How AI is transforming paid advertising on social media
Facebook, Instagram and TikTok make extensive use of artificial intelligence. This covers everything from personalising news feeds with relevant content to image and voice recognition, and more.
AI has also had a significant impact on Meta's advertising capabilities, which — driven by advances in the technology — have markedly improved the platform's performance. This also means that today we are seeing lower costs per customer acquisition due to increased exposure, resulting in a higher return on ad spend.
This development is partly driven by recent initiatives within the platform's business and advertising tools, which can encourage stronger campaign performance, better measurement and improved reporting for advertisers.
A great example of this is Advantage+ campaigns — an AI-powered campaign tool that offers a range of automated campaign setups. In particular, Advantage+ Shopping campaigns have experienced significant growth, with the aim of optimising your conversions and making the setup both easier and faster for you as an advertiser.
Based on historical data from your account to feed the tool's algorithms, a range of tailored ads are created for relevant users, with the goal of achieving maximum reach and engagement. However, the potential for the best possible results depends on the volume of information and historical data associated with your account — which is why it can be beneficial to test the tool once you have built a solid and stable campaign structure. With Advantage+, you hand over a degree of control to AI, so it is important to consider when and whether this type of campaign makes sense for you.
If you would like to learn more about Advantage+ Shopping, you can read more about it here.
Paid Social's AI-driven capabilities for optimised campaigns
While Meta has made great strides in the use of artificial intelligence within their business tools, there are also many other AI-based tools that can help optimise your processes and campaigns on social media platforms.
It is relevant here to highlight the influence AI has had on content creation — both when it comes to written content and creatives. This opens up the possibility of producing and distributing content in a more efficient, scalable and personalised way by leveraging the technology where it adds value.
AI's impact on Content Creation
There have generally been significant advances in content creation. Since the launch of AI-based language models such as ChatGPT and Jasper, copywriting has undergone a remarkable transformation. These tools can, among other things, help content creators produce high-quality content more quickly, and can serve as a valuable source of inspiration for idea generation for upcoming campaigns on social media.
In addition, the technology can suggest hashtags, write captions and analyse previous content, after which AI generates various drafts of ad copy that can be used for inspiration and further refinement. The tools can also be used for proofreading and translation if you are advertising across multiple markets.
Canva has also introduced Magic Write — an AI text generator integrated directly into the platform — that offers many of the same features, with the ability to generate text content based on your tone of voice.
There is no doubt that OpenAI can contribute a great deal of value, but remember that the content is not human-created, which is why it is also important to maintain a critical perspective on the technology. Since AI tools are generally built on prompt engineering, the input you provide is decisive for the results and suggestions that AI generates. By giving the AI insight into your target audience, products and the purpose of a given campaign, you create the best conditions for producing effective and optimised content. This means that the quality of the output is directly dependent on the volume and quality of information you provide.
AI tools can support every step of your content creation process — but remember, they are assistants, not replacements. Therefore, you should as a starting point use the technology where it creates value. AI must never replace the human element, as this is ultimately crucial for creating authentic and meaningful content.
Unleash creativity with AI
Another area that has greatly benefited from artificial intelligence is creatives, which you can use in the development of your ads. With access to various AI tools, there are incredibly many ways in which artificial intelligence can generate usable creatives based on just a few assets.
Canva has made significant progress in this area by introducing Canva AI, which consists of a range of AI-based tools that can create, edit and enhance your designs. And the possibilities of what AI can achieve in relation to different creative elements are virtually limitless.
If we take Canva's text-to-image feature as an example — which in many respects works in the same way as DALL·E 2 and Midjourney — you can generate various image suggestions using text prompts. Simply describe the desired image, and Canva begins to create it for you. This enables further editing and sparks new inspiration within specific themes and subject areas.
In addition, Canva's other AI tools can be used to edit uploaded images quickly and conveniently. Here you can, for example, change the background, correct any errors and imperfections, and add other objects and similar elements — tasks that would normally require complex and time-consuming manual methods. This contributes to an easier and more time-saving process that frees up time and makes the process more intuitive for creating creative elements going forward.
For more complex editing tasks, we can recommend Photoshop's generative AI, which we demonstrate below.
There is no doubt that these tools foster creativity. However, it is important to remember that the quality and unique character of your content will always remain decisive for the success of your campaigns.
From algorithms to results
AI is becoming increasingly integrated into our everyday lives, and it will soon be unavoidable not to engage with the technology in some way if you want to keep pace with developments.
Embracing artificial intelligence is essential for businesses aiming to thrive in the digital landscape. However, it still requires the right management and understanding to achieve the best results for your upcoming campaigns.
By leveraging AI technology, new opportunities for success on social media open up. The technology brings a range of benefits that create better conditions for succeeding with your Paid Social strategy in the long run.
You can therefore benefit from integrating artificial intelligence into your social media advertising strategy, and let the AI tools be your helping hand in developing content and creatives.
