Why performance marketing is important – and how to measure it

Arunabh Madhur, Madhur, Regional VP & Head Business EMEA at SHAREit Group.

The evolving business landscape, and changing consumer preferences, have presented companies with a necessity to invest and implement new approaches to drive revenue growth. This is leading to the growth of performance marketing. But measuring the success and performance of a digital campaign is of huge importance to any brand or business.

Today, more organisations are now looking to prioritise the implementation of performance marketing into their respective strategies. As society continues to transform digitally and consumer demands change, performance marketing is a useful tool to capitalise on the opportunities on offer in the digital market. 

What is performance marketing and why is it integral?

Performance marketing, in contrast to many other conventional marketing strategies, revolves around results-driven marketing, and is suitable for brands that aim to reach their audience at scale. When it comes to using performance marketing strategies, payments are made to marketing service providers once the business objectives have been met – whether that is through app installs, clicks, sales, whitepaper downloads or social media engagement. This is in contrast to the more traditional forms of marketing, where advertisers pay a fee for specific ad placements up front, unrelated to how the ad will perform. In the matter of performance marketing, measurable results are at the heart.

In today’s world, paid social advertising should be an integral component of almost every business’s marketing strategy, with ad spending projected to grow by 6% in 2023 to an estimated $509 billion. But for many businesses, only a small percentage of their campaigns are effective, with many struggling to optimise their marketing projects. Research reveals 14.9% of marketers focus solely on brand marketing, versus 8.6% of their peers whose main focus is performance marketing – despite the latter proving to be more cost-effective, can track performance and enhances brand awareness more effectively.

In recent years, the marketing industry has witnessed a change in consumer preferences. Consumers now demand personalised experiences, and businesses demand instant results. However, traditional marketing strategies cannot effectively deliver these results, and this is why many companies are turning to performance marketing.

How performance marketing can help brands create business-optimised campaigns

Performance marketing opportunities have opened up beyond traditional affiliate relationships with publishers to include influencers on social media, e-commerce focused web destinations and creators. In an all-tech economy, many digital platforms – such as SHAREit – help strengthen these relationships by setting and measuring specific goals that help deliver results from the third-party publisher, creator, or influencer back to the brand. Ultimately, this helps demonstrate ROI to a marketing campaign. 

Another advantage of performance marketing is its ability to support marketers in their learning journey. Marketers can run low-risk tests with instant feedback and can tweak campaigns as they go. The flexibility and targeting inherent in digital performance tactics make this a cost-effective strategy for brands, whilst delivering results instantly.

Performance marketing also creates a more level playing field between big and small brands. With a strong test-and-learn culture, a challenger brand can compete with a larger brand with much deeper pockets. The more marketers can measure, the more data can be gathered, and more leverage is available when it comes to competitors. Performance marketing allows smaller businesses to do this without the substantial upfront costs associated with traditional marketing strategies. 

How data can help brands maximise resources by retaining and retargeting existing users

Performance marketing is becoming a central piece for customer acquisition strategies. The sheer amount of data generated by digital marketing, especially social platforms, enables businesses to not only evaluate the performance of their marketing spend, but also to gather feedback and learn about prospective customers. This can also help with improving target marketing strategies, and personalisation to retain existing customers or retarget old customers. 

Performance marketing represents a unique opportunity for brands to target different customer groups. Optimising the data generated through metrics including impressions, clicks, and social media engagement can determine the strategies that deliver the highest return on investments (ROI), and those which are successful or not in retaining/retargeting customers. Marketers can then utilise the feedback and coordinate new strategies with brands to effectively target and retain customers for sustained long-term ROI growth.

How mobile measurement platforms can help manage campaign data and optimise ROI

It’s easy to be overwhelmed by the volume of data collected across multiple ad networks, and it can be difficult for marketers to determine which channels, media sources, publishers, or campaigns are leading to conversions. Mobile measurement platforms, such as AppFlyer, act as a third-party provider to attribute, collect, and organise data to deliver a unified overview of a brand’s campaign performance and ROI.

One of the many benefits of investing in a mobile measurement platform is that the service allows brands to get a unified overview of campaign data across multiple channels and networks, in one single place, making it easier to compare results. These platforms also save time from searching through outdated legacy databases to find the results needed. In addition, the results that mobile measurement platforms produce, allow brands to scale intelligently for faster and smarter growth.

The impact of digitalisation has forced the development of new marketing methods, of which performance marketing is at the forefront. Performance marketing is poised to continue growing within the marketing industry, with brands looking to drive real results from their digital marketing campaigns and convert new buyers at scale at a lower cost. 

Mobile measurement platforms will become invaluable for many businesses that have to deal with an overwhelming amount of data. With a successful partnership, the data extracted can help create profitable marketing strategies that will retain and retarget customers to grow ROI.