For several years, automation has changed the landscape of digital marketing. Advertising platforms with Google Ads and Meta Ads in mind offer us ever more sophisticated solutions, capable of optimizing auction, targeting and diffusion in real time. The algorithms of these platforms therefore allow greater advertising efficiency, both in terms of results and time saving. However, by dint of letting the algorithms take power, do we not risk telling all of the same story?
Creativity, too often reduced to an adjustment variable (a better visual, a more impactful wording), is actually the key element that will allow your brand to differentiate itself. These include having a strategic reflection on a choice of platforms consistent with the user route and personalization of messages so that your targets feel in line with your offer and ultimately meet their needs. Because an effective campaign is not content to optimize kpis, it must also make an impression. So how to combine automation and advertising impact?
Automation: an effective but impersonal engine.
Today, advertising platforms make us the management of advertising strategies more efficient. In a few clicks, we can easily configure a campaign, choose your automatic auction strategy, define audience signals, conversions, valuation and give several combinations of titles and descriptions to our announcements. Once this is done, AI will optimize the campaigns in order to accelerate the achievement of your marketing objectives and maximize your value creation, consistent with your budget of course.
The advantages are clear: reinforced efficiency in terms of results which makes it possible to accentuate our impact on the strategy and the orientation of the algorithm. With more than 2.9 billion research/day (source Google 03/2025), automation offers power without comparison compared to humans on the management of auctions which is done in real time.
But to delegate the management of campaigns too much to automation tools, we take a risk: to lose what makes the singularity of a brand.
The perverse effect of automation: standardization.
If all market players follow the same optimization recommendations, messages become interchangeable. And to rely too much on automation, we risk seeing only advertisements that look alike, produced by cloned campaigns.
And this is where the limit of these tools: if they help to quickly generate conversion, they do not allow to build a long -term identity.
For its part, a media digital plan is not just pushing the right message, at the right time, to the right person (even if it is of course essential). It must also be ensured that this message has meaning, that it values your value proposal, that it is memorizable and that it serves the long -term business vision. We must therefore go back to the fundamentals of marketing in the broad sense.
Creativity: the real differentiation factor.
In a universe where access to tools is the same for everyone, what makes the difference is “the idea”, that we can decompose on these two axes;
Having a differentiating angle: a campaign must be built on a real strategic reflection. For example: why does your brand exist? What need do you answer better than your competitors? What are your differentiating elements? Responding to these questions makes it possible to build a distinctive message, which will not be simply optimized for conversion, but designed to permanently mark the spirits.
Engaging with storytelling and emotion: automation will help you reach the right audience, but it is your message that will create the impact. Emotion plays a decisive role in memorization and commitment. An announcement that makes you smile, which surprises or affects a deep need will be much more effective.
Creativity is also adapting your speeches to the user’s reflection and decision. For example, in its research phase, be present on the Google FAQs, or even offer a YouTube video presenting your product or service. In its advice phase, have quality content on your site and ensure its enhancement via native campaigns broadcast on PQR sites. In its purchase phase, have quality Search announcements in response to transactional requests. We must therefore take care to be present at each stage of his reflection with an adapted discourse which, overall, will constitute a coherent whole.
It is ultimately not a question of opposing creativity and automation, but of finding a balance where humans keep their hands on the strategy.
How to marry artificial intelligence and human intelligence?
The first element to use is not surprisingly the data. Observe keyword and research trends via tools like Google Trends or Similarweb and do not neglect Google Ads reports that can provide you with interesting insights.
This data will help you identify your priority acquisition channels and define your personas. The Cybercity IA team provides their consultants with proprietary tools that facilitate the construction of unique personas in order to be as close as possible to understanding their expectations but also to identify their bread points and the levers to treat them.
Once these elements have been made up, this is where the human being in play by looking for adequate agencies to your targets, defining the speaking, languages and personalized formats that will find a resonance in your targets. Do not hesitate to dare unconventional campaigns and unexpected formats. It is also at this time that the specific objectives of the campaigns must be defined and therefore the conversions to follow to orient the algorithms towards effective diffusion. So, if you want to work on the top of mind, the share of votes, the engagement rate and the rehearsal rate will be essential. If you position yourself on the bottom of the funnel, you will need to maximize your conversion rates as well as your king. And finally, think microphones to facilitate the orientation of the algorithm. It is therefore by the precise understanding of the business issues and by the ability to translate them into digital kpis into campaign objectives that you will manage to establish a media plan adapted to your needs.
The future of PAID Media: hybrid marketing.
The role of Paid Media experts, like many digital trades, is constantly evolving. We are no longer only optimization technicians, but also campaign architects where strategy and idea are essential. The agency/advertiser relationship must be rethought either as a customer/provider relationship but as a partnership where each one brings their stone to the building through its business expertise.
The marks that will come out of the lot will be those which will be able to exploit the power of the algorithms while keeping a strong identity. Automation is therefore an extremely effective lever, but it will never replace human relevance and sensitivity.
Cybercity teams are convinced that each project deserves a tailor -made approach. We thus put creativity at the service of performance to build media plans which are not content to convert, but which permanently mark the spirits.
