Shropshire marketing agency embraces AI amid the rise of automation
A Shropshire digital marketing agency is reshaping its operations with AI, harnessing the tech to deliver smarter results for its fast-growing client base.
Newport-based Ascendancy is actively embracing a culture of AI use for all team members within the company, focusing on areas such as content creation, ideation, and data insights.
Mary Harris, of Ascendancy, said: “We are excited about the future of AI and how it can enhance our work for clients. This emerging technology is sure to have a significant impact, and Ascendancy will play a major role within it.
“We are focused on a shift from tactical skills to more strategic, creative and analytical capabilities, concentrating on the human expertise needed to guide and interpret AI, rather than performing the manual tasks it automates.
The team is prioritising four key areas, the first being Strategic direction: a focus on providing AI with clear, measurable business goals - such as specific return on ad spend or the number of leads to ensure the delivery of client objectives.
“Secondly, we are developing our skills to build strong creative visions, with the ability to brief AI on brand guidelines and managing a wide variety of high-quality images, videos and headlines for AI to test and combine dynamically,” added Mary.
“The third key area is prompt engineering. The team is actively upskilling in how to brief generative AI tools. This involves crafting precise prompts to guide the AI in creating relevant, high-performing ad copy and creatives that align with a client's brand voice.
“The final key area is data Interpretation. As AI provides more complex data and reports, our role is to understand the ‘why’ behind the results. We're focusing on interpreting these AI-driven insights to make strategic decisions.
“This ongoing technological revolution requires the ability to constantly adapt and has led to a necessary change in thought and work patterns within the company in order for our team to continually be ahead of the game when it comes to looking after the interests of our clients.
“The main change to work patterns is shifting from tactical execution to strategic direction. In the past, a significant amount of time was spent on granular, time-consuming tasks, such as manual keyword research, audience segmentation, A/B testing ad variations, and manually adjusting bids.
“Now, with AI having the ability to automate these repetitive tasks, our work patterns have evolved. We spend less time on manual implementation and more time on higher-level strategic functions.”
Daily work at Ascendancy is now centred on three main strategies: Managing the inputs, where they focus on ensuring AI has the best possible ingredients to work with, overseeing automation, meaning they act as strategic supervisors for AI, guiding its direction and ensuring its outputs align with the overall brand strategy, as well as ensuring use of AI is ethical and being transparent about when it is used, and the third main focus is on analysing outputs.
A significant portion of time is dedicated to analysing performance, interpreting the complex data provided by AI platforms, and translating those insights into actionable steps for clients.
Mary said: “Advances in technology keep coming thick and fast, and AI is the latest major revolution to make such a difference in the world of digital marketing.
“Our Ascendancy team is fully embracing these ground-breaking changes to ensure we are always leading the way when it comes to ensuring our clients reap the full benefits.”
