AI Advertising Tools A Guide For Marketers

The advertising landscape is rapidly evolving with Artificial Intelligence. Following Google's recent announcement of new AI ad creation options, it's a perfect time to explore the growing suite of AI tools available to marketers. Major platforms are now embedding AI-powered features to help create impactful ad creatives and refine targeting for optimal campaign performance.

This guide provides an overview of generative AI ad creation tools offered directly by the major digital ad platforms. Note that this discussion excludes the many third-party AI tools also available. If you're not yet leveraging these native AI capabilities, consider experimenting with them to enhance your advertising strategies.

Meta's AI Advertising Arsenal

Meta has integrated a variety of AI-powered creative tools for advertisers. These include features like image expansion, text-to-image generation, AI background creation, text-to-video capabilities, and AI copy suggestions, among others.

Mark Zuckerberg, Meta's CEO, has expressed a vision to fully automate ad generation. This ambitious goal would allow businesses to link their product catalogs, and Meta's AI would then create and manage ad campaigns based on available products and budget constraints.

While this level of automation might seem bold, it has the potential for significant returns. Meta's Advantage+ campaigns are already demonstrating above-average performance for many advertisers. It stands to reason that AI systems, trained on vast datasets of online behavior, could outperform human efforts in certain aspects of ad creation and optimization.

Modern generative AI leverages complex predictive models, analyzing established human patterns in web activity. These systems understand user search behavior, engagement patterns, and online responses. Consequently, AI tools can possess a deep understanding of individual user interests, potentially exceeding human intuition. Exploring these AI features for your Facebook, Instagram, and Threads campaigns could unlock new levels of performance.

TikTok's Symphony AI Suite

TikTok offers a comprehensive suite of AI advertising tools through its Symphony platform. This includes capabilities such as AI ad script generation, image creation, access to trending templates, text-to-video conversion, AI avatars, and more.

Similar to Meta's approach, TikTok’s Symphony suite aims to automate the creation of TikTok campaigns and video clips using just a product description or URL. The system can even extract images from a provided URL to incorporate into AI-generated video content.

The AI-generated content is informed by current TikTok trends and user activity, which can lead to more resonant and engaging ads, ultimately improving campaign results. Additionally, like other social platforms, TikTok employs predictive AI and machine learning for its ad targeting.

X's Evolving AI Ad Capabilities

X, formerly Twitter, is continuously enhancing its AI tools. Its Grok chatbot can now generate images, including ad variations, from text prompts.

The platform can also use diverse inputs like hand-drawn sketches for creative inspiration. Furthermore, X's ad system can generate ad copy and content based on a product URL.

X also provides AI-powered analytics to optimize campaigns, and its ad targeting now leverages xAI frameworks, which is expected to enhance ad relevance.

Pinterest's AI Enhancements for Visual Ads

Pinterest has introduced AI-driven features such as background image generation for Pins, automated image resizing, and creative optimizations, all powered by its AI systems.

These tools are part of Pinterest’s Performance+ suite of ad options, which also includes ad targeting automation and management.

By implementing the Pinterest Conversions API and Pinterest Tag, advertisers can enable Pinterest’s systems to build entire campaigns based on their existing product imagery.

LinkedIn's Comprehensive AI Ad Solutions

LinkedIn has embraced AI extensively, partly due to its parent company Microsoft's significant investment in OpenAI, the creators of ChatGPT.

Consequently, LinkedIn offers AI tools for nearly every stage of the advertising process. This includes visual creation through integrations with Microsoft Designer, AI text generation, and two fully automated campaign types: Performance Max and Accelerate.

The platform also features Predictive Audiences for ad targeting, Lead IQ for AI-powered insights on LinkedIn users (within Sales Navigator), and AI-generated campaign overviews in Campaign Manager.

LinkedIn is also working towards incorporating AI agents into all aspects of its platform, which will further simplify ad creation using its AI tools.

Snapchat's AI Focus on AR and Creative Tools

Snapchat recently unveiled AI-powered smart bidding, allowing advertisers to set a target cost-per-action that Snap's system then works to achieve.

The platform also provides ad copy generation via its Gen AI Copy Generator, text-to-image generation, and is developing text-to-video generation capabilities.

A key differentiator for Snap in the AI space is its AR creation tools. The Gen AI suite for Lens Studio enables text-to-AR object creation, simplifying the AR development process.

While Meta's AR and VR creation elements also feature AI assistance, Snapchat's strong user engagement with AR features may make these tools particularly valuable for advertisers on its platform.

Snapchat also offers AI-generated Sponsored Lenses, providing another cost-effective avenue for brands to utilize Lenses and tap into AI trends.

Google's Expanding AI Advertising Suite

Finally, Google provides an extensive range of AI tools, which were recently updated at its I/O conference.

Google offers fully-automated Performance Max campaigns, AI-powered smart bidding, as well as text-to-image and text-to-video generation tools.

The company has also introduced AI Max for Search campaigns, designed to help marketers better align their ads with AI-guided search queries and secure relevant ad placements.

Furthermore, Google is rolling out a new AI agent that will be accessible across all its ad creation and management platforms, serving as an always-on assistant for campaigns.

Leveraging AI for Ad Success

As demonstrated, a wide array of AI tools is now available to advertisers across major platforms. These tools, built on advanced systematic understanding of user behavior and market trends, can help drive significantly better campaign performance.

At the very least, these AI-powered advertising features are worth exploring and factoring into your upcoming ad experiments.