February 11, 2025
Platforms like LinkedIn and Meta are looking to AI for the enhancement of ad targeting for users. But there are serious questions to be asked about whether this is helping brands deliver their messaging to the optimal groups, or whether it’s just a way of farming clicks for the platforms to justify you spending more and more.
Meta even has a default audience expansion that goes beyond your intended audience (make sure you untick it before pressing go) – and LinkedIn is desperate for you to use their ‘audience expansion network’. But this sounds like click farming, which makes them look good and encourages you to spend more with them.
Stop. Don’t do it. You don’t have to search deeply to find the cynicism directed at this – Reddit is awash with people who use ad managers and with a bit of digging have uncovered the complete waste of money these things can be – you have no control over the delivery – who it’s going to and where, and so your ad spend waste-rate will be increased.
For a generic brand awareness exercise, especially in B2C, perhaps there is merit at times – but the B2B world especially should be very cautious when using these tools. It takes marketers long enough to sift through a list of leads that aren’t relevant as it is – the LAN on LinkedIn could exacerbate this.
‘We want to help’
Often find the platforms bombard you with emails about how to enhance your campaigns? Yes, some hints and tips can be valuable, but it’s also a desperate attempt to get you to use new underdeveloped AI tools.
LinkedIn’s new AI ad creation tool is a brave venture, aiming to cut the time you need to spend on creatives – but these don’t consider brand guidelines and purely rejig a few elements of ads you’ve already done. Sure, there needs to be some consistency in the ad sets from a brand perspective – but variety is important and that comes from knowing what your audience wants.
LinkedIn itself states that: “We use AI to predict the buyers most likely to convert and to help build creatives tailored to your business.” No one knows who is most likely to convert other than the customer themselves – LinkedIn’s evidence for knowing this is not actually available as far as we’re aware. Plus we now know from LinkedIn themselves that video is the best performing ad format – this needs to be from the brand, not rehashed.
The basics of social media advertising shouldn’t require advanced tools and AI intervention:
- Know your audience and cut your cloth accordingly
- Devise a content strategy that resonates – using a variety of formats
- Ensure its longevity covers all touchpoints
- Monitor CTR, engagement rate and reach
Those can all be managed by you, daily. If you need help getting started – let us know, we can help!