Kentucky SMEs see 4.5× ROI using AI‑powered ad tools
The problem
Small businesses must acquire customers efficiently, yet creative testing and targeting consume scarce time. Many Kentucky SMEs advertised across Facebook and Instagram but struggled to keep up with constant creative refreshes, audience changes, and reporting. The core question: can AI‑powered tools deliver better outcomes—more leads and sales—while reducing manual work?
The AI solution
AI features inside mainstream ad platforms helped SMEs automate heavy lifting:
- Creative assistance to generate variations of headlines, images, and calls‑to‑action while maintaining brand guardrails.
- Advantage‑style audience expansion and lookalike modeling to reach more relevant customers.
- Budget and placement optimizations that shift spend toward higher‑performing combinations in near‑real time.
- Automated insights that summarize performance and recommend next steps without deep analyst time.
Owners and marketers set goals (leads, online sales), provide core assets, and review weekly reports. The result is more systematic testing, faster iteration, and better allocation of limited budgets—especially for solo marketers.
Results & metrics
- Across 33,000+ Kentucky small businesses, campaigns averaged roughly $4.52 in revenue for every $1 spent.
- Teams reported time savings on creative iteration and targeting, with the platform’s AI handling repetitive work.
- Better measurement and consistent, small experiments reduced wasted spend and improved confidence in scaling winners.
These outcomes align with what we see in SMB rollouts: faster cycles, clearer insights, and improved return on ad spend when teams standardize workflows and review KPIs weekly.
Lessons for SMBs
- Start with one objective (lead form submits or online purchases) and a modest daily budget. Let the system learn; don’t change too much too fast.
- Feed the algorithm clean conversion signals—instrument forms, thank‑you pages, and offline conversions where possible.
- Run structured tests: one variable at a time, weekly review cadence, and a simple “promote/park” decision framework.
Learn more
Read the full case study: The Bottom Line (Kentucky Chamber): From Local to Global (May 27 2025)
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