Dive Brief:
- Although programmatic still mostly means the buying and selling of ad units, The Wall Street Journal reports new tools from ad tech companies are bringing programmatic to ad creatives as well.
- Ad tech firms Eyeview and Spongecell both raised capital based on promises of bringing programmatic customization to ads, and Snapchat acquired Flite, an ad tech firm in the same space.
- Essentially programmatic creative “builds” ads on the fly based on different creative elements chosen automatically to best appeal to the ad’s audience.
Dive Insight:
Like many marketing technologies, automated ad creation has been on the horizon for a while and now looks like it's finally arriving as investment increases.
The Journal pointed to Tennessee Tourism as an organization using the technology for a pre-roll video ad campaign that included 12 templates with more than 2,000 final ad possibilities with the different versions put together to appeal to both geographic audience data and personal demographic data based on interests. The ads were put together on the fly based on first- and third-party data.
The core technology driving this ability is artificial intelligence with its ability to sort through massive piles of data and make decisions based on preset rules along with machine learning as the tech optimizes ad creative. AI is rapidly becoming an important tech piece for marketers, and in a way will allow marketers to get back to the more creative side of things by allowing them to think bigger picture while AI tech completes some of the more mundane tasks in putting together an ad.
