Variabilize, Optimize, Templatize
On weekdays I am the head of strategic operations for a global advertising agency built for a technology client.
So I often read articles about "the automated future".
I usually read them with my reality-filter dialed up because, in my experience, people in this industry are exceptional at grumbling about repetitive tasks and effusive about a future without them, but when it comes to doing anything about it … they are much less good.
That is why a recent article by Michael Bailey, a director at Google Media Lab, Google’s in-house marketing agency is worthy of mentioning.
Bailey's article, “Four Ways To Plan For An Automated Future,” breaks things down into small steps that are familiar, do-able, and in aggregate, represent achievable progress without waiting for the future.
I won’t repeat the entire article because you should read it yourself.
But here are Bailey’s four ways:
First, find data that predict outcomes by mapping variables and testing them.
Next, optimize for those data points across audiences and campaigns.
Then, build templates so that content/offers can be contextualized into campaigns at scale.
Finally, use the time that you’ve freed up to think beyond advertising.
That’s it.
Bailey brings these steps to life with examples from Google’s own campaigns, including for Google Home Assistant and Pixel Phone.
Step 4 (the “making time to think” step) especially appeals to me because optimization is not just something we need to do at the campaign level. As professionals, we need to spend time every day thinking about the way things ought to be. The bigger challenges.
Some of the ideas in/around this article are borrowed so deeply that they probably go unnoticed to most (for example, IBM has been using the “Think” rubric for its marketing content since the 1930’s). But that doesn’t take away from the originality and utility of Bailey’s bigger idea.
It also reminds me that a perspective like this, right now, can really only come from a few places — Google being one of them.
Here is a link to the article, and to the portfolio of the content designer who illustrates the Think With Google series …
https://www.thinkwithgoogle.com/marketing-resources/business-marketing-automation/
