Bringing AI to Asia Pacific

Now more than ever, AI and other cutting-edge technology is necessary to gaining and maintaining a competitive edge in the Experience Era.

Image source: Adobe Stock / chinheng.

Given Asia Pacific’s accelerated focus on experience-driven business, artificial intelligence (AI) seems the next natural step in our collective progression. There is endless untapped potential in AI that can help Asia Pacific organizations further fine-tune, even better, customer interactions. Beyond that, though, by adopting foundational AI technology early on, your organization can gain a competitive edge in a crowded landscape

The challenge? Getting decision makers and other stakeholders on board.

AI as an Asia Pacific enabler

The majority of Asia Pacific marketers see a need for AI — and they’re right. By 2025, experts anticipate 95 percent of customer interactions will be powered by AI. Companies that get on board now will be better prepared for this experience-driven future.

That said, there are still roadblocks to adoption. Two in five companies and 61 percent of agencies say they lack the knowledge to effectively integrate AI into their businesses.

Part of this is a misconception that the term “AI” has been so widely and universally used, even industry leaders assume the technology is unwieldy, complex, and costly. The reality? Enterprises don’t even need data scientists to work with Adobe AI solutions. For example, Adobe Sensei — Adobe’s AI and machine learning engine — understands content and helps marketers by automating time-consuming and repetitive tasks such as allocating relevant tags. Marketers can focus on the message and let Adobe Sensei focus on scale and speed.

For businesses looking to integrate AI, this is good news — it means leveraging AI doesn’t mean cracking the code on custom models and algorithms but, instead, being ready to adopt technology with AI built-in. And when you do, your organization will gain a critical competitive advantage, while ensuring you’re prepared to grow and scale as the technology does.

AI keeps you from losing out on revenue opportunities

Again, you may already be using AI or have AI capabilities built into your existing campaign workflows and deliveries. Using these solutions, it’s easy to slide into AI processes that are marketer-friendly and deliver strong ROI — predictive modeling, for example.

Predictive modeling is an important use case of AI and works on the principles of machine learning, a subset of AI. Here, a machine learning helps forecast future habits and patterns of your audience or defined segments. By predicting what comes next, an AI-powered engine can choose the right next step, looking at all factors including device, location, time of day, and historical knowledge. This drives greater relevance and added conversions, while lowering budgets and boosting ROI.

Social Kinnect, a leading digital marketing agency, utilized AI-powered predictive modeling when their paid media campaigns were beginning to lag. The company used Adobe Advertising Cloud Search within Adobe Experience Cloud to establish new automated search campaigns with custom bid rules and targeted KPIs.

These new campaigns enabled the Social Kinnect team to align specific messaging and objectives to core audience segments — and that helped drive 40 percent more daily leads while optimizing cost per click (CPC) by more than 50 percent. Together, this enhanced approach reduced the company’s cost per lead by nine percent.

For Social Kinnect, though, this was just the beginning. By tapping into the Adobe Sensei-powered Spend Recommendation feature in Advertising Cloud Search, the agency was able to utilize machine learning to identify optimal budget allocations by campaign. Spend Recommendation was even able to factor in considerations like market fluctuations, competition, and seasonal trends, determining future budgets and freeing the Social Kinnect team up to focus on creating even more dynamic campaigns.

AI shows you where to invest resources and budgets

AI is also useful in helping you know — or attribute — which customer interactions are the most effective for driving conversions. This attribution approach measures every touchpoint or interaction a customer may have had with a brand, drilling down on the path to purchase or conversion. Armed with these analytics, organizations can pinpoint optimal channels, spending more on what works and less on what doesn’t.

Insurance provider Allianz Australia did exactly that, boosting cross channel ad performance by leveraging customer data generated with Adobe Advertising Cloud. By using a single advertising platform, Allianz could view existing customers and, from there, determine which publishers and platforms drove the most business.

From here, Allianz utilizes Advertising Cloud’s search features including performance optimization, forecasting, and spend recommendations, all powered by Adobe Sensei. This enables the organization to combine performance metrics, business goals, and KPIs such as customer acquisition and reach to maximize budgets across multiple campaigns.

Leveraging this technology, Allianz lowered its cost per acquisition (CPA) by 30 percent while improving both ad buying effectiveness and cross-platform bidding.

Closing the AI loop in your business

Predictive modeling, attribution, and audience targeting are just a few of the many AI capabilities embedded in core technology solutions — solutions you may already be using in your organization. By taking that ever-so-slight pivot and integrating these built-in AI workflows, your company can get a low-risk, high-reward taste for the technology — it’s walk-before-you-run opportunity with the power to produce massive results.

Another perk? Because these products are familiar, intuitive, and widely integrated within Asia Pacific businesses, there’s no major learning curve and no significant time or talent shifts needed to make the leap. There’s also no hefty investment in complex new technology to be made, or mandates for high maintenance customization — the Adobe solutions you’re already using are backed by top talent, top technology, and an unwavering commitment to keeping your brand ahead of the curve.

While AI won’t eliminate your entire workload with a quick click, it will connect the dots to create winning experiences for your brand and your customers. Start with targeted, intuitive Adobe solutions that from “go” integrate this cutting-edge technology, then scale your efforts from there. By doing so, your organization will be well positioned to leverage the power of AI, and become an even heavier hitter in this dynamic marketplace.