It seems like an easy idea to run ads for an e-commerce website, but it isn’t until you are in the process of doing it. You fire off a campaign, view the numbers, tweak the target audience, test out a new creative, adjust the budget and then repeat. Sound familiar?
Now imagine performing this for dozens of products, numerous campaigns. That’s where the difference between AI agents and manual campaign optimisation becomes more evident.
The Working of Manual Campaign Optimization
For years the way to optimize has been by hand. Based on these results, a marketer will analyze the campaign data and make decisions on what adjustments to make.
Perhaps one ad gets more click through but another is drawing more sales. The marketer can boost the budget on the better-performing ad, stop the weaker ad, modify the targeting, or develop a new ad and targeting.
This is a perfectly valid way to do it. Actually, the experienced marketing professional can make good decisions when he/she is familiar with the brand, their audience and the history of the campaign.
The issue here is TIME. How fast can one reasonably review all campaigns, one each day?
What AI Agents Bring To The Table
AI agents can make this process significantly speeded up. They can not only provide you with campaign figures, but also analyse the data, spot trends and assist in determining next steps.
This can be a variety of things for an ecommerce brand – maybe a product ad is not performing as well as it once did, a creative is trending up in engagement, or an audience is converting better for a specific creative.
The primary benefit is speed. An AI agent can review a large amount of campaign data without getting tired or requiring marketers to switch between multiple dashboards. This becomes particularly useful as advertising expands across channels, including emerging opportunities such as ChatGPT ads, where marketers may need to evaluate new types of audience interactions and advertising strategies.
Speed Matters In E-commerce
The eCommerce advertising landscape is fast changing. A campaign that does well now, may not do so the following week. Sometimes a product suddenly becomes popular; other times, one ceases to be attractive to buyers.
It can be difficult for the manual to keep up in these instances.
AI agents can track campaigns more closely, and can enable marketers to respond quickly. Let’s wait to find out if an ad has been using up budget until the end of the week?
Making decisions quicker can lead to fewer missed opportunities and better investment of advertising budgets.
Manual Optimization Provides Human Judgement
While AI may be quick, human marketers have a very special element in their toolbox: context.
While a marketer may be aware that the product was temporarily out of stock, an AI system will be able to see that sales have declined. Maybe it’s a holiday, a price adjustment or a competitor offering a promotion and a campaign seems weak.
That’s not always the best out of the way option, hence the complete elimination of the human factor is not always optimal. Automated systems may lack the context that humans can provide.
AI makes Testing Easier
Successful e-commerce advertising can’t happen without testing. The results of different images, headlines, offers, audiences and calls to action will be entirely different.
AI agents can aid marketers with idea generation, test planning, and prioritizing the ones that require more focus. Marketers can focus on larger decisions, rather than keeping up with all the myriad changes to their campaigns throughout the day.
Additional testing can also enable brands to see what it is that their customers are really reacting to.
Which Approach will save more time?
This is the area where AI agents definitely have an edge.
Manual optimization is a time-consuming process that requires someone to continually monitor performance and take actions. It might be possible for a small shop that has just a handful of campaigns.
However, as the business expands, what will happen?
The more products you have, the more campaigns you will have. The more the merrier, the more data! When it comes to managing everything manually, it becomes difficult at some point.
This can help to reduce the time constraints on smaller teams and allow them to oversee more advertising campaigns without replicating the same amount of work.
In what ways have Human Marketers yet to win?
Don’t view AI as a substitute for marketing knowledge.
There is still a lot of work to be done by a human marketer as to what the brand is all about, what the ideal customer is and what offers make sense and what kind of message feels authentic.
While AI can assist in execution and analysis, it’s important to keep in mind that strategy requires a human touch as well.
Imagine AI-driven technology propelling you quicker and faster, but with someone making the decisions on where to go.
Final Thoughts
The way e-commerce brands are tackling advertising optimisation is transforming with the power of AI agents. They can provide fast analysis of campaign performance, assist testing, recognize performance shifts and decrease the number of repetitive tasks that campaign marketers must do.
Manual optimization still has some value, particularly when creatively thinking, contextualizing business or making strategic decisions are involved in campaigns.
The true benefits lie in understanding when to use each method. Allow AI to take care of the repetitive tasks, allowing humans to concentrate on decisions that truly influence the brand.