If you as an entrepreneur advertise, whether in the traditional way via print media or via social media channels , then of course you want to know how it is received by your target group . Marketing offers you a lot of leeway, from social media advertising to online advertising and affiliate marketing . In order to be able to measure the success of your advertising, you use a special strategy. This strategy is called performance marketing.
What is performance marketing?
According to PHOTIONARY, performance marketing is a sub-area, but also a strategy of online marketing. With this strategy, you pursue the goal of providing your measures in the field of advertising communication with reactions or transactions that you can measure. From the English word performance you can already deduce that this is an approach that is very performance-oriented.
The main advantages are the high controllability and the high measurability. In a very simple and understandable way, performance marketing is an instrument with which you can measure whether your online advertising is effective or not. If it is not, you can adapt it individually according to your ideas and needs in order to achieve an even better effect.
Which characteristics are important in performance marketing?
In performance marketing, also known as performance advertising, four essential characteristics are very important:
Measurability
In performance marketing, measurability plays a very large and important role. If you do classic advertising, you will find it difficult to measure your success with it. It’s different with performance marketing. Here you are able to record all transactions and reactions of your target group. And promptly and clearly. In order to be able to accomplish this, some tools or additional programs are now available to you.
So you can watch closely, regardless of whether it is about registering for a newsletter, clicking on a banner or making a sale. Now comes the big but. This is only possible if you really observe the behavior of the visitor on your website and that for the entire period that the user is on your site.
Modularity
In performance marketing, it is important for you that you can adapt or change a campaign at any time. To make this possible, you need to design your performance marketing strategy so that it consists of many small budget modules. This gives you the great advantage that you are able to precisely evaluate and analyze each of these modules. So you can easily see which is weak, which is strong and where you have to change your adjusting screws.
Optimizability
With performance marketing, you are able to adapt various parameters to your needs at any time. It does not matter whether it is click offers or the design of the advertising material . This in turn enables you to make adjustments and optimizations during the entire duration of your campaign and thus significantly improve efficiency.
Networking
How do they say? Only together are you strong and can achieve a lot more. Precisely this principle is an essential part of performance marketing. This strategy is linked to other elements of marketing in quite a number of ways. If you take a closer look, you will find that there is a clear correlation between the corresponding click rate and the awareness of a platform for advertising.
This is also due to the fact that performance marketing is partly dependent on other important elements of interaction. But you also have the advantage that you can incorporate every element into any classic campaign without any problems.
What areas are there in performance marketing?
Basically, performance marketing can be divided into four areas.
- Area 1: Goal Setting
- Area 2: Marketing Measures
- Area 3: Controlling
- Area 4: Optimization
In order to have the best possible success with your performance marketing strategy, you have to pay special attention to each of these four areas.
Area 1: Goal Setting
As with all forms of marketing, the specific objective is also very important and of great importance in performance marketing. So you have to ask yourself the following questions?
- What exactly do you want to achieve with performance marketing?
- What time window or what time frame do you envision for achieving your goals?
- How much budget do you have available and how do you want to use it?
The basis for you should be overarching goals, such as company goals or marketing goals. This can be, for example, an increase in the conversion rate or an increase in sales of precisely defined percentage points compared to the last financial year. Company goals and marketing goals can partially complement each other, but they can also compete with each other.
In many cases, performance marketing campaigns have a strong focus on sales and revenue. However, please do not let yourself be restricted in your thinking too much when it comes to the many possible uses of this method. Performance marketing is also a very important tool in the areas of after-sales or pre-sales.
But which goals can you actually set yourself with your strategy and in which area?
| Corporate goals | Marketing strategy goals | Customer-related goal setting | Targets related to campaign or areas |
| Reach or increase a certain share of the market | Lower marketing costs per customer | Measurement of customer satisfaction | Presentation of new products or services |
| Increase in return on sales | Improvement of the customer structure | Improving customer loyalty | Determining the quota of visitors to your own website |
| Achievement of additional contribution margins | Increase awareness of the company and product | Boosting or triggering repeat purchases | Achievement of precisely defined sales targets for a product |