In the EdTech field, advertising costs are often very high because of attracting new users, testing content, positioning the brand. Whoever does advertising well can create a huge gap with competitors. The case of Headway - a startup EdTech from Ukraine is a typical example: applying AI to advertising production (photos, videos, content), Headway has achieved a 40% increase in advertising ROI and expanded its global influence.

This article will analyze how they do it and the lessons learned for small businesses

Who is Headway?

Headway is an EdTech startup born in Ukraine, with a simple goal: to bring condensed knowledge from non-fiction books to users through summaries, micro-learning, and concise content.

According to Business Insider, Headway will strongly integrate AI into marketing in late 2023 - early 2024: AI-produced advertising , UGC videos with AI, AI images and automated content. ( Business Insider )

Before applying AI, Headway advertised on Meta, Google, TikTok but encountered difficulties due to high content production costs and unsatisfactory advertising performance.

How Headway applies AI to optimize advertising

Headway uses AI tools like Midjourney (image generation), HeyGen / Rask (video / voiceover / translation), D-ID (dub for famous images) to produce advertising content without actual filming.

For example: When they launched the French version, they used AI translation + lip-sync to convert English language videos to French without reshooting completely. 

Thanks to AI, Headway can produce larger volumes of advertising at lower costs. In the first half of 2024 alone, their AI-driven ads reached 3.3 billion impressions, and video ads saw a 40% increase in ROI.

AI-generated ads account for 30-50% of the signups in their user-generated content (UGC) ad campaigns. 

Headway doesn’t just create “lots of ads,” they test multiple variations (images, voiceovers, styles) and use AI to choose the most effective version.

They also use AI to track user behavior and tailor ads to each audience, increasing relevance and reducing wasted costs. 

Lessons for Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs)

Headway's success is the motivation for SMEs to start:

• Automated advertising content creation: You don't need a fancy camera crew, AI can help create creative images/videos quickly.
• Test & Variation: Run multiple ad versions and let AI choose the winner, you optimize costs while maintaining performance.
• Personalize the right customer group: AI helps you segment, choose content that is appropriate for each group to increase the rate of conversion.
• Reduce production costs to invest in creativity: AI helps filter costs, you can use resources for new experiments, more viral content.

GTG CRM - AI Marketing solution helps small businesses do what Headway did

Headway's success comes from their comprehensive application of AI into the advertising process, from content creation, to variant testing, to performance analysis and audience personalization.

If you think that’s only for international EdTech startups, with GTG CRM, small businesses can do the same:

1. AI creates advertising content like Headway

GTG CRM has built-in AI Content Builder, helping you:

• Quickly write advertising content on Facebook, LinkedIn, create SEO-standard titles and descriptions for ads Google
• AI creates images and logos according to commands 
• AI Assistant can also suggest advertising plans or content lines suitable for your business

2. Measure & optimize ROI in real time

GTG CRM has an AI Analytics Dashboard, which helps you:

• Compare the performance of each ad campaign on a single platform
• View clicks, CTR, reach, ... all in the same interface
• AI Assistant can also report which ads are running effectively, suggesting next steps for you

3. Automate the customer care process

With GTG CRM, you can use SEO-standard Landing Pages to collect leads, use Automations to build automatic customer care flows.

For example: Automatically send promotional emails on customer occasions, automatically send welcome messages when customers first visit

In other words, GTG CRM is a streamlined version of “AI Marketing System”, helping SMEs “AI-ize” the entire advertising process without the need for a separate technical team. You can create - run - measure - optimize - take care of customers, all on a single platform.

Conclusion

Headway's case study shows that AI not only helps reduce advertising production costs, but also helps increase performance , scale and personalize for each customer group. A 40% ROI increase is not a lucky number, it is the result of a data strategy + AI + continuous testing.

If you are looking for ways to make advertising more effective, reduce costs and increase ROI - GTG CRM is the ideal platform to start “AI-izing marketing” for small businesses.