AI technologies are everywhere, and the online marketing industry has been grappling with its implications. Influencer Marketing Hub's AI Marketing Benchmark Report 2023 found that 61.4% of marketers have used AI in their marketing activities, while 44.4% have used it for content production.
At Spot On, we've been experimenting with various ways to incorporate AI into healthcare digital marketing to help our clients leverage the transformative impact of the technology. What's the verdict? Brian Cauble, one of our partners and head of SEM/SEO, spills the beans on the good, the bad, and the fine print of using AI in online ad campaigns and content marketing.
Hubspot's State of Generative AI report found that 72% of marketing and business professionals say AI tools help them pull insights from data they otherwise wouldn't find. AI tools can process vast amounts of data, turn the insights into action, and adjust your bidding strategy automatically.
AI can help brands deliver the right message to the right people to drive engagement and conversions. It uses data to optimize ad spend allocation and refine targeting strategies in real time. The increased precision and efficiency help advertisers increase ROI.
Google Ads's self-learning AI technology, AlphaGo Zero, analyzes historical data to identify trends and patterns. It uses the insights to inform targeting, helping advertisers determine the best way to reach potential customers and ensure more relevant people see the ads.
"Advertisers have moved their bidding strategies almost exclusively into the AI world," says Cauble, "In the past, you bid on a keyword-by-keyword basis, which was laborious and time-consuming. AI software is better and faster at tasks like data analytics and testing multiple variations of an ad. Using AI technologies to run an ad campaign is now a basic requirement."
– Brian Cauble, Head of SEM/SEO Strategy | The Spot On Agency
AI can quickly gather and analyze vast amounts of data — helping you spot trends, adapt to algorithm changes, and make timely decisions. The data-driven approach takes a lot of guesswork out while allowing you to pivot at the drop of a hat to maximize revenue-generating opportunities.
"AI technology conducts thousands of tests quickly to figure out what message converts whom," says Cauble, "With AI driving most decisions and ad managers making fewer granular ones, brands must set up proper conversion tracking and feedback systems to understand if the technology is performing, especially in healthcare digital marketing where the sample size is small and the sales cycles are long."
– Brian Cauble, Head of SEM/SEO Strategy | The Spot On Agency
Advertisers can use AI to generate ad content and test variations quickly. For example, an AI program can scan your website and create ads based on the content. You may also give the software a few headlines and descriptions to refine an ad. A recent experiment found that using AI to design ads for subscriber growth helps reduce the cost of contact acquisition by as much as 300%.
Additionally, you may use AI programs to support your content marketing efforts. For example, we've used them to create rough SEO content briefs and outlines, write initial emails and copy ideas, and streamline interview transcripts for thought leadership pieces.
However, AI isn't the magic pill for solving all your healthcare digital marketing woes with one click.
AI-generated insights are only as accurate as the data you feed into the system. It may fail to achieve the desired outcomes if you provide incorrect or incomplete data about your target audience and customers. Moreover, AI-generated campaigns often lack creativity — you still need the human touch to create relevant and relatable ads that resonate with your audience.
AI software isn't equipped to understand the healthcare tech audience and create specialized content to address these niche topics. Plus, relying solely on AI may do more harm than good — Google's June 2023 update caused significant traffic and rankings drop for brands that use mostly AI-produced content and cheap backlinks.
So, what has been on our mind lately? Here's what we consider as AI plays a more prominent role in healthcare digital marketing.
These large language models (LLMs) can solve natural language processing tasks like text classification, question-answering, and more. They understand search queries' meaning and context, allowing users to ask questions without worrying about keywords.
Generative AI in search delivers relevant and personalized results directly on Google's search engine results pages (SERPs). To adapt to this next level of zero-click search results, brands must create high-quality content that closely matches user intent to increase visibility and drive traffic.
As Google ups its ante on delivering high-quality, relevant information to its users, websites using low-quality content pumped out by AI programs will lose their rankings. Reputable healthcare digital ad agencies must stay on top of algorithm changes to help clients win the search engine marketing (SEM) long game.
Marketers must deliver high-quality and user-centric content that appeals to the interests of their target audience while optimizing their website's user experience to address every stage of the customer journey. Working with a top healthcare digital marketing agency that understands the industry and your audience will be critical for the success of your campaigns.
We've seen AI work well but also fail spectacularly. "I've seen instances where companies get tons of cheap traffic, but none was converting," says Cauble. "We've used a program to run several campaigns on a shared budget and shift the allocation automatically based on results." This ability to pivot quickly has proven key to advertising success.
AI is excellent at sorting through data, but it only provides quantitative insights. "You still need to put on a qualitative filter," says Cauble.
"When you work with a healthcare digital ad agency, an ad manager will interpret the analytics and adjust your campaigns. Our account managers also help our clients understand the results and make informed decisions. For example, we look at their databases and see if they get high-quality leads from their ads — not just traffic."
– Brian Cauble, Head of SEM/SEO Strategy | The Spot On Agency
AI can help or hurt your healthcare digital marketing campaigns — you must apply the technology strategically and use it to augment human insights and experience instead of replacing them. A top healthcare digital marketing agency combines advanced software with industry experience to help you maximize ROI.
Spot On helps healthcare SaaS companies develop and implement healthcare digital marketing strategies. We work with you to create on-point advertising that resonates with your target audience and leverage the latest ad tech to drive conversions. Schedule a meeting to see how we can help.
