Ad Ops & Trafficking
Automated trafficking & naming
Generate trafficking sheets, placement names, and QA checklists.
A Practical Use-Case Map for the Canadian Market
Artificial intelligence is already reshaping every stage of the advertising workflow—from strategy and creative to activation, measurement, and monetization. This reference organizes AI use cases into clear categories and maturity levels, aligning Canada-relevant applications. Use this as a living guide to brief teams, scope proofs of concept, evaluate vendors, and align governance with real-world practice across the Canadian ecosystem.
Ad Ops & Trafficking
Creative spec validation
Automatically validate creative files against tech specs and publisher requirements.
Ad Ops & Trafficking
Pixel/tag governance
Detect broken tags, duplicate pixels, and unauthorized data collection.
Audience & Identity
Cohort inference from on-device signals
Use on-device models to build interest cohorts without raw data exfiltration.
Audience & Identity
Cohort/segment creation (privacy-safe)
Form cohorts from consented data using privacy-preserving clustering.
Audience & Identity
Consent classification & data governance
Detect and enforce consent flags; route data to compliant destinations.
Audience & Identity
Identity resolution & deduplication
Probabilistic/ML-based stitching of users across devices and platforms.
Audience & Identity
LTV prediction
Predict user lifetime value to guide targeting, bidding, and suppression.
Audience & Identity
Lookalike expansion
Find new users similar to high-value seed audiences without direct identifiers.
Audience & Identity
Propensity & conversion modeling
Score users for likelihood to convert, churn, or respond to offers.
Brand Safety, Quality & Fraud
AI-model lineage & bias audits
Maintain lineage and conduct bias/stability audits for ad decisioning models.
Brand Safety, Quality & Fraud
Brand suitability classification
Classify content suitability against frameworks and advertiser preferences.
Brand Safety, Quality & Fraud
Invalid traffic (IVT) & fraud detection
Detect bots, click farms, spoofed devices, and domain/app fraud.
Brand Safety, Quality & Fraud
UGC moderation
Detect toxicity, hate speech, and policy violations in UGC and comments.
Brand Safety, Quality & Fraud
Viewability prediction
Predict viewability before buying; optimize toward viewable inventory.
Commerce & CRM
Call center to media signals
Transform call transcripts into audience signals and suppression lists.
Commerce & CRM
Customer service agents
Automate post-click support and lead qualification with guardrails.
Commerce & CRM
Offer testing & promotion design
Design offer structures and eligibility rules for margin and conversion.
Commerce & CRM
On-site search optimization
Rewrite queries and rank results to improve discovery and conversion.
Commerce & CRM
Recommendation & personalization
Recommend products/content and personalize experiences across channels.
Creative & Content
3D/AR try-on asset generation
Generate 3D models and AR try-ons for products within ad experiences.
Creative & Content
Safety-aware generative production
Generate creative with built-in filters for logos, IP, and sensitive content.
Creative & Content
Synthetic talent/avatars
Use AI-generated presenters or models for scalable creative production.
Creative & Content
Ad copy generation
Generate on-brand headlines, CTAs, and long-form ad copy variants.
Creative & Content
Brand voice/visual guardrails
Check creative against brand guidelines; enforce tone, claims, and visual rules.
Creative & Content
Dynamic Creative Optimization (DCO)
Assemble and personalize creative elements in real time based on context and user signals.
Creative & Content
Localization & transcreation
Translate and culturally adapt creative while preserving brand voice and compliance.
Creative & Content
Product feed image cleanup
Upscale, background removal, and spec compliance for retail product images.
Creative & Content
Video editing & versioning
Auto-cut, resize, and reformat videos per placement specs and performance patterns.
Creative & Content
Visual asset generation
Create product images, backgrounds, and layouts for ads and landing pages.
Creative & Content
Voiceover & TTS
Create synthetic voiceovers for video spots and audio ads in multiple languages.
Delivery & Experience
Conversational ads & chat
Embed agents inside ads or LPs to answer questions and drive conversions.
Delivery & Experience
Dynamic offers & pricing
Adjust offers and bundles based on inventory, margin, and user intent signals.
Delivery & Experience
Edge-personalized CTV ads
Personalize CTV creatives at the edge using household-level context.
Delivery & Experience
Interactive/generative ad formats
Generate scenes, product try-ons, or storylines in real time.
Delivery & Experience
Shoppable livestream co-hosts (AI)
AI co-hosts that demo products and answer Q&A during livestream commerce.
Delivery & Experience
Personalized landing experiences
Adapt landing page content and UI components per audience and context.
Measurement & Attribution
Attention uplift experiments
Design experiments to quantify lift from attention-optimized placements.
Measurement & Attribution
Budget reallocation recommendations
Suggest budget shifts based on marginal ROAS and uncertainty.
Measurement & Attribution
Creative effectiveness modeling
Link creative features to outcomes; recommend variants to test next.
Measurement & Attribution
Cross-channel reach/frequency
Model deduplicated reach, frequency capping, and wear-out across platforms.
Measurement & Attribution
Incrementality test design & readouts
Auto-design geo/PSA tests and produce lift estimates with guardrails.
Measurement & Attribution
MMM/MTA modeling
Estimate channel contribution with marketing mix models and multi-touch attribution.
Measurement & Attribution
Server-side conversion modeling post-signal loss
Model conversions with sparse signals using Bayesian/causal methods server-side.
Media Buying & Optimization
Agentic campaign managers
Autonomous agents that propose, launch, and iterate campaigns with human-in-the-loop approval.
Media Buying & Optimization
Attention modeling
Predict attention/engagement likelihood to prioritize inventory.
Media Buying & Optimization
Sustainability-aware bidding
Incorporate carbon signals to optimize for lower-emission inventory.
Media Buying & Optimization
Bid optimization
Predict win rate and conversion to set optimal bids by placement and user cohort.
Media Buying & Optimization
Budget pacing & anomaly alerts
Auto-adjust budgets and detect under/over-delivery or spend spikes.
Media Buying & Optimization
Contextual & semantic targeting
Classify page/app context and match ads to relevant content without IDs.
Media Buying & Optimization
Keyword expansion & clustering (search)
Discover, cluster, and negative-match queries to capture profitable demand.
Media Buying & Optimization
Retail media bid & shelf optimization
Optimize bids and placements within retail networks and product grids.
Privacy, Compliance & Governance
AI disclosure & watermark management
Insert/manage AI-use disclosures and watermarks per policy.
Privacy, Compliance & Governance
Risk scanning & governance copilot
Monitor vendors/models for risk, drift, and policy compliance.
Privacy, Compliance & Governance
Synthetic data generation (privacy)
Create privacy-preserving datasets for modeling and experimentation.
Privacy, Compliance & Governance
Data clean room orchestration
Automate DCR workflows: schema matching, QA, and analysis templates.
Privacy, Compliance & Governance
PII leakage detection in creatives
Detect inadvertent PII in UGC/creative before launch.
Privacy, Compliance & Governance
Policy & claims review
Scan creative for regulated claims, disclosures, and required suppressions.
Publisher & Monetization
Content quality scoring for LLM answers
Score publisher content for eligibility in AI answers and negotiate monetization.
Publisher & Monetization
Dynamic paywalling
Adjust paywall rules to balance ad revenue, subs, and retention.
Publisher & Monetization
Content tagging & metadata enrichment
Auto-tag articles/videos for better ad matching and archives.
Publisher & Monetization
Yield optimization
Predict floor prices and optimize revenue across direct and programmatic.
Strategy & Planning
Cultural/creative briefs co-pilot
Draft creative briefs from business goals, research, and past campaign learning.
Strategy & Planning
Digital twin of media plan
Simulate campaign delivery and outcomes using sandboxed digital twins.
Strategy & Planning
Audience landscape analysis
Cluster audiences by behaviors and affinities to size opportunities and prioritize targets.
Strategy & Planning
Brand/competitive intelligence
Track competitor creative, spend, placements, and messaging to identify whitespace.
Strategy & Planning
Budget & scenario planning
Simulate spend scenarios across channels with expected outcomes and constraints.
Strategy & Planning
Market research synthesis
Summarize market, consumer, and category reports into insights to inform briefs and strategy.
Strategy & Planning
Trend detection & forecasting
Monitor signals (search, social, content) and forecast emerging trends relevant to brand and media.
Maturity
How proven and operational a use case is in the Canadian market.
- Established — In wide production use with repeatable results; common tools/skills; clear controls and ROI.
- Emerging — Beyond pilots but not yet broadly operationalized; outcomes vary; governance still maturing.
Assessed by: adoption, outcomes vs. benchmarks, operational readiness, governance standards, and stack interoperability.
Are you an IAB Canada member supporting any of these AI use cases in Advertising? Or you have a unique use case you want to share? Submit your details so we can include you on the map.