Artificial Intelligence in Advertising (Performance Marketing Roundup April 2024)

This article is part of a monthly series that highlights news and innovation impacting the performance marketing space. 

Before we dive into our April topic on AI, we have a quick update to share from the February Performance Marketing Roundup. While Google began deprecating 3rd party cookies in January, they recently announced a delay to their deprecation plans due to “challenges” reconciling industry feedback. Even though cookies may not be going away this year, marketing leaders should still be investing in CDPs and building first-party audiences to be ready for the cookie’s eventual demise. 

Now, on to this month’s topic: AI advertising headlines.

The rapid growth of generative AI has opened up new opportunities for brands in the areas of content creation, personalization and optimization. A few brands have recently made headlines regarding their use of AI in advertising:

• Meta recently reported its first quarter 2024 results, highlighting a 27% increase in its advertising revenue to $35.64 billion. The company has been making significant investments in its AI infrastructure, which include models to better predict ad relevance for users and tools to automate the ad creation process.

• Google recently announced the rollout of AI-powered creative features in Google Ads Demand Gen campaigns.

• Dove, a brand that has worked to redefine beauty standards, has announced that it will never use AI to create or distort women’s images in its advertising. 

How do consumers feel about ads that use AI?

They’re skeptical, according to a poll conducted by Yahoo and Publicis Media. While 77% of advertisers view AI positively, only 38% of consumers do. The study also found that 53% of consumers don’t know when companies are using AI in ads. When advertisers include disclosures in their AI-generated ads, it promotes increased consumer appeal and trust in the brand. So, transparency and trust is key.