No matter your exposure to digital marketing and its unique vernacular and jargon, it won’t be long before you come across the phrase ‘performance marketing.’ Is it clever marketing lingo? Is it just a fancy term for ‘digital marketing’? Or, is it a specialised discipline that has evolved in the digital marketing landscape?
Rest assured, when you hear the term ‘performance marketing’ it is not just ‘sales talk’ but rather a specific way of applying digital marketing expertise to particular business objectives.
What is Performance Marketing?
A performance marketing approach is multi-channelled and results-driven, focusing on measurable proof and data-driven insights that will align with a client’s big-picture marketing objectives and business growth strategy. (That is quite a mouthful!).
Defined simplistically – performance marketing is marketing based on performance (measurable results) and it comes down to a ‘pay-for-performance’ approach. The risk is reduced, the goal is clear, and the ROI (return on investment) is absolutely measurable.
It is still all about managing an Ad campaign. But because it is data- and results-driven, it offers holistic and valuable insights into the performance of ad campaigns and allows for optimization and increasing ROI. Thanks to readily available digital technology, campaign metrics are constantly tracked, analysed and reported, giving valuable behind-the-scenes information. This is fundamental for any online business when it comes down to the bottom line.
You really need these Performance Marketing ‘geeks’ to partner with you and open up the real world behind marketing campaigns.
A Performance Marketer will focus on:
- Email marketing
- Conversion rate optimisation
- Search engine optimisation
- Content marketing
- Social media marketing (excluding organic posting)
- Marketplace Advertising
- Google Advertising
- Data analysis
When do you need a Performance Marketing Agency?
So, what does this have to do with you, and why should you care?
If you have a marketing budget and your goals are focused beyond mere brand awareness, then a Performance Marketing Agency is your ‘go-to partner.’ As a business, you are focused on specific actions to scale and grow your business – a lead, a sale, a sign-up or a click – and as an agency, it is their job and focus to drive and deliver these results.
They are like your digital ‘Wall Street tribe,’ surrounded by the confusing and complex world of monetised acronyms (CPIs, CPMs, CPCs, CPLs, CPVs etc.). You entrust your online digital budget into their hands, and they ‘trade and invest’ your money in the digital online space to get the best ad results and ROI in the short term and the long term.
Their service offering will include:
- Multi-channel expertise
- Real-time measurement of ROI
- Expertise in delivering online results
- Identifying opportunities for optimisation
- Recommendations for campaign improvements, etc.
Because a Performance Marketing specialist’s focus is on tangible insights and measurable results, user engagement rates, audience reach, insights and impression values, and click-through rates can all be monitored, contributing to the success and effectiveness of any ad campaign. An Agency that understands this is a powerful addition to any client’s marketing strategy.