Slow economic growth and the grim specter of a global recession are looming. The World Bank suggests that global GDP will slow down this year to its lowest pace in 30 years, not counting the 2009 financial crisis and the COVID-19 recession in 2020.
The tech industry is definitely in a recession. And while all experts might not agree on whether we’re in a recession — or sometimes even struggle to decide on what a recession is — there are two things we can be sure of:
1. Higher interest rates mean less cheap capital floating around.
2. If business leaders think there is a recession, they’ll act like there is one.
In summary, marketing teams will feel the pinch in 2023.
The recession and marketing
Economists tell us that rational actors drive the business world. However, despite plenty of evidence that says they shouldn’t, leaders still respond to economic downturns in somewhat irrational ways.
When recessions are looming, spending comes under scrutiny. In many cases, it’s the marketing budget that gets cut first. You can understand the thinking. Times are tight, so it’s time to get defensive.
Money flows freely during economic booms, and everyone tries to grab it. Ad spending shoots up in the scramble for new customers and expansion.
However, for marketing teams, a recession is always a tough transition. Downtimes mean marketing teams need to make their budget count. Marketing spend is scrutinized, and teams must justify every dollar.
So, you need to be smart to outwork your competitors and post an incredible return on investment.
If only there were a solution for these impossible times.
Oh, wait. There is.
Why advertising robots are here to help you during a recession
Our autonomous robot is built to drive advertising and marketing efficiency. It solves many of the issues that marketing teams encounter during a downturn, such as:
- Maximizing ad budget ROI
- Justifying ad spending to the c-suite
- Doing more with fewer resources and people
While a recession might hurt consumer confidence, it won’t cause the entire economy to collapse. People will still need goods and services and marketing to tell them about available solutions.
Let’s look at how we can help with these recession problems.
1. Maximizing ad budget ROI
Ad budgets are being affected by worries about the recession. Remember, we’re also coming off the back of the iOS14 update and the reduction in third-party cookies. With less personal information to leverage on its users, many ad platforms like Meta need help reproducing the surgical targeting that made their service attractive.
Business leaders have noticed the drop-off. Then, with worries about the recession in the news, they’ll start looking for ways to save budgets. Marketing will typically be one of the first departments to take the hit.
Marketing executives are under pressure. They need to produce a good ROI on their shrinking budgets. It’s not like your boss will shrug off a catastrophic drop in sales because they savaged your budget.
The recession is your time to shine. Automated advertising robots like Amanda AI can help you improve the ROI on your budget by using smart bidding and delivery strategies to put your ads in front of customers who will convert. What’s more, it outperforms manual ad management.
2. Justify ad spending to the c-suite
As the year goes on and the economic outlook worsens, business leaders will put more pressure on marketing teams to justify their ad spend and, in some cases, their jobs.
Advertising automation tools can help you in several ways.
Firstly, they cut out a lot of the mundane and repetitive tasks that are involved with ad creation. Amanda AI scrapes your site for images, copy, and prices and builds ads for you.
The time you save on ad creation can go into other more value-driven work. It can free you up to support your team, focus on client retention, or be a more helpful (and visible) presence in the office.
Secondly, producing a good ROI on your marketing budget is quantifiable. Suppose your investments translate into sales, leads, and other conversions thanks to the superior performance of an advertising robot. In that case, you’ll be able to bring that data into your monthly meeting.
When your leaders propose budget cuts, you’ll be able to demonstrate the revenue costs of those actions.
3. Doing more with fewer resources and people
Job and budget cuts are an unfortunate reality of recessions. Sometimes, money has to be saved somewhere, no matter how convincing a case you make.
Marketing automation services like our robot can help you get more from your resources. It will become like one of the team, which is helpful if you have hiring freezes.
While platforms like Meta and Google have automated ads already, if you want to outperform their results, you can use a combination of approaches.
At Amanda AI, we use an impact-driven effect model, meaning our robot optimizes on the highest probability of conversion, with up to 5 million optimizations daily. Our robot looks at many variables, like audience demographics, behavior, and interests, alongside devices, pixel data, and seasonality.
The result is more performance-driven advertising, better ROI, and better ROAS.
Conclusion
A recession means that most marketing teams can count on less help from the c-suite and company decision-makers. However, they are still under considerable pressure to ensure peak performance. Automated services like ours will save you time in ad creation, help you bid more efficiently, and find the people searching for your product.
