Automation & The Lazy New Age

“We often miss opportunity because it's dressed in overalls and looks like work”

―?Thomas A. Edison

Yesterday, I posted an article about A.I. that spurred some erratic thinking. I began to realize that though A.I. may not have taken over the earth as of yet, and in a day and age where the human being spends an average of two hours on their mobile phones daily (most common among those within the 18-24 demographic), I figured it would only be suiting to touch bases on another laze strategy that is unfortunately sweeping the globe...

What Is Automation?

There are many definitions, but this is a relatively new trend. Think about this: you want every new subscriber to your newsletter (wink, wink, subscribe to mine) to receive an email welcoming them when you sign up. So, you have two options to consider, and they are two very important ones to live by as a professional:

1) Do you siphon through a whopping mountain of 100 new subscribers daily, custom-write them an email (or copy and paste it from pre-written text document), and send...? Or, do you choose the easier (lazier) route: letting the "robots" do that for you?

I know, I know, I just wrote an article on this yesterday, but this is important, and it sparked a flight of ideas that led to this article, among them: 2022 industry trends.

This is basically the premise: automated marketing. Everything is becoming automated, from emails to Facebook Ads, where no longer does one have to choose the demographics they wish to reach. Rather, Facebook introduced a new feature in 2021 where rather than having to custom-build a saved audience for your ads, you can let the platform figure out the mechanics and demographics for you. The question is: does it work?

Yes, it does! I tried it this past few months on my boosted posts, where $5 a day is pulled from my bank account to fund (you guessed it) link clicks to this very article. Well, it does work; I saw results far transcending those of pre-made demographics that I hand-picked. However, it worked too well. When you think about the world of marketing, business and just about any industry today, it is easier to let a robotic algorithm do the work for you. However, it is mindful to say that though it is exceptionally interesting, it is laziness.

Does It Work?

This is too new of an industry (relatively less than one year in age after three years of user testing) to judge, but industry experts are beginning to use it, and the more it is used, the smarter it gets! So, is it laziness or progress?

In an article on Forbes.com by Larry Light, it is quoted that:

"The global marketing automation market is expected to increase from $2.75 billion last year to hit nearly $4.71 billion in 2028...the report reveals that email marketing automation will take the largest slice of market share at just over 32%..."

-Larry Light

According to Light, email marketing automation is going to be the biggest of automated functionalities, estimated at a 54% growth rate within the global troposphere.

The Benefits

I will not lie. I usually come on here to rant about trends and haphazardously debunk them, mocking the entirety of the new age of business and marketing, but this is actually a trend that I agree with. I have used automation in email campaigns (see the image below), Facebook Ads, and so on. Though I have seen results, I did a small experiment: I split-tested demographical data (i.e. "saved audiences" pointing at pre-selected demographics, trends and other factors, including interests and education level) with automated ads.

SendInBlue.com Automated Campaign

There was a rapid increase (and a decline in my cost-per-click rate) in the automated ads versus those pre-selected from a saved audience. Though the two functioned relatively the same, it is rather impressive that in a short one-to-two year period, automated ads are, in essentiality, equal to or greater than pre-selected demographical audiences.

Does It Work?

Recall my A.I. article. When I wrote this one yesterday morning, I debunked a ton of cauterization surrounding the nature of trusting a machine (which is essentially just a series of "0s" and "1s") to market for you. Though at the time I was feeling a bit cynically-inclined, I do have to say: though we can go ahead and agree that marketing automation (from email campaigns that automatically send out "welcome" emails to new subscribers, to ads that artificially detect user preferences/demographics) is lazy in essence, it does work.

With this new $4.7 billion dollar trend (supposedly by 2028), one must consider the appeal of this. Though we can all agree that this is laziness at work, we still require a sense of authenticity: yes, marketing automation does help us, and you know what? I am okay with that. Yes, it is a bit lazy, but it works. When Henry Ford said the infamous quote:

"If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses..."

- Henry Ford

…he found that the assembly line was much more effective than, say, putting the car together piece-by-piece with but a single person functioning as the product synthesizer. With this in mind, if I am insinuating that marketing automation is laziness, and just like the assembly line, it is lazy (but it works!).

What The Future Holds

Now, once again I am not insinuating that this new technique works. As a $4.7 billion dollar industry by 2028, it is apparent that we have not quite user-tested this facilitation fully. Though we are seeing a marginal increase in success from automation, that does not specifically mean we have had enough time to learn from it. It is definitely a fun thought, yes, but how does it work? That seems to be the question we are all asking, right?

I like to think that this "automation" craze is going somewhere beneficial. However, we cannot say this in all fairness - yet. When A.I. began to take over the hemisphere, it had taken just about as much time to develop and user-test as a mechanic for marketing professionals. Think about it: we began with "Terminator," where the idea of machines becoming self-aware was omnipresent, albeit, frightening.

We like to think this was the first "glance" at machine learning, but it actually dates back to 1956. A convention took place at Dartmouth College that began the craze, where it was discussed (and, equally, debunked as a frightening concept) that it would "become a new world craze meant to conventionalize technological merit."

During World War II, where the beginning of technological merit truly began (mind you, it took almost thirty years to make it to the public, just like drones and the Internet), this concept was a scary thought: machines "thinking." Who would have guessed that over fifty years later, we are staring in the face of it. Automation is A.I., and A.I. is quite possibly the most useful (and, equally, frightening) new tool for human functioning.

Is It Laziness?

We must consider an important point here: though marketing automation is sweeping the globe, and even I have begun to use it, there is some margin-of-error here. If you trust a machine to pick your audience, you are essentially giving MailChimp (or Facebook, or Twitter, or LinkedIn) the right to index your website and social media profile, search the World Wide Web for your various posts, and then ethereally detect user preferences.

What?!

So, is it laziness, or progress? I would say it is too soon to tell, as I do find it a bit pragmatic to assume that computers can theoretically pick the right audience for you. I will update my progress on this in a later article, but I have begun playing around with Facebook Ads automated posts, where I "allow" Facebook to pick an audience for me.

I am also testing the same posts, headlines, and carbon copies of my ads using pre-selected, hand-chosen demographics. I have been at this almost one week now, and I have to say: I am impressed and disappointed at the same time. I am impressed that a machine can functionally understand my desired audience, but I am disappointed that we have all become so lazy. Then again, with the question: "Is it lazy to automate marketing processes?" comes another inquiry. What could it possibly be, you ask? Automation is the future, after all, right? Well, sort of. You see, there is no real research on this conceptualization yet.

Research The Notion

According to Kyle McCarthy from www.Ad-On.com, there is not enough research to truly tell if this works in our favor. However, he did cite an interesting point:

"...automated marketing campaigns are so efficient and effective, in fact, that those surveyed experienced a 14.5% increase in sales productivity and a 12.2% reduction in marketing overhead" - Kyle McCarthy

Do note that (and you can try it yourself on Google) this trend is so new that we have yet to find any research literature on the topic. In fact, it can be insinuated that this sweeping, $4.7 billion dollar trend is not yet user-tested to the point where we can honestly say:

"Yes, this works better than the old methods."

Research Is Lacking

Thus, research is lacking because of its brevity thus far. Google "effectiveness statistics on marketing automation" and you will be kindly greeted by a wad of ads, then some miniscule studies that were performed for the most part by non-research professionals.

With this in mind, we are still in that "testing phase," and we cannot be so sure as to its value. Though I have also seen effectiveness in automated email campaigns, pre-chosen advertising demographics, and so on, it is still too soon to tell. With so much going on in the technological world, we cannot yet say that this is a trend that works. However, it definitely poses an interesting concept: if a machine can market more effectively than a marketing professional, what does the future hold for those who are losing their jobs to it?

I do feel that this is the fundamental point of all of this: the idea that machines are more effective at this than even the highest of industry professionals is scary to me. Are we looking at a new age in marketing, or are we staring in the face at our greatest enemy?

What good is the marketing professional when ads can be automated to do their jobs?

Remember Publix?

Remember when self-checkout lanes began? Tens of thousands of minimum-wage employees were thrown out of their careers (if that is considered a career, anyway, but moving on) because machines quite effectively took their jobs from them.

But when answering the question:

"Will marketing automation destroy peoples' careers?" please make note that every trip to Publix brings with it cashier "assistants" that have to walk over to a self checkout vestibule to assist a shopper that cannot quite get the darned scanner thingy to work! Every five or so minutes, the machine will beep, and a "cashier assistant" will "assist you" (where mindfully they push a button, scan a key card, and then saying: "you're all good").

So, to answer the question above, we have to think in terms of the self checkout lane.

Too Soon To Tell

Thus, is it still too soon to tell if marketing automation is effective, nor do we know for a fact that it will remain. However, with every technological merit we uncover, there will be people who lose their jobs, and others will remain confused by it. Machines, at the end of the day, are creeping closer and closer to "Terminator II" mayhem.

And that scares the crud out of me.

And you have been warned...Like, Share, Repeat!

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