Artificial intelligence and related technologies have become a driving force of change in many industries, and digital marketing is no exception. With frequent updates and new advancements being introduced almost monthly, businesses are challenged to adapt to the new changes and use them to their advantage. A recent example is OpenAI's presentation in May 2024, which showcased new ways for customers to interact with AI chatbots and services, and other businesses are rushing to design and implement practical applications of these new opportunities to get an edge over their competitors.
In such an environment, it is important to understand how AI-based tools work and how they can benefit the industry. Andrii Holubenko, Digital Media Director at Optimum Media OMD Group Ukraine, shared his views on upcoming trends that will impact the market in 2024 and beyond.
Impact on the entire industry
With over 10 years of experience in digital marketing, Andriy Holubenko has witnessed the evolution and change of this industry. He predicts current trends into the future and points to the growing importance of AI-powered approaches. “For many years, the mainstream approach could be described as human-first,” Holubenko says. “Although various technological solutions can be used to save time and streamline routine tasks, they are only auxiliary to human decision-making.” However, things are changing. The current state of integration of AI technologies into the industry is often described as AI-powered. AI-based tools can now perform more tasks, including loosely defined tasks, albeit with human supervision.
But companies need to start preparing for the next step: an AI-first approach. The estimated timeframe for that varies, with some experts saying it is already on the horizon, while others expect that technology level to be achieved within the next 20 years. “Estimates may vary, but there is no doubt that the change is coming,” adds Andrii Holubenko. With an AI-first approach, the application of AI and machine learning techniques will not be limited to low-level tasks such as generating advertising content. Autonomous AI agents may be able to make strategy decisions based on vast amounts of data, predict customer behavior, target, and execute advertising campaigns.
Between companies and customers
Digital marketing is exploring different ways to capture and keep customers engaged, but technology is changing how customers interact with brands and becoming an integral part of this engagement. “Hyper-personalization is a vivid example of this,” Andrii Holubenko points out. “Hyper-personalization allows you to create content targeted at very narrow audience segments, targeting individual customers and their history of engagement with your brand.” Natural language processing technologies such as large-scale language models can breathe new life into old forms of marketing such as email advertising. In addition, they also give rise to new formats and ways of interaction, such as chatbot conversations, which will soon become widely available in human-like voice formats and will no longer be limited to text conversations.
There are other technological advances that can transform customer experience. Augmented and mixed reality can help familiarize the audience with products through visualization tools or create new types of advertising content. Another rapidly expanding area is the use of computer-generated images in marketing campaigns. “Currently, customers often perceive the use of AI-generated content as controversial,” comments Andrii Holubenko. “However, if you know how to use it correctly, you can increase the efficiency of your marketing campaigns and take them to a new level.” In this case, it is especially important to take into account the differences and peculiarities of the local market. This is evidenced by several successful digital campaigns that Andrii led for the launch of international brands and products on the Ukrainian market.
Practical Implementation
While the trends above may seem futuristic or speculative, they are technologies that can be leveraged right now. “The growing influence of AI-based tools will affect all segments of the market and all stages of a company’s interaction with its customers,” Andrii Holubenko emphasizes. “In each of these areas, there are many tasks that can be performed more efficiently with the help of modern technologies: establishing a connection between customers and the brand, guiding them towards a purchase decision, building and supporting a loyal customer base, and more.”
One of the examples that shows the fact that predicting and talking about the future is not enough is programmatic advertising. Andrii Holubenko has a lot of practical experience in this field, since he helped develop and launch Fusify.io, an advertising platform that creates new opportunities for precise targeting and, as a result, more effective spending on campaigns. He also developed a new way to calculate audience intersections, which allows companies to get a deeper understanding of their target audience.
Many companies are now working to incorporate emerging technologies as an integral part of their processes, many of which will be presented at the Cases&Faces Awards in June 2024, where Andrii Holubenko participated as a judge. “It's always inspiring to see how different companies, big and small, find ways to creatively exploit new technological opportunities. I'm sure that at this event we will see many solutions that were unimaginable a year ago.”
Spencer Hulse is the editorial director of Grit Daily, where he oversees other editors and writers, as well as day-to-day operations and breaking news coverage.
