Scaling New Heights: How AI Can Elevate Your Digital Marketing Performance

I was invited to consult for the regional arm of a well-established company, I encountered a familiar challenge: their digital marketing returns had plateaued. They struggled to scale and improve their performance despite working with an agency. This led me to write a general article on how AI can help overcome such plateaus and drive digital marketing success.

Why did the digital marketer go to the mountains? To get a better view of their ROI, of course!

Imagine yourself climbing a treacherous mountain in the stunning Himalayas. Your progress is promising, and you’re already more than halfway up. But suddenly, clouds close in around you. Visibility drops to no more than your outstretched arm. The maps that have served you well become useless because you can’t see the path ahead. It’s a hopeless situation that has forced many before you to give up and accept that this is as high as they can go.

The Digital Marketing Challenge

Digital marketers often find themselves in a similar predicament. While they may not be literally stuck on a mountain, they can feel just as frustrated and desperate. They may have reached a point where they believe they cannot achieve better results. The returns plateau despite extensive campaign optimisations with ad platform data, tweaks, and tests. The gains become minuscule or non-existent.

This situation defines a local maximum: the point where you hit peak performance with your current digital assets, touchpoints, and campaigns. Even with hundreds of tweaks, improvements will only be marginal. The campaigns are as effective as possible with the current underlying foundation.

Shifting from Local to Global Maximum with AI

When optimization fails to yield noticeable improvements, it’s time to focus on making significant changes to move from the local maximum to the global maximum — the ultimate optimal point where digital marketers have all the resources needed for campaigns to perform at their peak.

A common but flawed initial approach is to increase ad spending for a quick boost. This strategy assumes that more visitors at the same conversion rate will grow revenue. However, this assumption often proves incorrect.

AI: The New Frontier to Achieve "PEAK" Performance

Today's web analytics tools capture over 250 different data points, translating into millions of possible combinations. Processing all this data to find the most effective combinations is beyond human capability. This is where AI comes into play.

By employing AI, you can strategically increase volume and get closer to the global maximum without risking Return on Ad Spend (RoAS) or Cost Per Acquisition (CPA). Machine Learning (ML) algorithms can analyse existing campaign successes and identify attributes that positively impact conversions. Essentially, they help find the most profitable user cohorts.

For instance, an ML algorithm might analyse where a visitor came from, what technology they used, and their interests, using multiple data points from your analytics. This approach blends click and behavioural data to identify valuable cohorts, which can then be used to expand and find similar audiences, minimising risk on returns. With AI, you can find "more of the right buyers, who contribute towards better RoAS, CPA, and lifetime value," helping you reach your global maximum. Reach the summit before your competitors do, leveraging the power of AI to overcome the challenges of digital marketing.