As small business owners explore uses for AI-powered applications, from automating workflows to customer insights, some have come to view the technology as a means to becoming more competitive against their larger counterparts.

"Generative AI is arming smaller companies with once unattainable capabilities, which, if used strategically, may make the playing field more level," explains an article in the Harvard Business Review (HBR).

One area where AI has such potential is advertising.

Small businesses can use AI to perform the kind of tasks that otherwise could require outsourcing or the addition of a specialized employee — for example, creating effective ad copy and images, ad placement, budget optimization and other strategic guidance.

"You can even use AI to scale up ad creative almost instantaneously, or spy on your competition's ad strategy," explains Mike Kaput, chief content officer for the Marketing AI Institute.

Read on to see how AI technology can help create, support, and guide your advertising strategies, potentially giving your small business a competitive edge.

Content Creation

There are AI applications and tools that can help small businesses create a range of content in a variety of formats, from copy to videos, and for many that can be a game-changer in terms of enhancing their marketing capabilities and effectiveness.

"Producing high-quality, consistent, and engaging content has often been a luxury beyond the reach of small and midsized enterprises (SMEs)," says the HBR article by Oguz A. Acar and Andrés Gvirtz.

"But now, even a neighborhood boutique can leverage generative AI to create vivid product descriptions and imagery, as well as ads, all while keeping costs at bay," write Acar and Bvirtz, who teach marketing and innovation at the business school at King's College in London.

AI technology can help your business create partial or full ads based on your goals, says Kaput in a post on the Marketing AI Institute's website.

Further, he says, AI-powered systems leverage neural language processing (NLP) and natural language generation (NLG) technologies to create ad copy that performs as well or better than human-written copy and in a fraction of the time and at scale.

"AI tools today excel at generating all different types of marketing language, and that includes the short, punchy copywriting that often succeeds in digital advertising."

Also, there's AI technology that can give you insight into how to fine-tune ad copy, including headlines, based on your target audience.

Customized Ads and Placement

While AI use isn't new in advertising, the development of generative AI marked a significant industry shift from previous approaches, explains Jay Richman, vice president of creative experiences for Amazon Ads.

He pointed to Amazon Ads' generative AI tools, which can create highly customized ads for businesses on the site. "This ability allows for the generation of unique and engaging ads tailored to specific audiences, going beyond traditional advertising capabilities."

In October, Amazon Ads introduced two new creative studio and audio generator tools "designed to lower creative barriers and expand opportunities for advertisers to scale their reach." 

"By building a suite of self-service, AI-powered tools, Amazon Ads is enabling brands of all sizes to create engaging content across media types and eliminating boundaries across ad formats," according to the Amazon Ads announcement.  

Also, the site us AI-driven technology to help businesses create a more cohesive customer experience by seamlessly integrating their ad creative into their Brand Stores, and that fosters a sense of continuity between the campaign and landing page, says Richman.

Budget & Guidance

Performance optimization and data analysis are already used by social media and marketplace platforms to offer businesses suggestions for improvement. But AI systems make this even more efficient, explains Kaput at the Marketing AI Institute. 

He pointed to AI-powered solutions that can guide your spending across channels and audiences, and further, automatically adjust your advertising budgets to hit Key Performance Indicators (KPI).

"We know of at least a few AI systems that look at your past audiences and ad performance, weigh this against your KPIs and real-time performance data coming in, then identify new audiences likely to buy from you," Kaput adds.

Another example comes from Richman at Amazon Ads. "Advertisers leveraging AI-generated images are able to strategically allocate their budgets toward those that perform the best," he said in a Q&A blog on the site. "This practice not only optimizes resources but also helps enhance overall campaign effectiveness."

For more on small business advertising, see this refresher on a few advertising basics. Plus, read how businesses are using AI in specific industry sectors.