What is performance marketing?

Performance marketing is a term for digital marketing and advertising campaigns where an advertiser only pays when a specific action takes place. The action in question can be a generated lead, a sale or a click. Performance based marketing companies or professionals rely heavily on advertising channels that are paid which may include, native advertising, sponsored advertising, social media advertising, search engine marketing and affiliate marketing.

How does performance marketing work?

Performance marketing is paying for action for the most commonly used strategies and commonly measured actions. Let’s understand a few terms that envision performance marketing. Each of the below actions is an advertising objective and measures performance for marketing effectiveness. To evaluate your marketing campaigns, you will have to consider your choice of platforms, costs and results.

Cost per click (CPC):

CPC is the amount an advertiser pays when someone clicks their advertisement.

Cost per sale (CPS):

CPS is the amount paid by an advertiser if a sale is generated through that particular advertisement.

Cost per lead (CPL):

CPL is the amount paid by an advertiser when a sign-up form is received by a potential consumer as a result of watching their advertisement.

Cost per impression (CPI):

CPI is the amount paid by an advertiser to a publisher per one thousand times their advertisement is shown.

Cost per Acquisition (CPA):

CPA is the amount an advertiser pays when an action like a sale, form completion or click happens.

What are the best performance marketing channels?

Performance marketing works when advertisers connect with performance marketing experts or performance based marketing companies to help design and place advertisements on a number of performance marketing channels. The idea is to pay advertisers strictly based on performance by measuring advertising metrics instead of the traditional way, which is not performance based. The best performance marketing agencies use channels that are highly promising to drive traffic.

Native advertising

Native advertising is perhaps the most commonly used performance marketing channel and blends seamlessly with the environment by following the same design and format.  The idea behind native ads is ads that don’t really look like ads but are in the form of suggested articles at the bottom of a web page or as feed-ins on a social media platform. They look less intrusive than other formats of direct advertisement, and users are more likely to respond. This kind of advertising works because it allows your sponsored ads to blend naturally in order to promote your brand.

Content Marketing

Content marketing is all about educating audiences about the topics that are in context with your brand. It is super effective and costs lesser than outbound marketing, and generates more leads. An example can be a natural sports drink company writing a series of SEO-friendly blogs on the benefits of exercise, electrolytes and vitamins with a link to buy the sports drink they sell. A content marketing campaign can include well-written blog posts, case studies and e-books.

Social Media

The social media opportunity is like a holy grain for performance marketers. With the massive global social media reach, performance marketers have an opportunity for a wider audience to drive traffic to the site. You can get thousands of shares on your sponsored content that extends your reach far beyond just the original post. With Facebook leading with the most expansive list of services for performance marketers, platforms like Twitter, Instagram and Twitter are also offering new opportunities.

Search Engine Marketing (SEM)

Having a website that is optimized for search engines is the most effective way to promote your business online. SEM is simply a practice of marketing your business using paid advertisements that appear on search engine result pages (SERP). The beauty of SEM is that it offers advertisers to put their ads in front of motivated viewers who actually want to buy your product at the precise moment. It is a powerful and effective way to grow your business.

Display advertising

Display advertising comes in different formats, like banner ads and other rich content. If you are active on social media, you probably know what display ads look like. They generally appear on the side, top, or bottom of Facebook ads or any other web page you visit. Ad blockers are reducing the appeal of display ads, but companies are still finding successful conversions due to their interactive content.

Performance Marketing: The Big Benefit

The future of digital marketing is promising, and through the art of performance marketing, you can scale your business and be rest assured that you pay just for specific actions. This makes performance marketing alluring since it yields results without a hole in your pockets.

Performance marketing is measurable, budget-friendly and trackable.

Performance marketing is measurable, trackable and budget friendly since you only pay for successful conversions. Performance marketing doesn’t waste your advertising budget on advertising that you can’t track. You can track performance marketing based on actual results and not estimates.

Performance marketing helps you diversify your revenue.

There can be tough times when sales lag in a particular channel; in those times, performance marketing allows you to harness other channels of marketing without having to rely solely on a single marketing channel. Your revenue can be diversified without having to put your eggs in one basket.

Performance marketing is innovative and creative.

Affiliate marketing uses aggressive and creative ways to drive traffic and sales to your business. Affiliates earn profits based on the traffic they drive. This motivates affiliates to try creative and trendy ways like social media campaigns to drive traffic to your business.

Performance marketing assures transparency.

In performance marketing, business owners are aware of the benefit they will have of the investment. Performance marketing provides real-time results and tracking that enables owners to see what is achieved. It also helps determine the best performance marketing company based on clicks, subscribers, conversions and other important metrics.

Before navigating through the journey of performance marketing, it is important to research and develop a marketing strategy that is consistent and goal-oriented.  Choosing the correct channel with a mix of the right advertising format, appealing creatives, and excellent content will help you attract the right kind of traffic and increase ROI.

Parashift is one of the best performance marketing company platforms that helps you measure, optimize and automate your performance marketing campaigns.

‍Get in touch today to help you grow your business.