The Internet has completely changed the face of marketing. Consumers have the power to conduct their own research and find the solutions that best meet their needs. American adults spend nearly eight hours a day online, so advertisers now must implement digital marketing to reach people where they spend their time.
Businesses can easily reach more people than ever before, and also capture invaluable data that shapes present and future marketing campaigns. Maximize this information by learning how to set up your performance marketing strategy for ultimate success.
What Exactly Is a Performance Marketing Strategy?
With traditional marketing, advertisers purchase ad space up front and hope that they reach the right people with the right message. Performance marketing is when advertisers create digital ad campaigns that earn conversions or clicks. Marketers pay fees based on how many of those conversions or clicks take place.
The main purpose of performance marketing is to incite and track actions while granting ROI to specific campaigns or activities. Performance marketing gives power to advertisers, as they can set their goals based on budget and only pay once they achieve their goal.
There are essentially two types of performance marketing strategies:
- Search engine marketing (SEM): paid ads on search engine results listings deliver targeted ads to the searcher who is actively looking to buy.
- Native advertising: ads that seem to be part of a web page’s content without disrupting the user experience.
All of these ads strive to generate some sort of action on the part of the user, which ultimately drives conversions and helps to increase revenue while maximizing ad spend.
Ways to Measure Performance Marketing
One of the greatest differences between performance marketing and any other form of digital marketing is its ability to provide trackable metrics. Advertisers can capture and analyze every action that takes place with performance marketing. You can see exactly what aspects of your campaign are working, and what areas need improvement. This makes performance marketing extremely effective and impactful because you can ensure you’re delivering ads that yield results.
There are several ways to measure performance marketing, including:
- Cost per mille (CPM): the amount an advertiser pays for every 1,000 times their ad is shown to viewers
- Cost per click (CPC): the amount an advertiser pays each time someone clicks on the ad
- Cost per action (CPA): the amount an advertiser pays each time someone performs the desired action (completed form, downloaded whitepaper, purchased an item, etc.)
- Lifetime value (LTV): the anticipated amount a customer will spend throughout their relationship with the brand
Tracking all of these metrics helps advertisers create targeted, relevant ads that are more likely to convert and generate sales for the business.
3 Benefits of Performance Marketing
Performance marketing is an effective way to promote your business while eliciting specific actions from your audience. It’s also scalable and extremely budget-friendly, meaning small businesses can compete as effectively as major corporations. Performance marketing enables advertisers to be more proactive in reaching their marketing goals and helps to guarantee specific results. Here are three main benefits of performance marketing.
1. Easily Trackable
By design, performance marketing campaigns allow advertisers to easily track results. Through data analytics tools, marketers can know which ads are performing well and what aspects may need changing. From word choice and graphics to placement on web pages, there are lots of ways to improve an ad’s performance for the best results.
2. Minimal Risk
At every stage of the campaign, advertisers can identify precisely what’s happening with performance. This enables them to optimize and course correct as necessary, reducing risk and increasing launch times. With less risk comes more profitability and a better chance of overall success.
3. ROI Centered
The success of performance marketing is centered around ROI. The focus is to attain the best performance, which constantly propels campaigns toward success. This helps promote the brand while generating leads and increasing sales.
5 Ways to Use Performance Marketing Strategies
Advertisers can achieve performance marketing in a variety of ways. Here are five potential strategies to consider for your campaigns.
1. Dynamic Remarketing
Dynamic remarketing enables you to use a prospect’s behavioral data to create and display customized ads that are more likely to convert. If someone visits your site and shows interest in a product before abandoning their cart, you can include that product in an ad to entice the shopper to return and buy. Deliver dynamic remarketing ads via social media networks, display ads on websites, or search engines. The beauty of dynamic remarketing is that the viewer has already expressed interest in your offerings, so they’re more likely to convert.
2. Influencer Marketing
Highly effective on social media, influencer marketing uses online celebrities or personalities to endorse products on their pages to loyal followers. Such endorsements are highly regarded and will often end in increased website traffic, more sales, and higher conversions. Choose influencers based on their impact on audience behavior and consider audience demographics to advertise on the social media platform that’s most likely to reach your target market.
3. Visual Search
Many sites are implementing visual search, allowing visitors to use the camera on their mobile device as a visual discovery tool. Rather than typing in searches, consumers can now hold an object up to their device and technology will transform the image into a search. To capitalize on this feature, advertisers must create more impactful visual content to align with searches and stand out in a sea of digital images and graphics.
4. YouTube Shopping
To keep shoppers on their platform, Google is now posting relevant ads on YouTube’s home feed and search results. They match products to video content and post ads so shoppers won’t visit another page to complete their purchase. Now, when someone searches for a product review, ads for that product can appear alongside the video.
5. Amazon Advertising
Advertisers have several opportunities to feature performance marketing ads on Amazon. You can boost visibility by paying for top placement on relevant search listings, much like Google paid search. You could secure your top rank for keywords or brand names with the Sponsored Brands feature. As the leading e-retailer in America, Amazon is a prime location for successful performance marketing ads.
5 Ways to Set Up Your Performance Marketing Strategy
There are several types of performance marketing strategies that can help drive traffic to your site, generate leads, and boost revenue. Whatever method you choose, here are five ways to set up your performance marketing strategy for success.
1. Define Your Goal
Any performance marketing strategy begins by defining the goals of your campaign. Perhaps you’re trying to:
- Build brand awareness
- Gain more subscribers
- Generate more leads
- Sell more products
- Increase audience engagement
Whatever you want to achieve, define the goal before you begin developing your campaign. After all, this is what will shape your ads, target audience, and channels of distribution.
2. Choose Your Channels
In today’s digital marketplace, advertisers should consider an omnichannel approach. By publishing digital ads on multiple platforms, you increase the chances of reaching your target audience and cast a wider net. Not to mention the purchase frequency is 250% higher with omnichannel campaigns.
Know where your audience is spending their time and place your ads there. Find out which social media networks they use and which websites they frequent. Seek out channels that have high success rates with the kind of conversions you’re seeking. All of this information can help you identify the most effective places to reach your audience and broaden your opportunities for conversions.
3. Know Your Audience
Creating a tailored campaign that resonates and yields results means knowing the needs, expectations, and preferences of your audience. Conduct research to learn their pain points and concerns. Monitor digital chat threads and forums to see what people are saying about your company and your competitors. Look for opportunities to fill gaps and deliver solutions to unmet needs. All of this information helps you craft personalized performance marketing ads that will appeal and attract.
Find out what keywords searchers are using to find solutions like yours. Optimize headlines and ad copy with those phrases to align with the searches they’re conducting online. Knowing which channels they prefer will also grant you technological parameters like character limits and image size. Understanding more about your audience helps you set up your performance marketing strategy to convert.
4. Track Your Metrics
Performance marketing campaigns will deliver data as soon as they’re posted, and that’s when you really get to work. Track metrics to know which ads are driving traffic, generating leads, and earning conversions. Compare poorly performing ads to those that are succeeding, and determine which elements should change for higher performance. Marketing campaigns don’t just bring in revenue. They grant you invaluable insight into which channels are ideal, identify ideal audiences, and shape campaigns to secure a higher ROI.
5. Partner with Reliable Networks
Performance marketing campaigns are not without their challenges. Potential issues could include:
- Safety
- Data privacy
- Fraudulent clicks
- Transparency
Performance marketing can be a highly effective way for you to generate business for your company. It’s worth investing in a reliable, quality network that can assure the utmost security and safety for your ads, your audience, and your brand.
Create Successful Performance Marketing Strategies
RevContent is a native advertising platform specializing in building campaigns that connect brands with consumers. Publishers and advertisers partner with us because our platform delivers real-time reporting, in-depth analysis, and world-class support to make the most of marketing dollars.
Contact us today to learn how we can help you set up your performance marketing strategy for ongoing success.