It’s a jungle out there—few places so much so as the world of “smart” advertising.
There, marketing geniuses have developed increasingly sophisticated algorithms that take all the information gathered about you online or from your phone and piece together a customer profile that may include everything from your favorite pair of socks to your children’s names.
Analyzing current market practices, Wicked Reports explored how artificial intelligence, or AI, can be wielded to gather data and make sales predictions across the internet. Some techniques you may know, such as persistent cookies that turn your computer into a ping hub for the websites you visit. Others are much more sophisticated, compiling all of your characteristics by analyzing what you’ve bought in the past, what you’ve put in your cart and abandoned, and what you’ve searched for. From there, advertisers can even make a version of similar customers to market to them as well.
The digital advertising industry is expected to crest $20 billion in 2022. That’s far from enough to crack the top 10 biggest industries in the U.S., but it’s a substantial amount of money—particularly when compared to the big-ticket ad buys of the past in splashy magazine spreads. Companies today are more eager than ever to spend what it takes to bring in ideal customers.
