Unlocking the Power of Performance Marketing: A Complete Guide
Businesses constantly seek ways to optimize their marketing efforts and ensure that every dollar spent yields measurable results. That’s where performance marketing comes in.
What is performance marketing?
According to Medium, “Performance marketing is a digital strategy where advertisers pay only when specific actions are completed. These actions can include clicks, leads, sales, or other measurable results.”
Other forms of marketing usually ask businesses to pay upfront without guaranteeing results; that is where performance marketing stands out. It’s no wonder performance marketing is quickly becoming the go-to approach for businesses looking to maximize efficiency and ROI in their campaigns.
How does performance marketing work?
For performance marketing to work efficiently, the interests of both advertisers and marketing partners need to be aligned. A successful performance marketing strategy involves the following:
- Set clear objectives: The advertisers need to have clear goals – Leads, sales, and how much they are willing to pay for specific actions.
- Pick your networks: With performance marketing, many different networks are available. But remember to be open to exploring new opportunities suggested by the advertisers.
- Track actions: Performance marketing relies heavily on data analytics to track and measure how users interact with your campaign — where they drop off and what makes them convert.
- Get started: Create launch plans, make engaging ads, keep track of optimizations to make them perform better, and finally pay for the outcomes.
Who are the leading players in performance marketing?
Retailers
This includes both B2C and B2B businesses that are looking to promote their products or services through partners or publishers. Big Commerce states, “49% of consumers depend on influencer (via publishers) recommendations to purchase.” So, retailers who work with performance marketing agencies drive huge sales.
Publishers
Publishers come in many forms, such as blogs, apps, product reviews, and more. Essentially, these act as an extension of the brand and have much more freedom than the brand itself. Here at GeistM, our in-house content and creative team helps create content to inform and educate consumers about the brand. In addition, we host this content across our network of publishers, fostering greater trust with users by providing valuable information in a familiar and reliable environment.
Tracking
Tracking platforms are essential for both retailers and publishers — they are a one-stop shop for information. Setting up tracking is the perfect way to keep track of leads, users, conversations, and overall campaign performance.
If you don’t use a third-party tracking system, our analysts at GeistM have the expertise to set up performance tracking and make the right optimizations to maximize your ROI.
What are the different KPIs?
Depending on your needed outcomes, there are a few different methods:
- Cost per Click (CPC): Advertisers pay every time a consumer clicks on the ad.
- Cost per Lead (CPL): When payment is made each time a user completes a form of signs up — popular for apps or monthly subscriptions
- Cost per Acquisition (CPA): Highly effective for e-commerce businesses looking to drive sales and only pay when consumers make a purchase.
- Cost per Mille (CPM): Mainly when advertisers pay for every 1,000 impressions of their ad. It’s mainly used for brand awareness campaigns.
- Life Time Value (LTV): This is not a payment metric but measures the lifetime relationship between the retailer and users.
What are the main types of performance marketing?
Performance marketing goes beyond ads; it focuses on various areas.
Sponsored Content
Sponsored content is a form of content marketing where a dedicated article or video is featured on a website that regularly publishes content. Unlike traditional ads, sponsored content seamlessly blends with the surrounding editorial material, offering value to readers while subtly promoting a product or service. Users typically land on these articles through external ad links, and retailers pay for the content to be created, hence the term “sponsored content.”
At GeistM, we specialize in crafting high-quality sponsored content hosted on our trusted network of publishers. Our team creates engaging, informative content designed to educate consumers about products, helping them make well-informed purchasing decisions. By combining educational value with strategic promotion, we ensure that sponsored content resonates with readers while aligning with brand goals.
Affiliate Marketing
This is a type of digital marketing where businesses partner with individuals or companies (affiliates) to promote their products or services. They earn a commission for driving traffic or sales through their unique referral links, often through blogs, websites, or social media channels.
Native Advertising
This form of advertising doesn’t look like a typical ad; it can be banners or display ads. They can be neutral and function on any site that they are placed on. They fit “natively” on the page and can be dynamically based on each user viewing the content.
Several different native networks facilitate these kinds of ads. Here at GeistM, we are experts at advertising on native networks such as Outbrain and Taboola. We manage everything for our clients on these networks straight from Kick-Off, with daily reporting, constant communication, and detailed insights.
Search Engine Marketing (SEM)
SEM is a strategy that promotes websites by increasing their visibility on search engine results pages (SERPs) through paid advertising. Advertisers bid on keywords relevant to their business and pay only when users click on their ads. At GeistM, we create result-oriented strategies tailored to our partners’ needs. We take the time to understand your business, perform our due diligence on competitors, and analyze all the data necessary to ensure we have everything we need to achieve your goals. Plus, since we use a third-party site (not the brand site), we have more freedom regarding brand promotion.
Social Media Marketing
We’ve all heard of social media marketing, which is when we use social networks like Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok to gain traffic and increase brand awareness. We know that advertising across more networks is better; you can’t just stick to one. We specifically write content that is catered to each network and succeed in optimizing campaigns for them.
At GeistM, we maximize media spending and strategically collaborate with a diverse range of partners to secure lower rates, providing unparalleled opportunities for testing and optimization. This approach delivers real value by enabling more efficient experimentation and quicker scaling across platforms, helping brands accelerate growth while optimizing performance.
What are the benefits of performance marketing?
Performance marketing is the future of digital marketing, and here are a few of the benefits.
- Pay for results: As retailers, you only pay when you see results and not in the hopes of potentially getting a client after seeing an ad
- Trackable Performance: It’s completely measurable and transparent. Brands can now see the entire click-to-consume path of each buyer.
- Targeted Audience Reach: With performance marketing, campaigns are typically hyper-targeted, allowing you to reach specific audiences based on demographics, behaviors, interests, and more.
- Scalability: As you find winning campaigns and strategies, you can increase your spend in those areas to drive even more conversions.
- Real-Time Optimization: Because performance marketing relies heavily on data, you can monitor results in real time and make adjustments on the fly. This means you can continuously optimize your campaigns to improve performance and maximize ROI.
Why GeistM is the Performance Marketing Agency You Need
Since performance marketing is growing exponentially, there are lots of agencies that offer it. But here at GeistM, we are experts at it. Our in-house content team is designed to create content and graphics that attract users and create conversions. And let’s not forget about our growth team that continuously tracks performance and optimizes campaigns to ensure your brand succeeds.
We are a team that’s always innovating and thinking outside the box regarding how we create content, the graphics we use, and the audiences we create — we understand the user journey and know what makes them convert.
Are you ready to get started with performance marketing? Contact GeistM today!
