into ChatGPT or other generative AI models, and in seconds, have AI-generated scripts, articles, and product descriptions specific to their brand voice and audience requirements.

AI is also being used by some marketers to generate images and videos, allowing them to scale every piece of a marketing campaign to specific audience segments and remain competitive in the digital marketplace.

Generative AI for Marketing

When ChatGPT arrived on the scene in 2022, it garnered headlines and introduced the world to Generative AI innovation.

Using advanced machine learning models, generative AI takes in huge amounts of raw, unstructured and unlabeled data culled from the internet or other source, and performs millions of “fill-in-the-blank” exercises, trying to predict the next element in a sequence.

It fine tunes the material for accuracy and relevance and then uses that information to create original content including text, video and audio with broad applications.

Using generative AI for content creation allows marketers to accomplish more in less time, from creating social media posts and entertainment, turning images into memes of trending topics on Tik Tok, creating stickers for Instagram, responding to queries via a chatbot, providing professional development and recruitment support on LinkedIn, and brainstorming videos for YouTube.

Human & AI collaboration

Brands can achieve a balance between AI-generated content and human oversight by:

Focusing on personalization
Rather than relying on demographics, companies can tailor experiences to individual customers. For example, the beauty brand Sephora uses AI-powered chatbots to answer customer questions and make personalized beauty recommendations. Healthcare companies are using generative AI to develop personalized treatment plans and improve patient care.
Being transparent
Disclose the involvement of AI in content creation and allow users to make informed decisions about the content they are consuming.
Upholding ethical standards
Maintain trust by establishing accountability frameworks to ensure content aligns with the organization’s ethical standards.
Engaging with audiences
Use real user stories and testimonials and inject personality and voice to create more engaging and authentic interactions.

Future possibilities

As AI continues to evolve, its influence in marketing will deepen. From data analysis to creative content generation, businesses will be able to use data-driven decision-making to personalize marketing campaigns.

This personalization will expand beyond e-commerce and entertainment and organizations should be prepared to address challenges posed by algorithm bias and data privacy concerns.

Ethical Considerations

To ensure AI is used responsibly and protects users’ rights and privacy, companies will need to establish clear policies and guidelines.

According to the World Economic Forum, legislative bodies around the world have passed AI-related laws, demonstrating the concern over AI’s growing influence — particularly over algorithm bias and data privacy. There is also concern that AI will eliminate certain jobs in marketing, particularly entry-level jobs that focus on basic content creation.

Inge also notes the negative environmental impact due to the technology’s energy consumption, and the importance of mitigating these impacts.

Data privacy

One key ethical concern about the growing use of AI in marketing is data privacy. Sophisticated AI systems rely on vast amounts of consumer data to personalize user experience, but there is growing concern about how this data is collected, used and potentially misused.

“All of these AI companies are using anything they find on the web to train their AI to get better and better, but in many cases, they’re using people’s photos and text without permission,” Inge says. “I think some kind of licensing deal, like what we had with streaming in the music industry, is going to alleviate that in terms of privacy of consumer data.”

Businesses will need to be transparent about their data practices and comply with regulations such as the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation, which protects consumer data across the EU.

Engaging with AI technologies includes balancing the benefits with protection against misuse or unethical practices.

“Your data is already out there; what AI is changing is simply the sophistication with which your data is being used,” says Inge.

Bias in algorithms

AI models are trained on data sets to recognize certain patterns or make certain decisions. Training an AI model on data with historical or representational bias could lead to unfair representation or discrimination against certain groups or individuals, eroding trust in AI and damaging the reputations of organizations that use it.

When systems use biased data, it can create a negative feedback loop that reinforces bias over time, repeating the same patterns and increasing skewed results. This is an important consideration for industries such as healthcare, human resources, and finance that are increasingly turning to AI to inform decision-making.

“We have a very long way to go before we start correcting that bias,” Inge says. “It is an absolute concern.”

While anti-discrimination laws in Europe prohibit discrimination in online advertising, it still persists, regardless. To mitigate data bias, companies must audit their systems and ensure representative data sets are used when training algorithmic models. To prevent bias in AI from persisting — or evolving — maintaining this vigilance is crucial.

Using AI Responsibly

Balancing the benefits of AI with potential negative impacts to consumers and society at large is crucial for ethical AI adoption in marketing.

Marketers should ensure AI systems are transparent and provide clear explanations to consumers on how their data is used and how marketing decisions are made. Informed consumers are more likely to build trust and comfort with AI use in marketing.

Tips for responsible AI use

Be transparent
The CEO of “Sports Illustrated” magazine was fired in the wake of an AI scandal, after it was revealed the magazine was using AI-generated content without disclosing it to their readers. The problem wasn’t necessarily the use of AI, but the undisclosed nature of its use.
Prioritize human oversight
Marketers are rightfully concerned that AI will eliminate jobs. But, AI will need human oversight and will likely create different jobs. AI needs humans to figure out whether or not the information it generates is accurate, and correct mistakes as they occur.
Seek customer feedback
In addition to disclosing the use of AI, companies need to provide channels for customer feedback to correct inaccuracies or express discomfort from AI interactions. This will help marketers deliver an experience customers will find trustworthy and helpful.

Building AI Expertise: The Marketer’s Next Steps

To build AI expertise, Inge recommends experimenting with tools that are already available.

“This will help marketers understand their capabilities and limitations, make marketers more comfortable and adept at incorporating AI into their workflows, and stay up-to-date on trends and development,” she says. “Keep an eye on how AI is impacting various roles and tasks and proactively build your expertise.”

Get started with the following steps:

Understand the basics: Get familiar with the core concepts of AI and machine learning
Gain hands-on experience: Work on projects that use data analysis and AI applications
Collaborate with data teams: Learn how to use AI tools for content strategy and search engine optimization
Build your portfolio: Demonstrate your AI expertise by showcasing projects

Develop your skills

To better target marketing efforts, enhance customer engagement and conversion rates, professionals must be AI literate.

Learning how AI works and understanding safe, ethical, and responsible best practices is crucial to success in using the technology in marketing.

Professionals can gain a competitive advantage by mastering predictive analytics, generative AI, and marketing automation. Additionally, it is crucial to stay up to date with the latest developments by reskilling, ensuring increased career longevity.

Focus your learning

Targeting: Learn how to leverage AI to enhance consumer engagements and conversion rates
Data-driven insights: Understand how AI systems use data so you can spot AI bias and resolve it
Automation: Streamline processes so you can focus on strategy, leading to increased efficiency and productivity
Generative AI: Learn how to find innovative solutions and methodologies for data analysis and customer engagement
Ethics: Understand concerns regarding privacy and bias; crucial for responsible marketing practice

Professional and Executive Development offers programs to help professionals develop AI skills. In the AI for Marketing Course: Transforming Strategies with Generative AI, professionals learn to harness generative AI, hyper-personalization, and predictive analytics to optimize customer engagement, boost conversions, and drive growth.

Organizational readiness

The 2024 State of AI in Marketing: Key Insights and Future Trends report paints a picture of a marketing industry in transition.

While AI adoption is accelerating, it finds a significant gap between individual enthusiasm for AI and organizational readiness. To bridge the gap, organizations will need to invest in educating their workforce, developing policies and guidelines, and creating a roadmap for implementation.

Companies will need to embrace experimentation, test new ideas, and risk failure to drive innovation.

AI Programs for Marketers

Organizations that equip their marketing leaders with skills in AI technology will gain a significant competitive edge over the competition.

The two-day Transforming Strategies with Generative AI Professional & Executive Development program will prepare professionals to lead AI-driven marketing efforts, leveraging cutting-edge AI tools such as hyper-personalization, predictive insights, and content automation. Through real-world applications, participants will gain hands-on training in the use of this technology and have the opportunity to network with industry leaders and peers.

“Whether it’s analytics, design, brand strategy, creative direction or copywriting, this course will help with any marketing job,” Inge says. “Participants will understand the current landscape, understand what AI can and cannot do effectively, and then learn to use AI tools to future proof their careers.”

As artificial intelligence changes the marketing industry, the value of AI skills and expertise will only grow, bringing success to those who master them.

Harvard’s Professional & Executive Development offers the opportunity to meet faculty members with direct industry experience and find courses to help you develop these in-demand skills that will serve you well now and into the future.

AI in Advertising: Everything You Need to Know

admin — Sat, 13 Sep 2025 11:17:49 +0000

Artificial intelligence, including generative AI, is used in advertising today to do everything from generate ad creative and copy to optimize ad budgets and predict advertising campaign performance. You can even use AI to scale up ad creative almost instantaneously or spy on your competition’s ad strategy.

In fact, modern advertising runs on AI…

Almost every ad you see online relies on AI to reach your eyes and ears in real-time. Today’s leading ad platforms, like Google Ads and Meta Ads, use AI to sell, target, and place ads micro-second by micro-second across vast ad network that span millions of digital destinations, apps, and experiences.

That means AI literally dictates who sees your ads and how much you spend to reach audiences on just about every popular ad platform out there.

(For example, Meta’s AI uses ad frequency and relevancy to determine the price and display rate of your ads on Facebook and Instagram.)

So, AI literally determines if your ads succeed or fail.

This creates a huge challenge—and a big opportunity—for advertisers.

First, the challenge…

Today’s AI-powered ad platforms give you the ability to run thousands of ad variations to micro-segmented audiences at scale. But human ad professionals aren’t equipped to take advantage of these superpowers.

We can’t keep up with all the data generated by these platforms or process it fast and well enough to move the needle in our campaigns. And we simply don’t have the resources and bandwidth to create thousands of ad variations on the fly to test each and every moment.

And it shows…

Instead of unlocking our true potential in digital advertising, we launch a handful of simple campaigns with some basic optimization. These campaigns usually underperform.

Now, here’s where the opportunity comes in:

You don’t have to try (and fail) to keep up with AI-powered ad platforms on your own. You can actually use AI to help you…keep up with AI.

Today, advertisers have access to powerful, off-the-shelf AI tools that can do things like: generate nearly unlimited creative assets, micro-target audiences, scale up campaigns and budgets, conduct thousands of tests, and even run campaigns autonomously.

So, let’s take a look at how to actually understand and adopt these tools in your own advertising.

What Is AI for Advertising?
You don’t need to know everything about AI to use it in your advertising—you just need to know these basics.
The best definition of AI comes from Demis Hassabis, founder of AI company DeepMind, which was acquired by Google. He says:
AI is the “science of making machines smart.”
That means making machines that can do intellectual tasks that humans can do. Tasks like: read, write, and understand text; see and identify objects; move around obstacles; hear and understand language; and sense the external environment.
Machines are able to do all of these things thanks to AI.
That’s because AI allows machines to learn. Unlike traditional technology, AI can actually detect patterns in data, then learn to make predictions from those patterns. It can then learn from its outcomes to make better and better predictions over time.
Once trained by humans, AI can go learn and improve on its own. The more data you give an AI system, the better it can learn and improve.
Whether you know it or not, you use AI dozens or hundreds of times each day.
Gmail and Google Docs use AI to understand what you’re typing, then predict what you want to type next. Every time you (and millions of others) use this feature, you train the AI to get better and better at predictive text.
Self-driving cars use AI to detect obstacles and drive safely. Every mile they drive gives them more data to improve their driving abilities.
Siri and Alexa use AI to understand voice commands and predict what responses make the most sense. Every time you talk to them, they learn to improve the quality of their responses.
In fact, AI isn’t just one technology. It’s an umbrella term that encompasses a range of smart technologies like these that can learn and improve on their own. Some AI technologies you might hear about are: machine learning, computer vision, natural language generation (NLG), natural language processing (NLP), deep learning, neural networks, and speech recognition. There are dozens of others, too.
You don’t need to know every term to be successful with AI. You just need to understand that AI-powered technology has the revolutionary ability to learn and improve on its own.
The ability to learn and improve on its own is why AI gives you a huge competitive advantage in advertising.

Why Do You Need AI for Advertising?

AI is an absolute must if you want to win in the new landscape of modern programmatic advertising.

Thanks to the internet and programmatic advertising, we now have the ability to reach consumers across hundreds of digital platforms. We also have the ability to target them based on hundreds and thousands of demographic and behavioral data points. We can even test hundreds or thousands of different ads to see what they respond to best.

Unfortunately, humans aren’t good at managing any of this.

Make no mistake, we’re great at being strategic and creative. This served us well in the Mad Men days of advertising, when a smart idea and clever slogan meant your ad campaign would succeed. Today, we are still integral to strategizing and creating unforgettable ads.

But we’re not good at the rest of it. We can’t analyze all the data we now have quickly enough to take action to improve campaigns. We can’t manage hundreds or thousands of ad, targeting, and budget variations to get the best results. And we certainly can’t find new customer opportunities in a sea of data.

AI can do all of these things and more. That’s why forward-thinking companies are using AI to:

Allocate advertising budgets, both across channels and audiences
Adjust advertising budgets automatically to hit KPIs
Find new advertising audiences and conversion opportunities
Build richer audience profiles
Determine and hit campaign goals
Gain insight into competitors’ ad spend, creatives, and strategies
Create ad copy
Create visual ad creative
Hyper-personalize ad messages and images to individual consumers
Hyper-personalize ad targeting
Predict ad performance before launching campaigns
And much more

Top Use Cases for AI in Advertising

There are dozens of use cases for AI in advertising—here are some of the most powerful ones.

There are literally hundreds of use cases for AI in advertising. Here are a handful of the most valuable ones that forward-thinking players in the advertising industry are using today.

Buy and Place Programmatic and Digital Ads

Today’s advertising relies on programmatic to target and deliver ads in real-time across the internet. AI is critical to the infrastructure that underlies advertising products on many platforms, though you may not always see it. Modern programmatic platforms often use AI to manage real-time ad buying, selling, and ad placement.

In fact, all digital advertising exchanges and platforms use artificial intelligence to regulate the purchase and sale of advertising in real-time. That includes programmatic exchanges, third-party networks, and advertising on platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and Snapchat.

You won’t find these exchanges, services, and platforms revealing how their AI algorithms work anytime soon though. But that’s the point: Even behind the scenes, artificial intelligence dictates how your ad spend gets used, who sees your ads, and how effective your overall campaigns are. That means if you run paid advertising, you need to understand the terminology around artificial intelligence and ask the right questions about how the AI used by ad platforms may be affecting your spend.

A very basic example of this is:

Facebook advertising, specifically ad frequency and relevance score. These two numbers are key pieces of data that Facebook’s algorithms use-without human involvement-to dictate how much you pay and how your ads are displayed.

You might think showing your ad more frequently is good. But it’s not. As Social Media Examiner puts it:

Traditional advertising research has shown that optimal ad frequency is at least three exposures within a brand purchase cycle. Traditional advertising schools say that you need to “hit” your audience with the same ad as many times as possible. However, repeat exposure on Facebook might actually hurt your campaign.

That’s because Facebook’s algorithms take into account user feedback. If you show your ad too often, and it’s rated poorly by users, your relevance score may go down. “In most cases,” says Social Media Examiner, “the higher the frequency, the lower the relevance score.”

A high relevance score means your ad is more likely to be shown to a target audience than the other ads you’re competing with. That translates into better performance and lower costs.

In modern advertising, you need to try to understand the algorithm as much as you understand your audience.

Optimize Advertising Budget and Performance

Performance optimization is one of the key use cases for AI in advertising. Machine learning algorithms are used by commercially available solutions to analyze how your ads perform across specific platforms, then offer recommendations on how to improve performance.

In some cases, these platforms may use AI to intelligently automate actions that you know you should be taking based on best practices, saving you significant time. In other cases, they may highlight performance issues you didn’t even know you had.

In the most advanced cases, AI can automatically manage ad performance and spend optimization, making decisions entirely on its own about how best to reach your advertising KPIs and recommending a fully optimized budget.

In another case, there exists at least one platform that allocates ad dollars automatically across all channels and audiences, so human beings can focus on higher-value strategic tasks, rather than manual guesswork about what works and what doesn’t.

Your ad targeting matters just as much as, if not more than, your ad copy and creative.

Thanks to platforms like Facebook, LinkedIn, Amazon, and Google, you have a seriously robust set of consumer data with which to target audiences, both through desktop and mobile advertising. But manually doing so isn’t always efficient.

AI can help here. We know of at least a few AI systems that look at your past audiences and ad performance, weigh this against your KPIs and real-time performance data coming in, then identify new audiences likely to buy from you.

Create and Manage Ads for You

AI-powered systems exist that will actually partially or fully create ads for you, based on what works best for your goals. This functionality is already present in some of the social media ad platforms, which use some intelligent automation to suggest ads you should run based on the links you’re promoting.

AI tools today excel at generating all different types of marketing language, and that includes the short, punchy copywriting that often succeeds in digital advertising. These systems leverage natural language processing (NLP) and natural language generation (NLG), two AI-powered technologies, to write ad copy that performs as well or better than human-written copy—in a fraction of the time and at scale.

We often see brands have great success having their human copywriters work hand-in-hand with AI counterparts, with each refining the other’s copy and giving each other ideas. The result is something that’s better than human or machine ad copywriters can produce on their own.

Generate Ad Variations Automatically

Using AI, you can generate ad variations automatically. That means you can take a single ad, give it to an AI tool, and it will spin that ad off into a number of different variations. Those variations could include different ad sizes and formats to adhere to different platforms. Or, they may include different designs and creative based on all the various campaign ideas you and your team have come up with.

No matter what variations you produce, one thing is constant:

You no longer need to do this type of work manually.

Generate Images and Videos for Ad Creative

AI is getting increasingly good at generating images and videos for your ads.

Popular image and video generation tools are wowing audiences online as people share stunningly creative, artistic, and photo-realistic results using off-the-shelf technology. In just a year or two, these tools have grown in sophistication by leaps and bounds. We’re quickly approaching a world where you no longer have to spend a huge amount of time, money, and energy creating breathtaking visuals that capture an audience’s attention.

Personalize Ads Based on What Motivates Consumers

With AI, you can actually highly personalize your advertisements based on what motivates consumers. AI solutions exist today that can understand the language and content that motivates different types of people, then automatically adjust your ad content to reflect those motivations.

For instance, User A may respond better to language that emphasizes discounts and value, while User B may respond better to language that gets them excited and joyful. AI can actually tell the difference, then tailor your generic advertising message in different ways to appeal to each of these users.

Predict the Effectiveness of Ads in Advance

AI’s predictive capabilities unlock a number of superpowers, including in advertising. Using AI trained on vast amounts of proprietary ad data, we can begin to predict how effective our ads will be before they even launch.

That’s because AI can extract signals from millions of successful campaigns, then apply these to new ones. In the past, we’d simply guess at what ad elements would appeal most to our target audience. Now, we have the ability to get far more predictive using AI.

Run Ad Creative and Messaging Tests at Scale

It’s likely you’ve run some type simple A/B test at some point in your advertising career. But with AI, we can do far more robust testing of ad creative and messaging—and we can do it at scale.

AI tools today allow us to test hundreds or thousands of ad copy and creative variations quickly and automatically. AI’s ability to handle data-intensive tasks at scale makes it a perfect complement to human advertisers who aren’t very good at this task.

The result?

AI can do testing at scale for us, then we can focus on using the insights from those tests to create better campaigns that resonate with more humans.

Spy on the Competition’s Ad Strategy

As an advertiser, you don’t operate in a vacuum. Even with a winning campaign, you still face stiff competition from the other advertisers trying to either reach your audience with unrelated offers or actively competing in your market. AI can give you a leg up when it comes to the competition.

AI tools exist today that allow you to essentially spy on your competitor’s ad strategy. These tools use AI to develop a full picture of which ads your competitors are running on which platforms, as well as how much they’re spending and what offers they’re promoting.

Analyzed in aggregate, this information can reveal exactly what your competitor is up to—and give you the insights you need to outmaneuver them.

Real-World Examples of AI in Advertising

AI advertising is reshaping how brands do business.

But AI’s potential in advertising isn’t just theoretical…

Forward-thinking brands are using the technology today to increase advertising productivity and performance.

Equipment Company Attracts Top Talent Using AI Advertising

HOLT CAT is a heavy equipment company that was interested in attracting talent across a specific line of business. Limited talent was delaying work for customers and slowing down new sales. HOLT CAT turned to AI to create an ad campaign that could attract talent quickly and effectively.

Using employee data and AI-powered ad platform AiAdvertising, HOLT CAT was able to personalize ad messages to appeal to top candidates for open positions. Using the tool, they were also able to get clarity on exact ROAS, and lower their cost per hire by 20%. Not to mention, the company hired 270 new people since the start of the campagin—and, on average, 40% of those hires report being influenced to join the company by the advertising.

One of World’s Largest Investment Firms Uses AI to Boost Ad Conversion Rates by 15%

Vanguard, one of the world’s largest investment firms ($7 trillion in assets under management), turned to AI language platform Persado to conduct highly personalized advertising.

The company’s Vanguard Institutional business faces a heavily regulated advertising environment, and was only able to run ads on LinkedIn. Due to regulations of what companies could and couldn’t say in ads, the financial services ad landscape lacked easy ways to stand out.

Using AI from Persado, Vanguard was able to hyper-personalize its ads and test them at scale to see exactly what approaches resonated with consumers—a level of personalization and testing impossible without AI. As a result, the company saw conversion rates go up by 15%.

Ecommerce Company Gets 3,000% Return on Ad Spend Using AI

In one high profile example we covered, an AI advertising system helped an ecommerce company achieve a 3,000% return on ad spend—while reducing costs.

Entrepreneur Naomi Simson, a host on Shark Tank Australia, owns a company called RedBalloon, which sells gifts and experiences online (think: an experience-focused Groupon). She was spending $45,000 per month on ad agencies alone to run digital advertising for the brand. She was paying over $50 to acquire a single customer at the time.

Desperation drove her to investigate every possibility. She found an AI tool for advertising called Albert. The tool uses sophisticated AI to analyze ad campaigns, then manage targeting, testing, and budgets.

The tool was able to do things humans couldn’t. In one day alone, it tested 6,500 variations of a Google text ad and learned from the experiment. Over time, the tool was so effective at learning from data to improve performance that it skyrocketed RedBalloon’s return on ad spend. At one time, the company was getting a whopping 3,000% return on ad spend. They also cut marketing costs by 25% thanks to improved efficiency.

Top AI Advertising Tools

Here are some of the top AI advertising tools to look into for smarter, scalable ad campaigns.

So, which AI tools do you actually use to get real-world results?

There are literally thousands of them to explore. Here are just a few AI advertising tools and solutions you can start testing in your own ad campaigns.

Persado

Persado uses hyper-personalized AI generated content in ads to boost conversion rates across LinkedIn ads, Facebook ads, and other types of advertising and content creation.

Thanks to applying machine learning to their vast proprietary database, Persado understands what language resonates most with different types of consumers. Their solution then automatically personalizes your standard marketing and ad copy to tailor it to the language that motivates each user most.

The result?

Highly personalized ads that create significant uplift in performance (and revenue), because you’re speaking to consumers in the language they prefer—their own.

Emotiva

What if you could use artificial intelligence to measure someone’s attention and response to ads—just by analyzing their facial expression?

Emotiva uses proprietary machine learning to accurately measure emotions and attention levels. That means you can use AI to determine which ads are most effective based on how people actually feel about them and how they actually pay attention to them. It’s like cracking a secret code that tells you precisely what works and what doesn’t.

Pathmatics

Pathmatics uses AI to bring transparency and insight to advertising.

The tool shows you exactly how your ads perform across channels and gives you competitive intelligence about how your competitors’ ads perform, fueling ideas for effective creative and placement.

Using the Pathmatics’ AI technology, you can literally see exactly what ads your competitors are running in real time and get a complete picture of their ad strategy.

Omneky

Omneky is an AI ad platform that generates personalized ad content at scale.

Using this generative AI tool, you can generate thousands of optimized ads quickly, then precisely target each one to different audiences. Omneky can even determine which creative resonates most, so you can improve your ad content moving forward. The tool works with platforms like LinkedIn, Reddit, TikTok, Youtube, Facebook, Snapchat, and Instagram.

Celtra

Celtra automatically uses AI to generate variations of your ad creative at scale.

Celtra will take a single piece of creative you’ve produced, then spin off countless variations for different platforms, formats, and styles. This makes it easy to literally generate thousands of assets automatically.

(Seriously, if you’re creating variations of ads manually, you shouldn’t be.)

OneScreen

OneScreen uses AI for out-of-home ad delivery, targeting, and measurement. The company’s machine learning algorithm automatically optimizes which content and ads get shown to audiences, taking the guesswork out of out-of-home advertising.

GumGum

GumGum uses computer vision technology to learn from images and videos across the web, then help you place ads in the exact spots consumers will see them.

AiAdvertising

AiAdvertising is an AI-powered ad agency that takes the guesswork out of getting ROI from your ads. The company uses proven tools and strategies to help you maximize both budget and performance across your ad campaigns.

In turn, marketers and advertisers get more predictable, scalable, and effective campaigns, thanks to the power of human experts combined with intelligent machines.

CMOs at Cannes Lions talk about how AI is reshaping marketing and the connection to customers

admin — Sat, 13 Sep 2025 10:46:53 +0000

CMOs from Salesforce, Citi, e.l.f. Beauty, and Mercedes-Benz USA joined BI’s Joi-Marie McKenzie for a panel at Cannes Lions 2025. Victoria Baud

This article is part of “CMO Insider,” a series on marketing leadership and innovation.

The convergence of tech and marketing is impacting the way that companies form and nurture connections with consumers. The CMO Insider breakfast event at Cannes, with BCG as a founding sponsor, offered an invite-only group of CMOs the opportunity to hear from different voices on AI and other ways marketers are connecting with consumers through tech.

Speakers included will.i.am, a musician, producer, and entrepreneur; Jessica Apotheker, chief marketing officer at BCG; and a panel of senior marketing leaders from ELF Beauty, Mercedes-Benz USA, Citi, and Salesforce.

Founder of the platform FYI.Ai, will.i.am led off the event in discussion with Jamie Heller, editor in chief of Business Insider, and explored where AI is now and how it can be used in the future. He likened the state of AI to video games from the 1980s and early 1990s, and said that AI is actually in its “infancy.” “It’s Pac-Man,” he said. “It ain’t even Halo yet.”

His point was that early video games required a level of imagination from the player in the absence of sophisticated graphics and a real story. He said this same level of imagination is needed from “the people that love AI, the folks whose imagination is doing the work as you’re training it or it’s learning from your imagination.” He added that AI will not stifle creativity, but provide room to enhance it.

Will.i.am also spoke about the role and need for AI in higher education. Through a partnership with Arizona State University, FYI.ai will provide technology to help enhance the learning experience and prepare students for the reality that awaits them upon graduation at the end of the decade.

“When you go out into the world, you’re not just competing with humans,” Will.i.am said, referring to today’s students. Rather, he said, there’s an “onslaught of agents” that are replacing the jobs students are going to school for — and no one is trying to help them compete.

Will.i.am said FYI.Ai is going to provide a path so that students can build an AI agent of their own; when they graduate, so will their agent. “Humans have to be able to compete with the marketplace,” he said. “That marketplace is going to be like ghost bots that are going to be doing amazing work.”

Will.i.am and Jamie Heller speak at the CMO Insider breakfast at Cannes Lions 2025. Victoria Baud

BCG data shows the optimism and pressures facing marketing leaders

Jessica Apotheker, the CMO of BCG, took the stage next for a conversation with Orlando Reece, the global head of sales for Business Insider. Apotheker shared insights from a recent BCG survey of more than 200 CMOs, which found 71% of those polled plan to invest more than $10 million annually in AI, up from 57% last year.

“AI is the buzzword of the moment,” Apotheker said.

Though CMOs are optimistic about the technology, Apotheker said that leaders are also dealing with cost pressure and want to understand how the technology will help them growth their businesses.

“It’s not like CEOs are writing huge checks for marketers,” Apotheker said. “Most people are not seeing ROI from that investment yet at scale.”

She said the data shows marketers are using AI for optimizing content workflows, hyper-personalization, and digging deeper into consumer insights.

Apotheker said that marketing leaders have the potential to drive AI-fueled transformation within their own function, and across companies.

“As CMOs, what is so exciting is we can be at the center of really reshaping marketing, because it’s one of the functions that is the most disrupted,” she said. “And also inventing the future services and offerings of our companies.”

Jessica Apotheker, CMO of BCG, spoke at BI’s CMO Insider breakfast. Victoria Baud

In order to take advantage of this moment, marketers need to cultivate skills of creativity, business management, and science, she said.

“We’ll need much more teams in the science space than we used to — we’ll need more left-brain marketers to make it work,” Apotheker said. “We’ll also need people who are more creative than they used to be so that they can really add value to AI. What is the balance of skill sets of my teams of tomorrow? That should be top of mind for everyone.”

Taking the lead from customers

A panel of marketing leaders, moderated by Joi-Marie McKenzie, Business Insider’s editor in chief, Life, spoke about how the convergence of technology and marketing, including AI, could affect the customer experience.

For Melody Lee, CMO of Mercedes-Benz USA, part of that is through the Mercedes app, which connects the car to the consumer. It’s intended for the consumer to experience the brand and car in a seamless way— being able to start the car with the app alone and not a key, for example.

“There’s just an expectation from the world of consumer electronics that the car should also follow that same seamlessness and integration into our customers’ lives,” she said. “And so anything that we can do to enhance that digital experience is really important to us. It always comes back to what we’re trying to do for the customer.”

For customers of e.l.f. Beauty, the digital experience includes giving feedback through email or social chats. Laurie Lam, the company’s chief brand officer, said she or Kory Marchisotto, the chief marketing officer, reads and responds to that feedback and takes it into account during product development.

E.l.f. Beauty has also recently integrated with Roblox and Twitch, places where younger consumers requested the brand to be. This has allowed the company to connect with hundreds of millions of consumers in a unique way that ultimately builds the brand.

Lam’s advice for exploring new digital platforms is to not overthink and “just plunge into it.”

“You’ll find that you’ll learn your way through it. And your community actually doesn’t care if you don’t come in guns blazing,” she added. “They just care that you’re there with them and authentically connecting with them.”

Advertisement BCG

Alex Craddock, chief marketing and content officer at Citi, said authenticity and trust are important for any brand, but perhaps particularly so in the financial industry. “I think we as consumers expect to be able to trust a brand, and a brand has to keep reinforcing that trust,” Craddock said. “Not just through the excellence of its product and customer service, but I think through how it actually brings its products and its services to market.”

He said the company has gone “from 0 to 250 miles an hour” in terms of AI in the past six months, but it was initially hesitant because it feared breaking the trust bond with clients.

Now, the company is pushing ahead and using AI in several different ways across its marketing function — from something as simple as summarizing reports and drafting emails to using Adobe Firefly in its in-house agency to create imagery and build content.

CMOs from Salesforce, Citi, e.l.f. Beauty, and Mercedes-Benz. Stagwell

Ariel Kelman, president and CMO of Salesforce, said that although the company is using AI tools on the creative side, it has also been experimenting on the operational side to become more efficient. For example, producing leads for the sales organization is always important, but those lead follow-ups are a challenge.

Kelman said the company now uses AI agents to handle interactive follow-ups with leads, managing the first 80% of the conversation. As a result, the leads passed on to salespeople are of higher quality. Kelman said Salesforce has also improved lead response time by about 40%.

“There are lots of operational areas like that where I think we’re going to see big improvements in productivity over the next couple of years,” Kelman said.

Despite its increasing use, Citi’s Craddock said he believes AI is still in its early days, which leaves room for taking risks.

“I think we’re at the stage where we’ve got to be curious. We’ve got to be courageous and really lean in and be brave enough to make some mistakes,” Craddock said. “That’s the only way you’re going to innovate.”

Why you buy: The psychology behind advertising

admin — Sat, 13 Sep 2025 10:38:45 +0000

Do you ever wonder what makes you want to buy certain things? The answer lies in the psychological tools used by advertisers. Businesses often use clever strategies to boost their chances of winning over customers.

An example is the reciprocity principle. Many companies offer “free trials” or a gift card worth a certain amount if you shop during a certain time. These incentives make you feel like you are taking advantage of the offer, when in reality, it is the other way around.

Marketing strategies have changed rapidly in recent years, and continue to change constantly. Thanks to the rise of social media, influencer marketing has replaced many traditional ads. Instead of using physical billboards or digital advertisements, companies sponsor up-and-coming online personas to sell their products.

Today, influencer marketing has proven more effective than traditional marketing. Viewers trust the creators they follow and see them as credible. This makes them more likely to purchase a product the influencer recommends.

How does consumer behaviour work?

Consumer behaviour can be influenced by many factors, including age, income, gender, lifestyle and personality, depending on the target demographic of the seller.

With neuropsychology, it is possible to see how various brain processes influence consumer behaviour. For example, electroencephalography (EEG) and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) allow researchers to study the subconscious mind’s responses to different advertising and marketing strategies, which are in these cases the stimuli.

This research helps inform neuromarketing, which combines neural science and marketing techniques to look at the mechanisms that underlie decision making, emotion and cognition. It includes elements such as eye gaze tracking, colour psychology, memorable headlines, effective packaging, website layout and so on.

By understanding these factors, marketers and companies can create more effective advertisements that appeal to consumers and influence their purchases.

Individuals with higher incomes are more likely to purchase high-quality products, but for a variety of reasons. For example, some genuinely seek better quality, while others desire to display their wealth.

Experts in behavioural economics and psychology believe that a major reason behind extravagant purchases is so that people can showcase their social status, a phenomenon known as conspicuous consumption.

How do companies attract customers?

Marketing strategies are designed to lure customers towards a product. A key goal is to target a specific audience and cater ads to their interests. Advertisers look for shared interests among a certain group and incorporate those into their messaging.

Another tool is psychographics. This technique segments consumers based on values, beliefs and lifestyles. It helps marketers tailor messages that align with those beliefs, convincing their audience to buy their products.

The bandwagon effect is another aspect of behavioural psychology that comes into play influencing consumer decisions. It describes how people adopt behaviours simply because others do, often suppressing their own opinions. Consumers often buy products because they see others using them. This urge to fit in is very powerful.

How has advertising changed with the rise of social media?

The first examples of advertising date back to ancient Egypt, but advertising today is nothing like how it was back then, with the starkest change being the rise of personalised marketing.

Using platforms such as Instagram and YouTube, many people document their daily lives for all to watch. Those who amass large audiences can become influencers. Companies often partner with them to promote their products in a way that seems more natural and subtle than traditional ads.

Influencers and content creators now dominate advertising. Using famous figures has always been common – Coca-Cola, for instance, started using Santa Claus to promote its brand back in the 1930s. However, influencer marketing has taken this concept to another level.

We tend to find people more persuasive if we feel they are similar to us. Since we feel that influencers are ‘average’ people who just happened to gain a platform, we identify with them more than other public figures. This makes us more likely to follow their advice on what purchases we should make, as it feels more like sincere, genuine advice than a paid promotion.

Why do brands target younger audiences?

Brands often target younger audiences because their developing brains are more susceptible to influence. Younger people also tend to be more open-minded to new products that could shake up existing industries. For many brands, gaining a customer young means they have gained a customer for life thanks to consumer loyalty and habitual behaviour.

When brands market effectively, they can deeply engage young consumers. However, this deliberate targeting can have extremely negative consequences. For example, the tobacco industry has historically lured young people into using their products, causing long-term health issues.

What are the pitfalls of modern advertising?

Modern advertising can create unrealistic desires and financial difficulties by promoting an unattainable consumerist lifestyle. Due to targeted marketing, younger people who do not have financial stability may choose to buy luxury products because those products are marketed so well towards them.

The influence of advertising on purchasing behavior

admin — Sat, 13 Sep 2025 10:29:21 +0000

Ubiquitous in our daily lives, advertisements have a considerable impact on consumer purchasing behavior. They are also a key tool for brands seeking to shape their brand image and influence consumer attitudes and perceptions.

Let’s discover together the advertising mechanisms used to influence buying behavior and the impact they can have on consumers.

>>> Discover all our advertising solutions to get your advertising off the ground

Article summary: The influence of advertising on buying behavior: Deciphering marketing mechanisms

The psychological mechanisms of advertising influence

Advertising influences consumer buying behavior through a variety of psychological mechanisms that capture the attention and motivate the commitment of the target audience: cognitive biases, the persuasive effect and the psychology of colors and images.

Cognitive biases, quick reasoning that leads to hasty decisions, play a major role in the way buyers will consume. Advertisements exploit these thinking biases to elicit emotions and automatic responses in consumers. One of the most commonly used biases is the familiarity effect, where consumers tend to prefer products or brands they already know. And the repetition of an ad reinforces this familiarity, creating a feeling of trust.

Another well-known mechanism is the persuasion effect. Advertisements use a variety of persuasion techniques based on an understanding of the target audience’s wants and needs to get them to buy. For example, the social proof technique, which involves showing testimonials or statistics that show that many people already use the product. This gives the impression that the product is popular and therefore must be good.

The psychology of colors and images is also used in advertising to influence our choices. Colors and images can have a strong emotional impact on us. For example, red is often used to evoke urgency or excitement, while blue is associated with confidence and security. Images can also play on our emotions, like car ads that show beautiful landscapes and happy people, creating a positive association with the product.

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The influence of advertising on consumer attitudes and perceptions

Brand image building is one of the main objectives of advertising. Brands can use it to create a positive image in the minds of consumers, using strategies such as presenting attractive, seductive images, storytelling or highlighting product benefits. Advertising is a key element in a marketing strategy to differentiate your products from those of your competitors, by highlighting the unique advantages of your brand.

Advertising has a considerable impact on consumers’ perceptions of a product’s quality, effectiveness and usefulness. Brands will therefore try to use advertising to create positive emotions in consumers, associating their products with feelings such as joy, happiness or confidence to improve consumer perception.

Finally, repetition of advertising is a key element in reinforcing consumer recall and preferences. Continuous advertising of a product can help keep the brand in consumers’ minds, even when they are not actively thinking about buying the product. What’s more, repetitive advertising can reinforce preference for a product over that of a competitor.

>>> Which media to choose for your advertising?

Persuasive strategies used in advertising

In the competitive world of advertising, marketing professionals and entrepreneurs are constantly looking for effective ways to influence consumers’ buying process. Three persuasive strategies can be used in advertising to achieve this goal: reciprocity and special offers, social proof and testimonials, and urgency and scarcity.

Firstly, reciprocity is a powerful persuasion lever used in advertising. By offering special deals, free samples or gifts, brands create a sense of duty of reciprocity among consumers. Consumers feel indebted to the brand for the benefit they have received, which can encourage them to buy the product or service offered. Promotions, such as exclusive discounts for loyal customers, also reinforce this sense of reciprocity and encourage brand loyalty.

Secondly, social proof and testimonials are persuasive strategies that play on the influence of the group on individuals. By highlighting testimonials from satisfied customers, positive reviews or statistics on the number of people who have already adopted the product, advertising creates social validation. Consumers are then more inclined to trust the brand, as they feel reassured by the positive experience of others.

Finally, urgency and scarcity are tactics that exploit the psychological principle of immediate need. Calls to action with a time limit or limited quantity create a sense of urgency in consumers, who are afraid of missing out on a unique opportunity. This psychological pressure can prompt them to make a quick purchasing decision, so as not to miss out on an exclusive offer or a rare product.

>>> What is advertising? Definition, objectives, current trends

The long-term consequences of advertising influence

The impact of advertising is not limited to purchasing decisions (short-term impact), but can have significant long-term consequences for brands and companies, as well as influencing society. They play an essential role in building customer loyalty: engaging advertising campaigns strengthen the emotional bond between consumers and a brand. This leads to increased loyalty, encouraging customers to remain loyal to the brand and continue to buy its products or services.

Powerful advertising campaigns can improve public perception of a brand, reinforcing its credibility and brand image. But this is a double-edged sword: controversial or misleading advertising can also seriously damage a company’s reputation, leading to a loss of consumer confidence and long-term negative repercussions.

Finally, advertising influence also raises ethical considerations. Advertisements must be honest and not mislead consumers. Marketing professionals need to ask themselves questions about how their ads can affect people’s lives and the consequences of their work on society.

>>> How can I see my competitors’ ads?

The limits of advertising influence

There are limits to the influence of advertising. Some consumers develop a resistance to advertising by actively filtering out commercial messages, which reduces the effectiveness of campaigns. Distrust of misleading or intrusive advertising can also undermine its impact.

What’s more, the saturation effect resulting from the overabundance of advertising in our daily environment can lead to desensitization of the target audience.

To overcome these obstacles, marketing professionals need to create more targeted, personalized ads that meet consumers’ specific needs. In addition, companies should seek to establish an emotional connection with consumers, which can help them stand out from the competition and boost their advertising effectiveness.

>>> How is advertising evolving?

The science of wholesome content: How marketers can harness the feel-good factor

admin — Sun, 24 Dec 2023 10:48:49 +0000

Mailine Swildens leads Google’s Creative Works team in Europe, the Middle East, and Africa. Her work helps brands drive better business results with more engaging and effective creative.

Admit it. You’ve probably watched a wholesome video at some point in the last few days.

Those videos will have drawn a smile – or even a tear – out of you: Stories of families escaping the chaotic city to live off the land in a woodland oasis. Tales of people rescuing a stranger and changing their life in the process. Or a baby’s emotional reaction to hearing its mother’s voice for the first time after getting a hearing aid.

A perfect example of wholesome content: A baby hears her mother’s voice for the first time.

Wholesomeness is fully embedded in popular culture right now, with numerous popular social media accounts sharing content that gives people the so-called ‘warm, fuzzy feeling’. For example, video channel Twisted, who simply cooks meals with his cats, has 5.3 million subscribers.

So why is ‘wholesome’ in vogue right now?

Why viewers seek out wholesome content

When there is so much happening politically, ecologically and economically around the world, sometimes highlighting the little things make all the difference. A recent international study by Kantar found that seven in ten people say they try to be optimistic despite the ongoing global economic uncertainty.

“People specifically seek out content for self-care, to help regulate their mood,” says Earnest Pettie, a YouTube specialist in culture and trends.

Nancy Puccinelli is a professor of marketing at the University of Bath and a fellow at the University of Oxford. She explains that this mood regulation is a form of escapism for many: “I’ll keep up to date with the top news stories – as dark as they are, I force myself to look at them because it’s the stuff you need to know.

“But I generally find is that as I’m trying to relax in the evening, I’ll get sucked into a Google feed that will tell me about how to repurpose my coffee grounds to fertilise my lawn and how a new restaurant is opening nearby. The stories may not be ‘important’, but nonetheless I find I prefer this light, feel good content.”

Professor Amitav Chakravarti, a professor of marketing at the London School of Economics, explains: “People feel calmer, more relaxed, and even more generous and altruistic when they connect to wholesome content.”

When watching feel-good, wholesome content, the body releases dopamine, the chemical responsible for motivation, satisfaction and pleasure. Humans are hard-wired to seek out positive experiences as dopamine helps to control memory, sleep, and concentration.

Chakravarti, who specialises in consumer psychology, says that people’s desire for wholesome content can be put down to the human desire for affiliation with others, which wholesome content can often provide by way of human connection.

And brands are tapping into this feel-good factor to bring out their customers’ generosity by incorporating wholesomeness into their latest marketing campaigns.

British chocolatier Cadbury’s feel-good Worldwide Hide campaign was built around their customers’ altruism, inviting them to ‘hide’ an Easter Egg for a loved one digitally on Google Maps.

Cat food brand Sheba used an emotive ad campaign which focused on saving a coral reef. It featured emotive images of sealife, harnessing YouTube monetisation to increase views and direct proceeds to saving the reef.

Puccinelli, who is also a co-director at Bath Retail Hub, explains: “I do a lot of research on consumer mood and emotion. In television advertising in particular, for the most part, 90-95% is still positive, upbeat advertising.

“The basic premise is that if the ad makes people feel good, their attitudes towards nearly anything you show them will go up considerably. And there’s also a significant knock on effect on behaviour – all other things being equal, if a brand makes me feel good, I’m going to be inclined to buy that brand.”

Why brands harness wholesome content

Brands are harnessing this type of content to tap into the next generation of consumers. Wholesome content is popular among Gen Z. A 2022 Ipsos survey found that Gen Z love to watch soothing video content, such as ASMR content (aka whisper videos), animal live streams, or nostalgia videos to help them relax.

Secondly, it can be an effective way to market more functional products. UK bank Halifax recently ran a campaign featuring various local family scenes to promote financial products and services. The advert focuses on wholesome human connections and ordinary activities.

How marketers can use wholesome content in their marketing campaigns

Like popular creators, marketers can tap into certain elements to bring wholesomeness into their content. But marketers shouldn’t overthink their narratives. Chakravarti explains: “What sticks in people’s memories are things that are simple, unexpected, and emotional, rather than making it humourous, for example.”

Says Puccinelli: “Some of the most memorable ads, no one can remember what the product was. Good advertising doesn’t necessarily sell product.”

Pettie says personal stories, or stories which show someone helping a person (or animal) in need, for instance, also engage viewers. He explains: “The narrative that pulls at the viewer’s heartstrings will often have an altruistic element. The charitable aspect of MrBeast’s content, for instance, is a large part of why the channel is so popular.”

Another element to consider is the content’s aesthetics. Pettie explains: “Wholesome content doesn’t need to have a clear narrative. We seek out soothing content, videos of people deep cleaning objects, or videos of a simpler life connected to nature. It’s escapism that is oddly satisfying.”

Soothing content helps people make sense of uncertainty around them, allowing people to seek an escape or a distraction from stress in their lives, or the wider world, such as the popular series of Bob Ross painting videos. The Oddly Satsifying YouTube channel has more than two million subscribers.

But perhaps the most important factor in creating effective wholesome marketing? Being authentic, says Chakravarti.

He says: “The line between authenticity and a convoluted idea can be crossed very easily. One example is when a brand created an ad where a high-profile celebrity used their product as a way to ease tensions during protests. The idea was to try and create a dialogue, but it ended up being cringey and fake — the opposite of authenticity.”

Authenticity is the holy grail for marketers, says Puccinelli. She explains: “Customers generally have grown so skeptical that it’s more and more difficult to be seen as authentic — whether that’s through perceptions of not being environmentally conscious or attempting to pull at the heartstrings in a cynical, profit-driven way.

“For instance, creators have in the past fallen out of grace with their loyal fanbase because they have been seen as profit-orientated.”

Brands looking to incorporate wholesomeness into their marketing can help their customers feel good about themselves, the brand, and the wider world. And, in turn, that’s something for marketers to feel good about too.