• by Laurie Sullivan  @lauriesullivan, June 13, 2024

Data from a Siemens ad campaign released Thursday from LinkedIn provides insight into AI-driven ads, highlighting how artificial intelligence will change the way brands and agencies think about advertising.

Brenda Discher, senior vice president of business strategy and marketing at Siemens, told Media Daily News that when the company used Accelerate, the LinkedIn AI ad technology, it automated the delivery of campaigns to much larger audiences than the company usually targets.

"The campaign was continually updated by the AI tool to target people that were similar to those who engaged with the ads and completing the form to increase performance," Discher said. "Classic campaigns typically have a static audience over the time of the promotion."

The AI platform used descriptions generated from the product landing page and existing LinkedIn buyer data to build the target audience. As people engage with the ad, the targeting is updated to reach similar users. With the audience constantly being updated for the users most likely to click, the cost per click falls.

Discher said Siemens marketers educated the AI tool about its product and the landing page URL for which the team wanted to drive traffic. 

Accelerate consumes the content on the page and summarizes the information, highlighting the key messages.

It then drafts copy and creative based on the summary, creating multiple versions that can be edited to meet the internal brand guidelines. The audience is built using either a contact list upload, previous lead-generation forms or previous conversions. 

The ability for AI to adjust audiences improves the initial engagement to better optimize the campaign, Discher said. This delivered 2.4x increase in visits to the website compared with traditional campaigns, and 120% increase in the completion of lead-generation forms.

Siemens saw a 58% lower cost per click and 79% lower CPM than their classic campaigns.

In terms of lead generation, completion rates were higher -- at 5.66% vs. 2.56%. While the cost per lead (CPL) was on par with classic campaigns, the AI powered ad platform drove better completion rates and productivity through time saved on building campaigns manually in classic.

The new campaign performed well in A/B tests, improved results compared with benchmarks and increased team productivity by saving time in campaign creation.

Siemens, a German multinational technology company, focuses on industrial automation, electrification, and digitalization. The company provides engineering solutions for power, transportation, and medical diagnosis.