According to some statistics, marketing can cost $2,500 to $12,000 per month for any small to mid-sized businesses.
This can get really expensive very quickly, which is why many businesses are turning towards performance marketing strategies.
This can be a more effective and affordable way to drive sales and conversions through marketing. Keep reading to learn all you need to know about it.
What Is Performance Marketing?
Performance marketing is a digital marketing strategy that is designed to drive results for your business. If you have a specific target audience and want to reach them directly, this type of digital marketing is a great way to reach them.
In general, performance marketing techniques are based on reaching a scaled audience, and this will determine the pricing.
Performance marketing focuses on measurable results, like sales, impressions, conversions, or clicks. This strategy is heavily focused on data.
Benefits of Performance Marketing
The digital marketing industry grows each year, and the performance marketing strategy is a good way to scale your business if you don’t have the money or time to fully use it.
There are many other benefits of performance marketing, including importing your brand’s awareness. YOu can do this through agencies or affiliates.
This will help you reach new audiences. When you can reach new audiences and bring in more traffic to your site, you have a higher chance of increasing sales as well.
The performance also has a lower risk for businesses since the cost is based on customer interactions. It has a lower cost but a high return on investment. This gives you enough room in your budget to test different strategies to find the one that works the best.
Lastly, the performance marketing results are trackable. You can instantly see if your efforts have an ROI, and you can adjust your budget accordingly.
Types of Performance Marketing
There are many different types of performance marketing. Depending on the people that you’re working with, they may have different ideas about what performance marketing is.
However, here are the most common types of performance marketing that will help your business.
Sponsored Content
Sponsored content is made up of a post or video that a website will publish as a paid ad. Normally, these ads show up on websites that are in a similar category.
For example, if you sell dog beds, you would watch to sponsor your content on other websites that are related to dogs or dog owners. This way, you can reach your target audience.
Affiliate Marketing
Affiliate marketing is when you allow users or businesses to sign up as an affiliate for your company. You’ll then give them a sponsored link they can use to direct people or refer them to your business.
You will only have to pay them when a sale is made, and you’ll typically give them a commission on the sale.
These commissions can vary. Typically, you might work with a blogger, influencer, or YouTuber. However, you can decide who you allow into your affiliate network.
Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
SEO is a free way to improve your ranking on Google’s Search Engine Results Page (SERP). You’ll reach organic traffic when you can optimize your website and its pages to rank as high as possible.
While you can do all your SEO efforts in-house, it can be very technical and challenging for someone who isn’t experienced. SEO is also a marketing strategy that can take a few months to see any results, so you have to be patient as well.
Native Advertising
Native advertising is paid media, but these ads don’t look like ads. They are normally in the format of a site’s post, and they fit natively into the page. This way, it’s harder for a user to know if the post was actually an ad or not, making them more likely to click on it.
When you pay for native advertising, you’ll normally pay for each click of an impression.
- Data Analysis
One of the key fundamentals of performance marketing is having data to analyze it. Data drives performance marketing, and you need to be collecting and analyzing this data to measure if your campaigns are successful or not.
Some key metrics you want to track include things like:
- Conversion rates
- ROI
- Click-through rates
- Page views
- Sales
ROI might be the most important key performance indicator (KPI). If you can measure these, you’ll have an understanding of if your campaigns are working. If you’re not seeing the numbers you’d like, then you can readjust your campaign.
- Clear Objectives
Another aspect that’s important to performance marketing is having clear objectives. If you have a strategy for your campaigns that align with your business goals, you’ll have a good path to follow.
For example, if your goal for your business’s fiscal year is to increase sales, you’d want to track how many sales your marketing campaigns make.
- A Targeted Audience
In order for performance marketing to be as successful as possible, you need to have a targeted audience. When you have a targeted audience, it makes it easier to reach the people who are most likely to be a customer of your business.
However, to develop a targeted audience, you’ll also need analytics and data. This data will help you understand their behaviors and needs. When you determine this, you can create relevant campaigns that will resonate with your customers and drive the sales you’re aiming for.
- Optimization and Testing
Optimization and testing are the last important fundamentals of performance marketing. This is because testing will help you figure out which campaigns are the most successful.
When you can run trials and figure out what campaigns are working and what aren’t, you can then optimize your campaigns and make them even more effective. Making your campaigns more effective can also help you make the right decisions and improve your metrics.
Learn More About Performance Marketing
These are only a few key facts to know about performance marketing, but there are so many aspects that go into successful marketing techniques and strategies.
It can help to leave the important aspects of performance marketing to the pros.
If you’re interested in leveraging performance marketing, contact us today to find out how we can help!
