2017 Azbee Awards of Excellence
Category
Online > Online Technical Article > Northeast
Awarded to
Ryan Joe, Managing Editor; Zach Rodgers, Executive Editor
Entry details
The Marketer's Guide To Artificial Intelligence
Issue date (if applicable): 10/25/2016
Publication name: AdExchanger
Publishing company: AdExchanger
Website home page: https://adexchanger.com/
Please describe the publication's mission and readership:
AdExchanger is an online publication devoted to the data-driven, digital marketing and advertising space. Our readers include advertising agencies, advertisers, publishers, data providers, ad networks, media traders and advertising and marketing technology companies.
In 2016, spending on digital advertising was predicted to reach $72 billion in the US, the world’s largest digital advertising market. Digital display and search advertising account most spending, followed by other formats, including email and mobile.
There were no early players that offered simple end-to-end solutions for delivering online ads, which created a fragmented landscape of technology providers. The solutions resemble an alphabet soup of jargon, such as DSP, SSP and DMP, among others. Google, Facebook and other large companies have risen above the crowded landscape, consolidating as they buy smaller ad tech players to create the dominant tech stack.
Data-driven advertising promises to help marketers reach consumers with the right message when they are most likely to convert. But as platforms and devices multiply, the big data collected on consumers can overwhelm even savvy marketers.
Data has made digital advertising performance measurable, but the industry often uses legacy metrics that reward bad behavior and fail to determine whether an ad really drove a sale. Meanwhile, the industry is wrought with challenges, including ad fraud, privacy issues and a general lack of transparency.
Please describe the enterprising work that went into this entry and its significance or impact on readers:
Artificial Intelligence (AI) is so hyped in the advertising and marketing industries that it's difficult to separate fact from fiction.
The breathless press releases from tech vendors often ignore the fact that AI is an incredibly nuanced discipline. Deep learning, machine learning, algorithms and natural language processing are all terms and processes thrown around under the AI moniker, yet none can be considered a fully automated system that requires no human assistance.
AI's penetration into marketing and advertising technology is inevitable: Advertisers want to automate more processes, and AI is really the ultimate form of automation. Yet its promise and complexity has turned AI into a major 2016 buzzword, making it difficult to separate fiction from fact and fact-with-some-embellishments. The reporting of this story required contacting companies with AI engines - from giants like IBM and Google to tiny 10-person startups - and learning how their applications worked and what they were designed to do. Ryan then cross-referenced with their peers and competitors. Eventually, like chipping away at a raw block of marble, a form started to take shape and our understanding clarified.
The goal was to strip the buzzwordiness out of AI and help readers who don't understand AI applications start to understand it - or at least arm themselves with better questions when they're deluged with the marketing and tech speak of breathless salespeople.
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Entry URL(s), if applicable:
https://adexchanger.com/data-exchanges/marketers-guide-ai-marketing-advertising/
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The Marketer's Guide To Artificial Intelligence
Category
Online > Online Technical Article > Northeast
Description
Publication name:
AdExchanger
Company:
AdExchanger
Winner Status
- Regional Silver Award
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