Forecast: Invalid Traffic to Cost Advertisers $71 Billion in 2024

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Hi AI Pro!

Kore.ai announced major funding news today for the company, which provides a generative AI platform designed to improve customer experiences and streamline business tasks.

TODAY’S AI-POWERED MARKETING UPDATE:

• Top News: Kore.ai Lands $150 Million Investment Round Led by FTV Capital

• Survey Results: 94% of Marketers Prefer LinkedIn for Social Media Campaigns

• Ad Tech Trend: Forecast: Invalid Traffic to Cost $71 Billion in 2024

• AI Regulation: Big Five Tech Firms Face Order by FTC to Disclose Info on AI Partnerships

• Today’s Master Marketing Tip: Jon Buscall, CEO of Moondog Marketing

TOP NEWS

Kore.ai Lands $150 Million Investment Round Led by FTV Capital

Kore.ai, the provider of a conversational and generative AI platform designed to automate business tasks and improve customer experiences, on Tuesday announced it has raised $150 million through an investment deal led by FTV Capital.

Kore.ai offers a no-code platform that helps companies “safely” power business interactions with AI, while driving revenue and cost savings. For conversational virtual assistants and generative AI applications, Kore.ai's technology supports purpose-built workflows, with an open architecture that gives teams the ability to craft custom solutions or deploy pre-built, domain-trained virtual assistants.

"Sitting above the infrastructure layer and LLM chaos, our open approach grants businesses freedom of choice with built-in guardrails for effective AI implementation,” said Raj Koneru, founder and CEO of Kore.ai.

Gartner forecasts the conversational AI market to reach $377 billion in revenue by 2032—up from $66 billion last year, driven by demand for enhanced customer experiences, streamlined business operations and innovative applications that address specific business tasks.

SURVEY RESULTS

Survey Finds 94% of Brands Prefer LinkedIn for Social Media Campaigns

A new survey by GoodFirms, the provider of a B2B ratings and reviews platform, found that 94% of marketers prefer LinkedIn among all major social media platforms for conducting campaigns, followed by Instagram (71.4%), Facebook (68.3%), Twitter (61.9%), YouTube (42.8%), Tiktok (33.9%), WhatsApp (25.6%), Reddit (21.5%), and Pinterest (6.5%).

The survey queried 650 businesses to understand trends among social media marketers, as well as best practices for creating effective campaigns.

“Evolving trends, customer preferences, rising competition, and privacy concerns are the significant challenges marketers face while implementing a social media strategy,” according to GoodFirms.

“Additionally, the research reveals the top tips on social media marketing: know your audience and omnichannel presence, measure your social media marketing efforts, engaging and exciting content, include entertainment, implement social listening, AI-powered personalized content, and post frequency.”

Fifty-one percent (51.7%) of the survey participants disclosed that they’ve used ChatGPT to create social media content.

AD TECH TREND

Forecast: Invalid Traffic to Cost $71 Billion in 2024

Lunio, the provider of an invalid traffic (IVT) prevention solution, has published a new white paper which estimates that $55 billion in ad spend was lost to IVT in 2022 and further forecasts that $71 billion will be lost to in 2024.

The company reports that it evaluated a sample of more than 2.6 billion paid ad clicks from its own customers’ campaigns over the course of 12 months, which revealed that nearly 1 in every 12 (8.5%) of all paid traffic website visits were invalid.

According to Lunio, Google’s ad revenue in 2022 amounted to $224 billion. Applying an IVT rate of 5.5% averaged across all Google channels, this equates to $12 billion wasted on Google ads in 2022.

Moreover, Google’s ad revenue this year is forecasted to amount to $302 billion, an increase of 34%. Applying the same estimated IVT rate of 5.5%, this equates to $16.6 billion forecasted to be wasted on Google ads in 2024.

With regard to social media ad spend in addition to Bing search ads, in 2022 they accounted for approximately $230 billion combined, according to the report. Applying an IVT rate of 17.5% averaged across all non-Google channels, this equates to $42 billion wasted on non-Google channels in 2022.

In 2024, global social media spend is projected to surpass the $300 billion dollar mark for the first time. In the same year, Bing is expected to generate $13 billion in ad revenue. Assuming the same IVT rate as in 2002 of 17.5%, this equates to $55 billion forecasted to be wasted on non-Google ad channels in 2024, according to Lunio.

In terms of recommendations for mitigating losses due to IVT, the Lunio report advises focusing on precise audience targeting, primarily through exclusions. As an example, the company points out IVT on LinkedIn can be reduced by excluding certain locations or specific job titles.

“Ideally, brands should adopt a diversified marketing mix that includes both demand capture (e.g. Google Search) and demand generation (e.g. social brand awareness campaigns), but with a strategic approach to mitigate wasted ad spend due to invalid traffic,” the report’s executive summary concludes.

AI REGULATION

Big Five Tech Firms Face Order by FTC to Disclose Info on Partnerships

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has ordered five of the world’s biggest tech companies—Alphabet, Amazon, Anthropic, Microsoft and OpenAI—to disclose details about their various strategic partnerships srelated to cloud services and generative AI models.

Among the issues the FTC seeks to clarify are the practical implications of specific partnerships or investments, including decisions made on new product releases, governance or oversight rights, and the topic of regular meetings among the big tech companies.

“History shows that new technologies can create new markets and healthy competition. As companies race to develop and monetize AI, we must guard against tactics that foreclose this opportunity, “said FTC Chair Lina M. Khan.

“Our study will shed light on whether investments and partnerships pursued by dominant companies risk distorting innovation and undermining fair competition."

The commission also said it wants to know more from the five tech giants about “competition for AI inputs and resources”—in other words the data and sources which are essential for training AI models and making them valuable.

Separately in this regard, the U.S. Copyright Office plans to release three reports this year about whether some AI models infringe on legal copyrights, or if they fall within fair use.

A growing number of lawsuits recently filed by large publishers including the New York Times, as well as individual authors, have claimed their copyrights were violated by AI models that appropriated their content as inputs without permission.

TODAY’S MARKETING MASTER TIP:

GET YOUR BRAND REFERRED TO ACTIVE, ENGAGED, TARGETED READERS:

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THAT’S ALL FOR TODAY, FOLKS!