Marketers love using new and trendy buzzwords. That’s not a surprise, but remember just because something is new or trendy doesn’t necessarily mean you have to learn anything different. Most of the marketing principles behind these buzz terms are based on strategies that we’ve all adopted along the way. We’ve talked about Influencer Marketing and Account Based Marketing, both derived from practices we’ve used longer than the assimilated jargon. Performance Marketing is another term catching steam in our space.
Performance Marketing is a comprehensive term that refers to online marketing and advertising programs in which advertisers (a.k.a., “retailers” or “merchants”) pay marketing companies (a.k.a., “affiliates” or “publishers”) when a specific action is completed; such as a sale, lead or click.
The Performance Marketing Association
Simply put, Performance Marketing uses data and digital tactics, often through a third party or an affiliate to set goals. When actions are completed, or the goals are met, the ROI is directly attributed to payment and performance. But, haven’t marketers always focused on performance?
For years, most of us in marketing have focused on campaign attribution and optimization to ensure we get the opens, clicks, engagements, and conversions. Performance Marketing is the same, although it helps us better place a value on our campaigns when paying Google, Facebook—or even MDR—for purchased ads, matched audiences, or segmented data for targeting.
When thinking about evaluating performance against spend, here are three things to consider:
- Email Marketing
Yes, email is still going strong in these days of crowded inboxes and increased privacy and security regulations. Performance Marketing can help your business stand out in niche areas, especially when your segmentation is hyper-targeted. Right time, right place, right message…right? In addition to your audience pool, be sure to follow up with those highly engaged contacts—those who have opened or clicked your email—in a timely manner; we suggest within 3-5 business days from their last engagement. To ensure even greater performance, make sure you know as much as possible about these responders— firmographic as well as demographic information. - Account Based Marketing (ABM)
You know your customers—their spending habits, when they buy, how they buy, and what is meaningful to them. And, if you don’t, we can help you identify these attributes. ABM is more than just building brand advocates and loyalists; it is instrumental in prospecting and targeted marketing. When focusing on high-value and high-probability opportunities and identifying “look-alike” prospects, you increase the likelihood of conversion at a much higher and faster rate. - Digital Advertising
Both your creative and your defined audience are critical components of digital advertising, whether you’re talking social, display, or otherwise. You’ll want to define your audience as specifically as your ad platform will allow. Then maximize clicks through retargeting. Continue to remind folks about what they previously saw to get them to click again and/or convert. Don’t lose interested parties because of follow-up—even when you don’t know who the individual is yet. Be diligent about website tracking to identify the organizations that are coming to your site, providing your sales team with signal data on who is looking.
Implementing Performance Marketing into your existing marketing strategy is just smart marketing. Campaigns are trackable and measurable down to the click. Email opens are valuable for narrowing down your audience, as are look-alikes and website visitors.
Not sure where to start? We can help. Connect with us here mdrinfo@dnb.com.
