What is performance marketing (and why should you be using it)?

Worldwide digital advertising was estimated to total $521.02 billion in 2021, and is expected to hit a staggering $876 billion by 2026.

Even the richest people in the world would agree that these are not insignificant amounts of money. You would hope that all of it was being spent on digital advertising that was targeted at the correct media, markets, and clients.

However, we’ve been in the digital marketing business since 2009 and know the reality is not always quite as ideal as this!

When companies first approach us for help, we often find that many of them have previously been spending their marketing budgets on inefficient, poorly focused online marketing. (No, we won’t name any of them – we respect them for knowing their ad spend wasn’t working elsewhere and choosing to come to us instead!) 

Marketing horror stories

As a 360 digital marketing agency, we have heard (and continue to hear) horror stories from clients who come to us after being poorly served elsewhere.

When we dive deeper into the issues they experienced with their online marketing, and explore the results they were hoping to achieve, we find in nearly every case that they have not been using the principles of performance marketing.

Instead, they’ve often been playing the marketing equivalent of “following the leader” – looking at what the main players in their industry are doing and then trying to use a similar thing.

This tends to end in what we could politely call “non-performance marketing”!

Fortunately, we know a thing or two about performance marketing. Having been using it for years, we also know how to use performance marketing the right way.

What you will discover in this article

We decided to write this article to help explain:

• What performance marketing is
• Why we believe it is such an important approach to marketing
• How to use performance marketing to hit (and potentially surpass) your key metrics
• Who to listen to about performance marketing (SPOILER ALERT: the answer is us!)

What is performance marketing?

Performance marketing involves a company paying for their marketing based on the performance of their campaigns.

The metrics used to measure this performance will vary between companies and campaigns, but the essence of performance marketing is that any payments are directly linked to how well it performs against pre-set criteria.

A type of performance marketing is affiliate marketing, where an affiliate promotes a service or product but is only paid upon delivery of a certain result. (That result may be an opt-in, a purchase, or an enquiry, but it will been clearly defined beforehand.)

Why is it important?

The main advantage of performance marketing is that it helps companies avoid wasting money on ineffective marketing.

Previously, old-fashioned or lazy marketing agencies could get away with charging set fees for certain work, regardless of whether it led to any measurable commercial results.

While this made complete sense for the marketing agency, it often meant that their client ended up funding the agency’s bonus awards rather than their own business!

Unfortunately, many companies today are still being hoodwinked by marketing agencies who continue to use this outdated, ineffective approach to marketing.

Sigh.

Here at Creative Clicks, we have always believed in delivered measurable results for our clients. After all, the better we can turbo charge our clients’ marketing, the better the results they will get.

That is a win-win, and that is the only way we do business.

How to use performance marketing in your business

Introducing performance marketing into your business can seem a bit unusual at first, because it is SO different to how things are usually done in the digital marketing world.

But being different doesn’t mean it’s bad.

Far from it, we’ve found that performance marketing is the fastest way to accelerate marketing results.

Effective performance marketing gives clarity to every stakeholder. Every person knows exactly:

• What is expected
• How the results will be measured (and by whom)
• What the fee structure is for hitting specific, pre-defined KPIs

The simplest way to introduce performance marketing into your business is to talk to people who have been using it for years. They will be able to show you the best practices (and the things to avoid!) and will often be able to help you get things up and running quickly.

As a blatant plug for our services, we’ve been running and optimizing digital marketing campaigns since 2009 and know a thing or two about performance marketing.

If you can see the benefits of performance marketing, why not talk to us to see how it would look in your business and the difference it could make?

Why listen to us?

As a digital 360 marketing agency, we use – and rely on - performance marketing every day.

It’s not just something we pay lip service to or write a blog article about to appear relevant; it’s in our DNA (and has been from the very beginning of the company).

Performance marketing keeps our focus where it should be - on the most important person in our business.

(That’s you by the way!)

We can provide you with fully transparent KPI-driven mobile marketing solutions for installs, in-app purchases, leads, sales, and any other action-driven ad metric.

With years of experience in implementing performance marketing, we are the ideal partner for smart companies who are now looking to enhance their digital marketing results.

Contact us today to find out more about how we can help you.