Category: Blog

Lynette Saunders, Senior Analyst at Econsultancy will be joining us on Wednesday 18th of April at AI: Advertising & Beyond. Last week we caught up with her to ask her a few questions about her experiences within the industry. To learn more, RSVP here.

 1. Tell us about your role at Econsultancy

I have been with Econsultancy for 3 and half years as a Senior Analyst within the Research Team. My role involves working on delivering industry-leading research, briefings and reports for the digital marketing industry. In particular, I have written a number of Digital Transformation sector reports covering Retail, Financial Services and Pharma and Healthcare. Currently I’m working on a report on Trust, Transparency and Brand Safety.

2. Econsultancy has published several articles and research into how AI is impacting media and society. How have you seen the focus on AI change in the last few years?  

We’ve seen companies using AI or machine learning for marketing for a number of years now, but we are really seeing the focus switching to more applications of AI due to the sheer volume of data that is now readily available to AI machines, which can perform incredibly sophisticated machine learning functions and are available at a fraction of the cost.

One of the most practical recent applications of AI has emerged with chatbots and we have written a number of blogs featuring what companies are doing in this area and the advantage a chatbot provides with an instantaneous response. Consequently, one of the biggest benefits for the consumer is simply a much better overall experience.

Traditionally AI was recommendation algorithms & optimising paid media, but it is now expanding quickly – from optimising email subject lines, advertising copy, suggesting next best actions, identifying look alike audiences to providing continuous feedback on what FAQ information helps to reduce inbound calls, to image recognition (in visual search or social listening).

3. Risks vs Rewards, do you think AI holds more risks or rewards for brand marketers?

This is an interesting question. Whilst we’ve published a number of blogs talking about the exciting ways that companies are using AI we have also highlighted things that say your chatbot should never do. The whole point of chatbots is that they’re supposed to mimic human interaction, that’s not to say that they should pretend to be human.

We are all striving to deliver that personalised experience in real-time and AI can play a crucial role in help companies to achieve this, but there are also risks, as with any technology, of getting it wrong. Given the forthcoming GDPR changes, companies also need to be even more transparent to customers about the data they are collecting on them and how this is being used.

AI offers a huge potential to enhance the customer experience, but key is going to be finding out how to use it in smart and relevant ways. Ultimately when thinking about where AI fits into your strategy it is important to go back to looking at what your business priorities are, and then specifically what the barriers are to achieving success and whether AI can help.

4. Before joining Econsultancy, you were in data and analytic roles at Royal Mail and Cancer Research UK. How do you see AI impacting the future role of marketers?

Looking back at my role in analytics at both places it was still very manual in terms of looking at reports in the various tools and interpreting what the data was telling us and taking action on the back of the analysis, which would always involve some type of time delay. The nature of reporting provided was also very much an historical view of what had happened. AI provides a real opportunity for marketers to use the data they have collected, learn from what has happened, predict what might happen and take action instantaneously. This can only help marketers to make better business decisions and ultimately drive better business results.

5. Aside from its application to marketing, what developments in AI are you most excited to see?

I think some of the areas we are seeing AI being used in healthcare is very exciting whether it be from applications that can give you an instant diagnosis of your symptoms, or provide reminders to people about their medication or alerts about a potential condition that might arise. These have the potential to be life-saving. Even as a fitbit wearer myself I am interested to see the developments that are taking place with fitness devices around helping people live a healthier life.

This week saw LoopMe host a breakfast discussion at the Sky Garden, London, bringing together B2B agency marketers to discuss how ‘data’ can be used to target the B2B consumer.

For those unable to attend, or who’d like a quick recap – read on! To receive invites to our next event, sign up to our events mailing list.

Data is the mobile currency of the B2B consumer 

The morning was kicked-off by Peter O-Mara Kane, GM International at LoopMe discussing how data is the mobile currency of the B2B consumer.

Pete explained that there are several trends that we see in B2B consumers which lend themselves to mobile marketing. First, they’re extremely ‘time poor’ leading to less TV consumption and engage with most of their content on mobile.

Pete then went on to stress the importance for marketers to stop looking at these consumers as an audience segment, and rather as people. This provides marketers with an opportunity to be more creative in the assets used and ‘how’ and ‘when’ we target them.

Riding the waves of intent data 

Next up was Brian Hersholt, Managing Director at Bombora who spoke about how they use intent data to enhance B2B campaigns. According to Brian, only 15% of the target audience is interested in what the product or service a company has to offer. This makes targeting business buyers when they are interested critical.

Why to get excited about GDPR

We rounded off the morning hearing from Paul Snell, Deputy Editor of B2B Marketing who presented on why marketers should embrace May 25^th (the GDPR deadline), stressing that it will not be gloom and doom.

Paul is so upbeat about GDPR as it brings a spotlight on marketing and it provides marketers a great opportunity to revaluate their communication strategy and think of new ways to engage their consumers.

Click here to check out Paul’s 5 reasons to embrace GDPR.

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Thanks again to our brilliant speakers for their insights, we hope to see you all at another event soon!

Tell us a bit about yourself

My name is Yuliia. I was born in a small town in Ukraine called Dniprodzerzhinsk. I’ve been interested in mathematics from childhood, so it wasn’t hard for me to decide what I wanted to do for a career.

I completed a master’s degree in Applied Mathematics at University. Once graduating I moved closer to the city and started my career as a Data Scientist at PrivatBank, the largest bank in Ukraine.

At PrivatBank I worked on a series of projects including marketing campaign optimizations, discovering new data sources; as well as working on a recommendation system of personalized offers for customers.

During my 3 years at PrivatBank, I realised AI’s potential and how it could help businesses around the world.

Why did you decide to join LoopMe?

I was interested in trying my hand at digital media, an industry which was new to me but one I wanted to learn more about. While I was interviewing at LoopMe I immediately felt it was a company where I could realize my potential and learn a lot.

However, the deciding factor was the opportunity to be directly involved in the development of LoopMe’s AI. Everyone I spoke to seemed really passionate about the product, so I was excited to start.

What’s your job role and day to day responsibilities?

I’m a Data Scientist in our Dnipro office. I helped design the device matching system (which Tom has spoken about before) and the device graph tool. Currently I’m working on creating and extending segments which allow us to determine who is going to respond most positively to any given campaign.

What has been your best moment at LoopMe?

The best moment at LoopMe has to be getting to know the team, both in the UK and the Ukraine. We have a great culture here, which is great when you’re working with your colleagues for 8 hours a day!

Tell us a fun fact about yourself?

A passion of mine is nurturing my pet royal snail Uli.

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We’re hiring! Check out our open roles and apply here.

According to Nielsen, this year’s Super Bowl averaged 103.4 million TV viewers, but despite massive hype, this is a 7% loss in viewers from last year.

The fact is that TV is no longer a one-screen experience. Adobe insights found 47% of US internet users used a smartphone while watching TV, while 20% used a laptop and 14% a tablet.

While brands spent millions on their half-time Super Bowl ads, initial research shows little impact on consideration. Surveying agency, YouGov, compared brand consideration around the ads from early January to findings three days after the game. Five of the big ads saw statistically significant improvements in word-of-mouth buzz: the NFL, Avocados from Mexico, Skittles, T-Mobile and Bai. However, when it came to purchase consideration, none of them made a statistically significant gain.

This makes sense. Just after the Super Bowl game we surveyed over 2500 individuals, asking ‘Did you watch the Super Bowl half time ads?’. Respondents had the option to say Yes, No – I was on my phone / tablet, No – I was taking a comfort break or No – I wasn’t watching the Super Bowl.

Once removing those who didn’t watch the Super Bowl, 58% saw the half time ads on their TV. Tellingly, 27% were on their phone or tablet, and a further 15% took the opportunity to take a comfort break.

So, with over 40% of the surveyed audience uninterested in carefully created (and very expensive) TV spots, how can you ensure you reach the right audience?

LoopMe’s CEO, Stephen Upstone offers some tips: ‘Brands should ensure that their big Super Bowl activations are supported with cross-channel marketing to expand the reach of their TV buy, as this survey proves.’

‘Mobile is data-rich and a scalable solution, allowing brands to understand their consumers and create advertising which delivers measurable results beyond the immediate Super Bowl fan.’

LoopMe’s PurchaseLoop product moves the dial on brand metrics, using data and AI to optimize to brand awareness, consideration and purchase intent.