Cobiro Raises $2 Million to Launch Proprietary AI Advertising Tool for SMBs

Sudipto Ghosh

December 28, 2017

Cobiro Launches Its Autonomous Google Advertising Service, Powered by AI

In an effort to provide small businesses a hands-free solution to manage and optimize Google AdWords, Cobiro announced a $2 million grant from the European Commision last week.

Cobiro would launch its AI-driven Google AdWords service for small businesses using the newly acquired funding from the European Commission. The service is fully automated allowing small businesses to take advantage of the benefits of Google advertising, without the need for manual work or hire of ad experts. Cobiro’s service autonomously navigates the Google AdWords campaign process by collecting a company’s website data, creating ads and keywords, and placing bids based on the specified budget.

Using automation and AI technology, the service optimizes the small businesses advertising campaigns on Google, adjusting and improving in real-time.

via Cobiro

Imagine you are a lawyer, carpenter, or dentist that wants to reach new customers. As a small business owner, you’re most likely using traditional advertising methods like the yellow pages and the local paper, not Google AdWords. Also, you probably don’t have the budget to hire an agency or access to automation technologies.

Origin of Cobiro: CEO Bo Krogsgaard Narrates the Story

Bo Krogsgaard, CEO of AdWords automation platform Cobiro, sat with us and shared his story on why he started Cobiro.

*Bo Krogsgaard, Co-founder & CEO at Cobiro*

Bo said, “I have been in the digital advertising space – along with my colleagues – since the dawn of Google AdWords, and I know the platform inside-out. We understand its opportunities and limitations and how to put all this together for small businesses to get optimal impact from this great tool. AI and machine learning is obviously key to getting it right, but equally important is the user experience. I spend crazy hours optimizing the user experience for our customers, as this is the best scalable way to make certain we constantly improve the offering.”

Bo added, “As a computer scientist, I am per definition focused on the technical aspect of the business; however, our mission to make small businesses grow has given Cobiro a sense of direction that has evolved in both force and commitment. We know our tech is stellar, but it has been cool to see how both the data scientists and the customer success team are totally stoked about delivering on this mission. Our culture is amazing and getting stronger by the day. I am really proud that so many want to join us on this journey and I am seriously involved in getting this aspect just right.”

At Cobiro, AI is the BOSS

Bo enlighted us on how Cobiro’s autonomous Google advertising suite runs entirely on an AI-powered engine. Bo said, “Cobiro is an autonomous platform for managing and optimizing advertising in Google. It is mainly powered by AI to do the core of the job and we can set up a super professional campaign from scratch within a couple of minutes. We have two types of services, one for e-commerce and one for websites for small law firms, carpenters or dentists and numerous other businesses run by few employees.”

Recommended Read: Facebook & Google: A Media Duopoly Under Scrutiny

He added, “For website customers without a shop, we are doing some really cool stuff. We have trained our neural network on more than 80 million websites and this makes Cobiro able to instantly determine whether you are a carpenter, a lawyer or a magician. At a more accurate level, we can distinguish between different types of lawyers; something making a lot of difference in the campaign setup and therefore reflected in the results of the campaigns our customers are running.”

AI for SMBs: Laying a Level Field for Content Marketing And Advertising Platforms

We asked how Cobiro sees AI-driven Content Marketing And Advertising Platforms adopted by SMBs and agencies? Bo was quick to answer. He said, “I believe there is a big difference between what we see as obvious for SMBs in terms of AI for and what they see themselves. We have made a couple of surveys that clearly indicate that amongst US-based SMBs 61% of them are not ready to use AI. The main reason is that they consider it overkill, expensive and difficult to deploy and perhaps most importantly, they do not have the expertise. This is where we see the opportunity — to help them gain results with AI, without them knowing the details of AI.”

Bo explained, “It is a little like a car that brakes automatically if people are texting or losing focus on driving the car. People are not interested in all the sensors and stuff that makes it brake, however, they are happy it reduces all these small accidents that can actually turn out to be fatal.”

With the intricacies of Google AdWords, this task can be challenging for small businesses to effectively navigate and experience top advertising results. Cobiro’s Google AdWord service empowers small businesses to maximize customer reach in just a few clicks. Cobiro will drive advertising results and grow your business, so you can spend more time and money practicing your profession.

We dug deeper to understand what are the core differences in adoption of AI solutions between big legacy brands and SMBs. Bo mentioned, “From our point-of-view, it is primarily the amount of data available – and price. When larger corporations adopt new tech that incorporates AI embedded into their existing IT-systems, the process can become controversial as many stakeholders join the table. When SMBs are deploying new solutions using AI, it is often without knowing it – and therefore no IT-integration is needed – so they can be up and running within a short period of time.”

Who Leads the AI Race: China or USA

Keenly following the AI market in 2016, we were intrigued to enquire with Bo about the hot AI race in 2018. Would it be the US, or would we continue to see China leading the way even in 2018!

Bo was judicious in his answer. He said, “It is very hard to tell but we see a great impact on both sides. We know all the big tech players, including Baidu, Alibaba, Facebook, Microsoft, and Google are investing heavily in AI and many of them are open sourcing a great deal of it. Google’s acquisition of DeepMind was one of the better moves. Most importantly, we see this leading to economic growth and automation of tasks that are not generating much value or joy and people doing these jobs can now educate themselves to do things that matter more.”

Bo informed that with Cobiro getting $2 million funding to bolster their AI mission, Copenhagen in Denmark is actually picking up on AI as well and is gaining traction to make an impact in the development of AI and surrounding services. We have a long history and tradition in tech and a lot of exceptional universities that support the transformation into AI. I know of a couple of stealth companies in Copenhagen that are driven by some very smart people that are developing stuff that will impact the economy greatly.

Interesting times ahead and not least for Cobiro.

Overview of the Autonomous Google AdWords from Cobiro

Cobiro’s autonomous advertising service for Google Adwords is user-friendly and takes only a few minutes to set up. Users simply enter their website address, budget and geographical area, and Cobiro will advertise accordingly. Cobiro autonomously runs Google ad campaigns with the following features:

Business line identification: Using big data processing and NLP (Natural Language Processing) Cobiro compares the advertiser’s website to millions of accumulated site mappings to identify its main line of business down to industry, sub-industry and specific business specialties. Cobiro NLP supports 39 languages.
Keyword bidding optimization: Using NLP and machine learning Cobiro identifies potential keywords that hold optimal ROI based on bidding prices and target audience interests.
Automatic campaign creation: Cobiro’s automation engine automatically creates a full set of Google advertising campaigns using optimal keywords and ad creatives.
Automated management and continuous optimization: Cobiro’s automation engine and machine learning algorithms continuously analyze performance by measuring cost per click, conversions, and cost per conversion and adjusts for optimal advertising results.

Bo concluded by saying that the company is focused to provide small businesses with all of the advantages that the digital age has to offer by providing them with simple and free services that utilize AI and automation to grow their business. With a widening technology gap, large companies with unlimited resources would continue to take full advantage of digital advertising, while small businesses may fall behind. For now, Cobiro is what modern SMBs could look up to and believe that they too “deserve the same access to resources for a true competitive advantage in the crowded online space.”