Nikita Rvachev, member of the Marketing Guild, founded the international marketing company Aitarget eight years ago.
Aitarget was created at the intersection of the marketing and technology worlds. It writes software for advertisers and marketers to expand campaign effectiveness, as well as helps advertisers produce videos that successfully reach their target audiences.
Rvachev holds the position of Vice President of Product. Under his leadership, Aitarget has created more than ten marketing software products and run over 3,000 effective advertising campaigns for businesses in various markets. Aitarget's clientele consists of many large brands, including Philips, Adidas, La Roche Posay, L'Oréal Paris, and Obi. Rvachev has made a great contribution in the digital marketing industry-innovative, unique products and models introduced by Aitarget are used by many companies within the field.
Nikita told how digital marketing will develop in the coming years and where the attention of advertisers will be directed in 10-15 years.
In its early years, Aitarget specialized in performance marketing-driving concrete, measurable results from campaigns that ran across platforms including Facebook, Google, TikTok, and Snapchat. During that period, Aitarget became a finalist in Facebook's innovation competition for targeted advertising. The Aitarget Tech tool became a breakthrough in improving advertising effectiveness. If earlier bids in platform auctions were all placed manually, while having little idea of how they would work, then with the advent of Aitarget Tech, it became possible to automate this process.
This innovation is being constantly improved by Aitarget and used in the current work of video generation and promotion.
Nikita, what is the principle of operation of the Aitarget Tech tool that you created?
"The main goal of Aitarget Tech is to automate the actions of a marketer. As the number of promoted products, target audiences, and ad messages grows, it becomes almost impossible to manually manage campaigns effectively. Aitarget Tech automates the process from managing bids for impressions and actions, to automatically generating video and image ads."
The effectiveness of online advertising has grown significantly in recent years. Now, every ad impression can be tracked, and targeting tools have become more accurate. Do you agree?
"Yes, advertisers used to run one video for the whole country, in hopes that sales would grow. At the same time, they had little idea of what growth would be due to. Modern Internet technologies allow you to dynamically manage advertising by showing different videos to different people. For example, in an ad for a new car, based on predictable sales figures, you might advertise a red car to some users and a black one to others. Everything is moving towards ensuring that each person sees personalized advertising, with a unique visual and offer.
Although advertising in the modern world is still not 100% effective, using the CTR indicator (the ratio of number of clicks to number of impressions), effectiveness is already up to 5%. That is, out of 100 ads shown to me, I will click on five at best. Huge field for development! Targeting technologies should be such that I am shown not 100 ads per day, but two or three-so relevant that I will definitely click on them and buy something."
How is the Aitarget Tech tool used to increase reach and sales?
"We developed a case for Philips. The task was to increase sales of cleaning complexes in Russia with the help of video ads on Facebook and Instagram. In order to draw the attention of users, we decided to show how polluted the air is in the cities that they live in. In total, it was necessary to cover 51 settlements. The residents of each settlement were offered videos that showed, in real time, how much the pollution level was exceeded. Imagine how long it would take if you did it by hand!"
I suggested implementing it in the following way: Aitarget connected via API to the source of air condition data, BreezoMeter. Once a day, the Aitarget Tech tool updated the data for each city and generated separate videos. Those who saw these videos were then shown a carousel with an analysis of the advantages of cleaning complexes. As a result, users learned about the quality of the air in their cities, and sales of Philips purifiers increased by 664%."
Why did you choose video production and targeting as your specialization?
"In the modern world, the zone of optimization and efficiency is not to whom to show and how much to pay for advertising, but what exactly to show. Objectively, video ads perform significantly better than static ads. That's why we create products related to the visual: this is software that helps businesses make high-quality videos. We also conduct A/B testing-for one product we generate not one ad, but several-maybe even hundreds. We provide these videos to platforms and see which of them work for which audience. Ultimately, the platform shows different videos about the same product to different people."
Aitarget's niche is B2B companies. From the point of view of a Product Director, how does this job differ from the B2C market?
"Our clients are advertising agencies and marketers. From a product point of view, it's more difficult because there are fewer of them. There can be hundreds of thousands of consumers in B2C. In our case, we are talking about tens, maybe hundreds of companies. You can't draw conclusions on big data. Therefore, decisions are made on the basis of hypotheses and feedback."
As Vice President of Product, is the generation and testing of hypotheses your area of responsibility?
"Right. My functions include collecting information, studying the audience, communicating with it, and most importantly, generating hypotheses. It is impossible to predict in advance whether a particular feature or product will be in demand, so an idea becomes a product only after testing hypotheses."
What is the process behind generating and testing?
"First, an idea (product hypothesis) appears. Based on my experience, it seems that such and such service will be in demand. Next comes a series of experiments. We make MVP-a small product that can be easily and quickly implemented. Then we give it to the consumer, collect feedback, and check metrics. If the product is promising, we do a second cycle, improve something, add it, and check the metrics again. Then the idea is transferred to development."
Can you offer an example?
"Suppose we are approached by the owner of an online flower shop. He regularly posts photos of bouquets on Instagram and spends money on attracting followers, but his sales are not growing. He suspects that he needs videos instead of photos, but he does not know how to make them, and there are no extra funds. This is where Aitaret comes in. We begin to dig, find out the details, and as a result, come up with a hypothesis-to offer this businessman a product that could generate a video from existing photos in one click and upload it to social networks. We make MVP, launch, and check efficiency. If we see that sales increased after the launch, then our hypothesis was confirmed and we can send the product for development.
Afterward, we find which businesses have similar pains, and create a universal software product that helps different companies generate video ads."
How do you find relationships between businesses if each is unique in some way?
"We've divided the types of advertisers and the advertising itself. Let's say real estate agencies belong to one type, and clothing sellers to another. The same is true of advertising-performance advertising requires a different approach than branded advertising. The Aitarget team is accordingly divided by competencies.
In addition, we work with individual clients, creating unique products for them. But this is a non-scalable business. From the point of view of development, it is dangerous, because you dig into the product and overgrow with functionality. Therefore, we keep a balance between types of clients."
In the zone of Augmented Reality
Rvachev is a recognized expert in digital marketing. The main thing he relies on in his work is to be on a lookout-to make sure that important signals that move the industry forward do not go unnoticed.
Nikita, where will the advertising industry move in the near future?
"I see two pronounced trends. First, the focus of the audience's attention will continue to shrink. At the present moment, it is very short; no one today will read an advertising article for 7-10 minutes. The standard ad block on TV lasts 30 seconds, but it's desired to be no more than 15 seconds. Ideally, you need to be able to talk about your product in 5-7 seconds. This is a difficult trip for large companies. But they must prevail. Look at how short TikTok's focus is- a video can be 5 seconds long. Obviously, digital advertising will strive for this.
The second trend is in the zone of virtual space. It draws us in more and more, and it is worth considering how advertising will look within. AR/VR is developing very rapidly. Now, everyone is stuck on their phones, but sooner or later we will wear glasses or lenses that will build reality next to us. Whether we like it or not, advertising will also appear there, and either physical or virtual objects will be sold. Even in our current presence, Nike sells virtual sneakers for real money in games and meta-universes."
Are you afraid that the virtual world will absorb people and we will lose communication skills?
"It scares a lot of people, but digital perspectives make me happy. Here we are talking now-I'm wearing ordinary clothes, but it can be redrawn into an original t-shirt. Everyone wants to look more beautiful. Real brands go into this virtual universe to create their products there. Aitarget ventures there, because wherever something is sold, there will always be advertising. We think about how marketing will work in these worlds.
People still strongly separate the concepts of virtual and real. But technology rolls on unnoticed. Everything seems to go slowly, and then-bam! And we live in this world. Elon Musk's company is already developing chips that will be physically embedded in the brain. It sounds scary, but who knows. Maybe this is our future too.
The line between the real and virtual worlds is blurring. We see a big shift in budgets towards virtuality, especially in e-commerce, delivery, and gaming. All businesses will create a virtual presence, which means they will need advertising to accompany these processes.
I remember when Lamoda was launched, skeptics said that it was impossible to buy shoes without trying them on. But people actually do it! Two years ago, we thought that some businesses would definitely not come online. Now everyone is buying virtual apartments, which will be built in only three years!"
How will advertising change?
"It will become more and more personalized. Ideally, we will come to the conclusion that a person will be shown only one product for the whole day: but it will be so relevant for them that advertising will not be an intrusive service, but a real help."
Is your focus only on AR/VR?
"Of course not. You need to look where people's attention is directed. It is not only in social networks and online services, but in other places as well. For example, a person orders food delivery in a special application-his attention is there. There are a lot of businesses that want him to order from them instead of competitors. Opportunities arise for us: to create such a product that a person chooses one pizzeria out of twenty. We are already starting partnerships with such businesses."
On some platforms, such as YouTube, it is possible to pay in order not to see ads. Are you afraid that there will be less advertising in the future?
"In my opinion, good advertising is good, not evil. Before, if I watched TV and they showed me an advertisement for a product that I didn't need at all, for example, diapers, it infuriated me. It was a waste of my time. Now, advertising for me is much more relevant and targeted. For example, I surf, and as soon as the system realizes that winter is coming and a warm surf suit is needed, it starts showing me new technologies, manufacturers, and solutions. For me, it is valuable."
"The structure & vitality of Aitarget"
Rvachev devotes a lot of time to searching for innovative, breakthrough ideas that will allow his company to always be the first in digital marketing. He teaches this to his employees as well. Today, Aitarget employs 130 people from around the world. Priority markets are the United States, Russia, and Europe.
Nikita, how did your functionality change when the company began to grow?
"At the start, there were five of us. I was directly involved in the generation of hypotheses, testing, and iteration. Now my role is to create processes in our product machine and manage a team of product managers.
There is a second, no less important, part of the work-I am focused on observing, looking around, and determining what the world will be like in 10 years. If this is not done, then you can hopelessly lag behind everyone. We want to be the first.
I am interested in the question, 'What will people's attention be focused on?' I assume that this will be augmented reality-that people will spend not six hours in it, as it is today on the Internet, but all 24 hours. Therefore, I am constantly looking for what niches and ideas can become the basis for our business in the future. We have laboratories that test all sorts of ideas, even the craziest ones.
Could you give an example of a 'crazy idea?'
"To show ads to a sleeping person. Today, for us and advertisers, this is an omission-how is it that a person just lies for 9 hours and wastes time without seeing ads? Maybe ads can be shown in dreams. Perhaps this idea in 10 years will not be so crazy, and we will be able to construct dreams.
How are your laboratories monetized?
"We consider them as an investment in the VC world, not as a classic business. We invest in the future of the industry. There is no task to make money in the moment; the task is to try different ideas so that at least some percentage of them reach the state of the product.
How do you distribute competencies in your team?
"Different people work well with different types of products and projects. Someone knows how to work with metrics, someone can make products for specific companies, and someone is in the clouds and comes up with crazy ideas. Our team is divided into groups: developers, project managers, product managers, and laboratory assistants. From time to time, so that people do not get stuck and become bogged down in codes and tasks, we organize internal hackathons, where we drop everything for a few days, leave the city and make a small working product on a specific topic.
Can such products develop into a working service?
"Certainly. At one of the hackathons, we created a product for influencers. Now there are many people who are blogging, streaming, online gaming, etc. They all want to make money from it. We came up with such a system when, for example, 20,000 influencers embed a piece of code into their blog, and the advertiser launches an ad or announcement for all these users.
In the world of technology, competition is fierce-many developers are looking for ideas for the future. How do you compete in such conditions?
"Everything in our business is developing so fast, in terms of both ideas and technologies, that you have to always run two steps ahead. If we made a new product, in a year everyone will have it. Inventions are copied-everyone is watching each other. But the technology world is huge; everything is growing so fast. Because there are so many businesses that need these products, we are not in a situation where we are fighting for market share. There is enough space for everyone."
