AI (Artificial Intelligence) a term that everyone comes across now and then, these days is the simulation of human intelligence in machines that are programmed to think like humans and mimic their actions. It’s the new-gen technology and while many companies have implemented it into their plan of action, many are still conflicting on the idea of its implementation. According to the survey by grand view research, the global artificial intelligence market size was valued at USD 39.9 billion in 2019 and is expected to grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 42.2% from 2020 to 2027. The continuous research and innovation directed by the tech giants are driving the adoption of advanced technologies in industry verticals, such as automotive, healthcare, retail, finance, and manufacturing. However, technology has always been an essential element for these industries, but AI has brought technology to the center of organizations.
Now moving to the second part of the topic that is performance marketing. It is a term used to describe online marketing and advertising programs where advertisers pay programs in which advertisers (a.k.a., “retailers” or “merchants”) pay marketing companies (a.k.a, “affiliates” or “publishers”) when a specific action is completed. These actions can include a generated lead, a sale, a click, and more.
We were privileged to have an opportunity of listening to Chris Wexler, CEO of Krunam – a company founded to fight Child Sexual Abuse Material. Along with him, we had our moderator Aji Issac Mathew, CEO of Digital Marketing University, and Indus Net TechShu.
Krunam was started with the initiative to use technology to help children around the world. Before getting into the discussion on the topic, let’s get to know the story behind the unique name “Krunam”. So the name Krunam is actually taken from the name of a woman from northern Thailand, Kru Nam who was a street artist. She started a community that has now saved thousands of non-state children from their abusive fronts. So the company was named after her as an honor to the amazing deeds that she had done.
Chris gives us an estimate of over 65 million instances of child sexual abuse material being discovered on open websites like Facebook, Twitter, Google, and many similar websites last year. The tools that everyone uses to get through work are actually being used by predators to abuse children to make a profit out of it. It was important to safeguard the interest of the parents as well as the children and the only way to overcome this was the implementation of AI( because the scale of these events is actually very large and they can only be controlled through AI).
Aji added a very valuable point to the discussion i.e, in the days to come the communities within a brand will play a very vital role in marketing, and these communities will only thrive if they are open and the user-generated content is allowed. He quoted “You can beat a product, You can beat pricing, You can beat a service but you can’t beat a community. So any brand which has a strong community can easily beat a brand that doesn’t have one.
Chris talked about the importance of data, “one is only as good as his data” was something that just makes a whole lot of sense. The earliest decision is the one that has an impact on your months and months if not years down the road, was also something very rightfully said by Chris. The data collected by Krunam is finely labeled by people that are highly trained, but it’s a very time-consuming process due to the sheer quantity of these data. Now what makes it worth it is arranging this data in a systematic manner has actually allowed them to push the boundaries of computer vision which is really great. And what the availability of this data has done is, it sped up the investigation and actually saved kids. The investigators were now free to save these kids which were actually great from an emotional point of view.
The most exciting part of AI and performance marketing is bridging the gap and elongating our understanding of the impact of marketing. With performance marketing, it is important to understand that the clicks are not always accurate and a click doesn’t necessarily mean that the customers are engaging but this problem can be overcome by AI . With the implementation of AI, we can calculate the lifetime value of performance making. It’s difficult to integrate such a large amount of data and this is where AI comes in and makes the job easier.
The biggest challenge that everyone is facing in the present day is the ever-changing technology, where new brains are required to come in and understand how the new technology functions and then on the other side we have people with more maturity at a business level but who don’t understand the technology. So the question is who will drive this change and take care of it and how the two segments are going to function together and make the most out of it.
