AI and Deep Learning in Advertising: Effectiveness, Personalization, and the Future with Jaysen Gillespie

Understanding AI, Machine Learning, and Deep Learning

• 🤖 Artificial Intelligence (AI) is the broadest term, encompassing computers performing human-like tasks, with roots in early programs like checkers-playing machines.
• 🧠 Machine Learning (ML) is a subset of AI that relies on machines identifying statistical relationships within data, often requiring normalized data tables for predictive modeling.
• ✨ Deep Learning (DL), a further subset of AI, mimics human learning by processing continuous streams of information (a "fire hose") without requiring pre-processed data, excelling with missing or varied values.

Deep Learning's Power in Online Advertising

• 🚀 Deep learning natively handles the heterogeneous and variable nature of e-commerce traffic and user behavior, from occasional browsers to high-consideration buyers.
• 🌐 It effectively marries user behavior on e-commerce sites with their activity across the open internet, enabling more sophisticated ad targeting and value generation.
• 📈 Deep learning excels at driving incremental transactions, understanding the true impact of ad exposure beyond simple attributed conversions, which is a challenge for traditional ML.

Enhancing Engagement with Deep Learning

• ⏰ Deep learning's ability to process timestamps natively allows for more sophisticated timing strategies in ad delivery, moving beyond immediate retargeting to more incremental approaches.
• 🤝 It works synergistically with other ML approaches and business rules, forming a powerful stack of solutions that can be more effective than individual methods.
• 🎯 Deep learning can improve ad placement by using AI to read and understand content contextually, moving beyond simple keyword matching to more relevant and less intrusive placements (e.g., Intent GPT).

Real-World Impact and Human Roles

• 📊 Deep learning consistently delivers more attributed and incremental sales at similar ROAS, often exceeding marketer expectations.
• 💡 A key insight is that continuing to market to prior buyers can yield significant incremental gains, challenging the myth that established customers no longer need marketing.
• 🧑‍💻 Humans play a crucial role in oversight, critical review, and strategic direction, ensuring AI outputs make sense and align with business goals, especially in creative generation and complex decision-making.

Navigating the Cookie-less Future

• 🥇 First-party data remains paramount, and advertisers should focus on leveraging it directly.
• 🌐 The industry is moving towards a multi-identity universe, requiring partners and technical solutions that can handle various addressability methods beyond third-party cookies.
• 🤝 Marketers are learning to rely less on