In recent months, we have seen Microsoft try to make a couple of its interesting Garage projects a bit more mainstream. The SMS Organizer app, originally only available in India, began rolling out to other regions in August, including the U.S., the UK, and Australia. Some weeks before that, the Redmond firm's travel app Outings graduated from the incubator program, with its features being integrated with Bing.
Now, Microsoft has unveiled a new Garage project, dubbed Digital Marketing Center. The tool is powered by artificial intelligence, and is aimed toward the automation of digital marketing for small and midsize businesses (SMBs).
The idea behind this project was first realized by a small team, led by Program Managers Prince Bajracharya and Rosé Dorleans, that works in Microsoft Advertising. The people involved observed SMBs for a while and came to the conclusion that many of them were unable to cope with the various demands of digital marketing, and therefore, gave up on it altogether.
This is where Digital Marketing Center comes into play. Its primary focus is to make the whole process significantly more efficient for these businesses. Essentially, it provides a consolidated social media management experience with a quick advertising campaign setup and automated content and budget optimization. It can be utilized across a variety of platforms, including Microsoft Advertising, Google Ads, Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. The initial phase won't actually span across Twitter, though support for that and additional platforms will arrive later.
The key features of Digital Marketing Center have been noted as follows:
Manage search and social advertising with AI that helps automatically improve your campaign
- Create campaigns quickly Set advertising goals to help increase online visits, physical visitors, or calls to your business, then define location targets and a daily budget
- Draft and automate ad content Write a few ads to start, then watch as Digital Marketing Center creates additional ones for you to optimize your campaign performance
- Optimize your ROI with AI Sit back as the AI behind the tool automatically distributes your budget across platforms to help you get the best return on your investment, no need to monitor yourself
- Analyze reports Review key metrics like impressions, clicks, and engagement, all in one place
Manage organic social media from one, simple place
- Create and publish content Draft and schedule content to publish on linked Facebook accounts
- Interact with your customers Like and reply to comments on posts via your Facebook Page and Instagram business account
- Analyze reports Review key metrics like impressions, engagements, and audience growth, all in one place
Those who are part of a business that fits the required specifications can fill out this short survey by the end of the month to participate in the testing phase. Microsoft will also be sharing insights on this project further down the road. For those interested in viewing these insights before they become widely available, they can fill out this form to get a chance to check them out in early access.
