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In a recent article he wrote for ClickZ, There is More to Performance Marketing than Measuring Performance, Jonathan Shapiro, CEO of online performance marketing agency MediaWhiz, aptly noted that today's best performance marketers "are not just measuring results, but actively improving them." Shapiro describes a true performance marketing campaign as one in which the marketer forecasts return on investment, pays only for performance and continually optimizes while the campaign is live.
Shapiro then asks why more marketers, advertisers and agencies aren’t taking advantage of performance marketing tools and strategies. His answer? "The relative newness of the industry has not provided sufficient time for most marketing organizations to develop the expertise or technology to manage a true performance marketing campaign." I agree that performance marketing is the future of our industry, and that the development of performance marketing expertise and technology is the key to success. What follows are some strategies to help you build and execute a true performance marketing campaign.
Finding Performance
True performance marketers must be visible wherever and whenever there's an opportunity for performance. The increasingly splintered web requires brands to "get found" in more places and on more devices. Thus true performance marketers must be committed to being found across all paid, owned and earned media. This requires continually evaluating new channels, products, devices, processes, technologies and distribution partners. It also requires having a team with expertise in everything, from the latest trends in search to the hottest new mobile devices.
Cross-Channel Integration & Attribution
True performance marketers are business strategists who foster integration between search, display, social, mobile, affiliate, CRM, offline advertising, merchandising, inventory and more. Cross-channel insights inform overall marketing strategy, helping performance marketers determine the right channel to spend each and every marketing dollar.
Technology plays a major role in uncovering these insights. Performance marketers are currently perfecting tools to help them make cross-channel buying and optimization decisions in real-time. It’s an understatement to say that efficiently managing and passing data between cross-channel tracking systems is challenging. This combined with custom segmentation, advanced targeting techniques, unprecedented data volume growth and marketplace demand for immediate transparency makes it clear that legacy data processing cycles are inadequate to handle these terabytes of data.
Not to mention, performance marketers need additional headroom to handle peak demand (e.g., holiday). The good news is that access to on-demand cloud computing and data management solutions are now within the reach of every performance marketer.
Attribution is also a cornerstone of a true performance marketing campaign. However, determining how to best leverage and optimize paid/owned/earned media isn’t just about how much money you should spend in various channels. It’s an exercise in understanding people, the communities they form, how they communicate and how to engage them in conversation.
True performance marketers are focused on improving marketing economics by dedicating the ideal budget to each channel while concurrently optimizing the creative to best appeal to each channel’s audience. This is done through real-time message/creative testing, and requires more than just powerful technology. It requires art — i.e., performance marketing people with innovative ideas on how to best engage audiences.
Performance marketers are redefining the marketing landscape in real time, continually refining the blend of art and science needed to drive results. Achieving a true performance marketing campaign is complex, and it’s arguably the toughest challenge marketers have ever faced. Nevertheless, those who do build a true performance marketing capability will reap unmatched rewards.
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