Summary
Croud’s early adoption of Skai’s Celeste AI showcases how automation can transform marketing workflows by freeing teams from manual data analysis. By streamlining insights and optimizing budget allocation, Celeste allows strategists to focus on creativity, client engagement, and high-impact decisions unlocking better performance and happier teams.
If you ask any marketer what stands in the way of great work, you’ll likely get the same answer: not enough time to think, plan, and create. Instead, teams are drowning in data, wrestling with dashboards, and spending hours trying to piece together the story behind the numbers. The promise of AI has always been to flip that equation—to automate the busywork so teams can focus on what really matters.
But as new AI tools flood the market, finding one that actually makes a difference is easier said than done. What sets real transformation apart isn’t the tech alone—it’s how it gets integrated into day-to-day work, and whether it can genuinely move the needle for teams and clients alike.
That’s exactly the crossroads where Croud found themselves. Instead of waiting on the sidelines, they jumped in early with Celeste, looking for a way to reclaim time and refocus talent.
To get an inside look at how these changes play out on the ground, we spoke with Beth Mercer from Croud. As one of the earliest agency adopters of Celeste, Beth’s team has seen firsthand how automation can unlock new opportunities—not just for productivity, but for the kind of strategic and creative work that drives real client value.
Interview with Beth Mercer
Beth is the Retail Media Strategy Director at Croud, where she leads strategic planning and innovation for top-tier retail media clients. With nearly a decade at Croud, spanning roles in both the UK and Australia, she has helped shape the agency’s approach to data-driven performance and creative retail solutions.
In this Q&A, she shares what made Celeste stand out, how it has changed her team’s workflow, and what other marketers can learn from her experience.
You and your team started experimenting with Celeste earlier than most. What motivated you to lean in, and what made it feel different from other AI tools on the market?
What initially drew us to Celeste was its remarkable ease of use compared to other AI tools we’d tested, as well as its insular data protection and access compared to other tools that could use our data and questions to learn for competitors. Many AI solutions in the market felt clunky or required extensive technical knowledge to implement effectively. Celeste stood out because it had an intuitive interface that our entire team could adopt quickly without a steep learning curve.
The real game-changer was how it freed up our internal teams from the time-consuming task of digging deep into data. Previously, our analysts and strategists were spending countless hours manually extracting, cleaning, and analysing data before they could even begin the strategic work. Celeste eliminated this, allowing us to redirect that valuable time toward what we do best: developing sophisticated strategies and implementation.
What are some of the ways Celeste has helped your team move faster or work more efficiently, and has that changed how you invest team time or resources?
The efficiency gains have been great, particularly in how we handle deep data analysis. Before Celeste, our workflow involved downloading big data sets, creating pivot tables, running complex analyses, and then interpreting the results. This process that could take days in some cases for comprehensive insights.
Now, those same insights are available at the drop of a hat. We can ask Celeste complex questions about campaign performance, audience behaviour, or market trends and get sophisticated answers immediately. It’s not just about speed, it’s about the quality and depth of analysis we can now achieve routinely and in a way that’s easily replicable.
This transformation has fundamentally changed how we invest our team’s time and resources. We’ve been able to reallocate our most skilled team members from data processing roles to strategic advisory positions. Our analysts now spend their time interpreting insights and developing recommendations rather than generating the data in the first place. It’s created a virtuous cycle where better efficiency leads to better results, which allows us to grow and invest further in strategic capabilities.
You mentioned using Celeste to surface new opportunities. Can you share an example of how that’s influenced your media strategy, or the kinds of results you’re starting to see?
One of Celeste’s most powerful applications has been in budget optimisation and opportunity identification. We regularly ask Celeste where additional budget should be allocated at a granular level, breaking it down by specific products, ad types, and tactical approaches. This level of detailed recommendation was previously impossible to achieve at scale.
For example, Celeste might identify that a particular product category is underperforming in video ads but showing strong potential in sponsored product campaigns, or that certain audience segments are responding better to specific creative approaches. These insights allow us to make precise adjustments that drive meaningful improvements in performance.
Equally important is Celeste’s ability to identify areas where we can streamline and reduce spend. It helps us spot inefficiencies or underperforming elements that we can cut back on, freeing up budget to reinvest in high-performing areas. It enables strategic reallocation of funds that drives overall revenue growth and improved ROAS without adding additional investment.
The results have been great; we’re seeing clients achieve better performance with the same budgets, or maintain performance while reducing overall spend—both scenarios that strengthen their competitive position and our relationship with them. The strategic insights Celeste provides have elevated our recommendations from tactical adjustments to comprehensive growth strategies.
What’s something unexpected you’ve learned from using Celeste that’s changed your thinking or approach, especially in how you think about where humans should focus vs. where AI can take the lead?
The most surprising discovery has been the improvement in job satisfaction across our team.
The reality is that nobody in our industry got into marketing because they love spending hours extracting and manipulating data in spreadsheets. Yet that’s where so many talented strategists and account managers were spending the majority of their time. It was frustrating and in some cases, a waste of great potential and skill sets.
With Celeste handling the data extraction and initial analysis, our team members can now spend their time doing what they’re passionate about and trained for—strategizing, problem-solving, and engaging meaningfully with clients. As a result, people are more engaged, more creative, and even happier in their roles. AI shouldn’t replace humans, but it should eliminate the tedious tasks that prevent humans from doing their best work and the sorts of tasks that will always require human skills.
The sweet spot is using AI to handle data processing and pattern recognition, while humans focus on strategic thinking, relationship building, creative problem-solving, and the nuanced interpretation that requires emotional intelligence and business acumen. It’s a win-win-win scenario that we didn’t fully appreciate when we first started using AI tools.
You mentioned to me that as more traditional levers get automated in an increasingly AI-driven world, creative is becoming even more important. Why is that, and how will that change marketing in the next few years?
Traditional campaign management levers like targeting options, bid strategies, audience selection, and even placement decisions are becoming increasingly automated across traditional digital marketing platforms. There’s no doubt this trend will continue with retail media, as automated campaign types like Performance+ through Amazon DSP are being introduced.
Platforms are taking more control over these elements, giving advertisers less granular control but theoretically better performance through machine learning optimisation. In this environment, creative becomes one of the last remaining differentiators that brands can truly control and optimize. When everyone has access to the same automated targeting capabilities and bid optimisation algorithms, the creative execution becomes the primary factor that determines whether your brand stands out or gets lost in the noise.
The brands that are winning are those with super eye-catching, engaging creative that captures attention and drives action despite the standardized delivery mechanisms.
Looking ahead, creative excellence will become the most critical success factor. Brands will need to invest heavily in creative strategy, testing, and production capabilities. The ability to rapidly develop and test multiple creative variations, understand what resonates with different audiences, and iterate quickly will separate the winners from the losers. Making sure creative is strategically aligned with business objectives, emotionally resonant with target audiences, and optimized for the specific contexts where it will be displayed is key. As the technical aspects of campaign management become commoditized through automation, creative strategy and execution will be where marketing teams can demonstrate real value and drive competitive advantage.
The implication for our industry is that we need to pivot our skill development and resource allocation toward creative capabilities while letting AI handle the technical optimization. The future belongs to marketing teams that can combine creative brilliance with data-driven insights, and tools like Celeste make that combination more achievable than ever before.
For information or to see Celeste firsthand, please schedule a brief demo with our team.
Frequently Asked Questions
Celeste automates the manual work of data extraction, cleaning, and analysis delivering insights on-demand so teams can focus more on strategic planning, creative development, and client impact.
Unlike many AI tools that require technical setup or come with data privacy concerns, Celeste offers a user-friendly interface, strong privacy protections, and instant access to deep insights that fit directly into day-to-day workflows.
Celeste surfaces detailed recommendations on where to cut waste or reinvest budget down to the product, format, or audience level, and enabling smarter decisions that boost performance without additional spend.