What is Performance Marketing?
Performance Marketing is, simply put, a marketing strategy that aims to increase pipeline performance. To put it more eloquently; companies that adopt a performance marketing strategy have one goal in mind: improve conversion rates at a lead level, at an opportunity level, and ultimately by empowering sales to close. Depending on the company, a conversion can be defined as a lead, sale, demo booking, or any other meaningful action.
Performance marketing agencies are digital marketing agencies that specifically focus their strategies and tactics on these ROI-driving conversions.
Read more: Performance Marketing vs. Traditional Digital Marketing
Why Consider a Performance Marketing Strategy?
Performance marketing differs significantly from traditional digital marketing strategies. One key difference is transparency. Performance-focused partners like OM Performance Marketers “live under the microscope with complete transparency. You are either failing or succeeding,” says CEO Daniel Sosa. Performance marketing makes strategic execution your competitive advantage.
Transparency provides key decision makers with clear results to show what is and is not working. This allows for effective decision making, measurability, and liability. As data is gathered, performance marketers separate winning strategies and continue to feed into them while “killing off the losers.” From there, testing and learning begins to further optimize with a goal of improving performance – hence the name.
How to Implement a Performance Marketing Strategy
Digital Marketing Foundation
Implementing a performance marketing strategy is easier said than done. Before adopting a new strategy, the first thing you must do is establish a solid digital marketing foundation. While this step may seem like a daunting task, we cannot stress enough how important it is.
Think about it: if your website looks like it was made in the 90’s and has no tracking capabilities, who is going to want to use it, and how will you even know if they are? If you want to build a strong marketing strategy, you MUST build your foundation first.
Demand Generation Marketing
The digital marketing foundation is followed by demand generation marketing. Unfortunately, the phrase “if you build it, they will come” has been outdated for decades.
Demand generation functions span paid and organic channels, both on and offline. In a digital marketing strategy, search engine marketing (SEM) and social media marketing are key, though there are countless other channels all over the web. The same goes for organic channels, such as Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and organic social media marketing.
Performance Marketing Optimization
Once your foundation and demand generation are established, performance marketing begins. Close monitoring and continuous strategic problem solving (also known as marketing optimization) is key to improve performance and drive scale.
In truth, establishing a performance marketing strategy takes a lot of resources: time, effort, knowledge, and of course, money. That’s why performance marketing partners like OM are a fantastic option for businesses who may not have the resources or knowledge base needed to take on such a large project themselves.
Curious to learn more about how performance marketing can transform your business? Schedule a call to see if we’re a good fit to drive your growth!
