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Should you trust AI with your digital ad dollars?

Artificial intelligence has a variety of uses in the automotive industry. While many dealerships use artificial intelligence in the marketing and customer service capacity of writing content and offering assistance with chatbots, artificial intelligence can also help you determine the who, what, and where of advertising. We’ll go into more depth about current and future cases of how to use artificial intelligence within automotive advertising.

Efficient Advertising

One of the main advantages of AI-based advertising is the ability to make decisions in real-time with human guidance, but without the need for a human to push the button.

In many ways, artificial intelligence is already used in advertising. Google, Bing, and other major advertising and search platforms, for example, have lots of data on their customers and use “Smart Bidding” methods of deciding who and when to serve an ad, and how much to pay to serve that ad. Within these same platforms, ads are also made on the fly from a collection of images and pre-determined ad copy that specifically targets that user.

No matter the platform, artificial intelligence is a quick and smart decision-maker when it comes to determining when and where to place an ad with some human direction, which generally involves knowing which customers convert the best for you.

Issues: Transparency, data privacy, and bias

While some owners, general managers, and tech people might express come concerns about data privacy and transparency, the companies that provide artificial intelligence are largely responsible for maintaining and storing data in a way that won’t be harmful to you, your dealership, or the customer.

If you are worried about knowing how well the artificial intelligence-based platforms are performing, we strongly suggest you use analytics-based platforms, which are often free, and tag campaigns so you understand how well artificial intelligence campaigns work.

Humans and AI

At some point, you have to align what artificial intelligence is capable of, and your actual goals. For example, artificial intelligence doesn’t know when you want to change budgets, or when you are short on a goal. The idea here is that you’ll need humans guiding your artificial intelligence through shifting goalposts and needs so that it doesn’t learn the wrong things.

AI Vendors and technologies

Getting a good grasp on how AI programs work is the same challenge as getting a good idea of how digital marketing vendors work without truly understanding digital marketing. We have a couple of tried and true methods of evaluating how these work: Ask for references, even if they aren’t local. You’ll want to understand how things work from another store and know how they are set up to handle artificial intelligence programs before diving into it on your own.

If a company is new enough not to have any references, you might skip them and try something else. Look online for reviews too, of course.

Integrating Artificial Intelligence into your advertising

A couple of things that will probably be impacted by launching an artificial intelligence advertising campaign are your art, ad copy, and data. Artificial intelligence often uses data that is floating around at secure points on the web, and your own DMS or CRM, Be prepared to open the doors to your DMS so that artificial intelligence knows the same things you do about your customers, like loan end dates and driving habits.

Stay Informed

Look out for articles like ours and new advancements that help you better understand artificial intelligence and how it will integrate with your business to make it better. We also suggest considering your dealership’s weak points and how artificial intelligence can help there. If you are having trouble keeping your business development center staffed, consider finding information specific to that topic so you know how it can really help you.

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Ben Stewart
Ben Stewart
Ben is a contributing writer and reporter for CBT News with 10 years of dealership experience in automotive marketing. Ben loves all things cars and putting together strategies that help dealerships succeed.

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