Brand Networks lets AI run social ads in its new platform

For over a decade, Brand Networks has offered a platform that provided its own tools for advertising on the major social networks. Today, the company is introducing Iris, a new platform that employs artificial intelligence to assist marketers’ campaigns, utilizing the existing ad-buying tools on Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, Twitter, Pinterest and LinkedIn. The strategy, the Boston-based firm says, went from “let’s build the best Facebook and Snapchat tools in one platform” to “let’s build tech that takes advantage of the free tools” now available on the platforms while using AI to improve performance. CEO Dave Fall told me that the native tools on the social networks “evolved and became quite good.” Now, he says, the new platform utilizes those existing tools, so the marketer declares the goals and the total spend, and the platform does “everything else.” That “everything else” includes campaign flighting, performance assessment, budget management, bid management and optimization within each social network, as well as recommendations on how to optimize advertising return across all the networks.