October 23rd, 2023

For many advertisers and agencies, the most challenging part of a marketing campaign can be simply getting started. Working from a creative brief tends to be an extremely manual process, with teams working in silos, causing miscommunication, unnecessary work, conflicting strategies and more. 

In response, teams are leveraging AI-fueled dynamic creative optimization technology earlier in their workflow. They’re inputting the creative brief they receive from a brand into their DCO platform, where they can set up the steps and modules that will be populated afterward according to what works best for their team. 

This technology also allows advertisers and agencies to move quickly, simplifying the planning process and making cross-team or partner collaboration easier. For example, Savita Lal, director of performance strategy at Canvas Worldwide, has found success with DCO tech in helping unify teams and allowing them to work more closely and effectively. 

“We bring in our programmatic and analytics teams at the beginning of every new campaign to make sure we’re all on the same page and are marching toward the same goals,” Lal said. “We bring those teams together as early as possible — even the Clinch team — and give them a briefing as soon as we can. That way, they can also help us start thinking about creative ways to leverage their capabilities.”

Building workflows with DCO streamlines operations and reduces error

In addition to simplifying early steps with the brief, DCO technology is also helping teams automate phases of their workflow, freeing up time and reducing errors.

“DCO tech essentially takes that lift off of a lot of different teams and partners — it helps streamline what we do,” said Lal. “We share all of our creative with the Clinch team, who helps build creative for us really fast due to their level of tech. And because it heavily relies on tech, there’s also less room for human errors, so it brings us great efficiencies.” 

On top of reducing human error and increasing efficiency, teams are creating hybrid workflows in which they manually handle the strategy, activation and analytics for a campaign but turn to technology for creative iteration and building dynamic templates, for example. 

When the tedious machine work is removed from the equation, creative teams are free to focus more on what they do best — the creative. And while the human value will never be replaced, even that is enhanced by DCO to enable more creative outcomes than ever before.

How DCO tech is unlocking more creative outcomes 

When marketers aren’t implementing any sort of AI in their campaigns, the outcomes are essentially limited by the team’s imagination. However, bringing DCO tech into the mix is unlocking opportunities for advertisers and agencies to iterate further and discover innovative directions. 

“DCO can help you push out a high volume of varied creative messaging,”  said Lal. “That, plus the enhanced targeting capabilities will give you very rich learnings at the end of the day. And then, you can do something about it, and you can improve — you can make tweaks, and it can all happen pretty quickly because of how fast DCO works.” 

A unique aspect of strategizing with DCO tech is the dynamic and flexible way creatives can be managed from start to finish. 

“DCO can help us develop our creative based on what the user is going to be interested in versus another platform that’s more static in nature where you have to make every type of variation you could possibly think of,” Lal said. “What if you miss a segment and a user is actually interested in a cityscape, but you only have nature backgrounds? I think that’s a unique area where DCO can really help.” 

Why the barriers to DCO implementation are lower than advertisers expect

Marketers often assume implementing and utilizing DCO tech is complicated and intimidating, but they often find it much simpler to use than expected.

“I think a lot of people get intimidated and think it has to be really complex, but it can be however you want,” said Taylor West, global head of sales at Clinch. “Once the infrastructure is there, everything can be done with the click of a button. You can move with the market as it’s changing, and teams can collaborate in a way they couldn’t before. We can tag any element within the creative — the image, copy, background, call-to-action or product — and then tie that to an individual user and feed it back to a brand’s CDP or DMP.”

By breaking down the applications of the technology and the various approaches to utilizing it — managed service, self-service and hybrid — teams are realizing that it’s much more approachable than it may have seemed in the past. Teams are implementing DCO tech throughout their campaigns, helping them create practical strategies from their project briefs, build and automate workflows and optimize their campaigns in real time.