Google-Incubated AdLingo Puts Chatbots In Display Ads

The Google-supported startup AdLingo puts chatbots inside of display ads, enabling brands to have one-to-one conversations with consumers.

AdLingo, a conversational marketing platform and part of Google's incubator program Area 120, gives brands a way to connect with consumers as they browse content across Google’s display network through a product called Conversational Display Ads.

The technology turns a static display ad unit into an interactive rich media ad unit, explains Vic Fatnani, cofounder and general manager at AdLingo, who has worked at Google in advertising for more than 12 years.

AdLingo’s technology integrates with the brand’s conversational assistant or chatbot technology. It can run ads on any website eligible to serve a display ad through its marketing platform.

Today, AdLingo works with brands such as Kia. These brand is among the first to test the platform. 

The technology integrates with chatbot tools such as Valassis Digital, Microsoft Bot Framework, Take and LivePerson’s LiveEngage. It focuses on discovery and the challenge of consumers attempting to discover more information about a brand’s products and services.

AdLingo ads running through Valassis for Kia have been generic, with the ad seeking limited info instead of conducting a wide-ranging conversation.

The Kia ads question the consumer about the car they own to estimate a trade-in value, for example, and then offer access to inventory for nearby dealers.

“Brands are just getting started developing a personality,” Fatnani said, referring to initial challenges. “Apple has Siri. Bank of America has Erica.”

And while the focus today remains on display ads across a variety of publisher sites, from media to blogs, the technology, in theory per onlookers, could one day end up as a new search ad similar to the way Microsoft Bing’s chatbot in search works.

“The focus of this technology to solve a very specific problem, discovery, is keeping us busy,” he said. “Down the road there are so many possibilities, but today that focus remains on discovery,” Stephanie Lyras, head of partnerships at AdLingo, told MediaPost.

 

 

 

 

 

And while the focus today remains on display ads across a variety of publisher sites, from media to blogs, the technology, in theory per onlookers, could one day end up as a new search ad similar to the way Microsoft Bing’s chatbot in search works.

 

“The focus of this technology to solve a very specific problem, discovery, is keeping us busy,” he said. “Down the road there are so many possibilities, but today that focus remains on discovery.”

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