7performancePerformance marketing is an integral part of the media mix and serves both customer acquisition and customer retention: whether you are using e-mail marketing, affiliate marketing, retargeting or search engine marketing, the instruments always pursue the objective of identifying measurable customer responses.

When companies know their customers’ requirements, they can easily address them and adjust their strategy accordingly – which is actually most important, considering that the optimization of different advertising strategies are the nuts and bolts of performance marketing.

Just make sure that activities are analyzed for each channel, so that interfaces can be created that increase the effectiveness of the campaign, and take a look at the following checklist in case you want to revise your marketing performance:

  • Test everything before you make any decisions: Measure all channels extensively and determine the highest conversion to distribute your budget perfectly.
  • Check the customer journey: Those that look for a trendy summer dress are probably going on a shopping spree for the matching belt, scarf or shoes later on. So, use this knowledge to your advantage and make more of your visitors to customers. Pay attention not only to the number of conversions, but track the click-path of the customer.
  • Analyze the surfing habits of your customers: Try to find out more about the way consumers got to your online offer as it is the surest way to success. Those who know where exactly the initial customer contact happened can optimize the impulse of the response in a targeted way, discovering at the same time which channel is relevant for the campaign's success and which is not.
  • Go for multi-channel: Today, an integrated approach across all channels is inevitable. Opening an e-mail generates a direct interaction with the receiver that could trigger the posting of the news on social media platforms or spreading the word in any other way. Therefore, it is important to track all channels for the appropriate evaluation of a campaign’s success.
  • Increase the effectiveness of your campaign with real-time tracking: In times of shitstorms in social networks or numerous possibilities of online product reviews, tracking the metrics in real time becomes more and more important. By using social media monitoring and online surveys, you can determine the real-time impact on your business communications. How important the direct proof of performance actually is for advertisers, shows the increasing investment in online media.
  • Use retargeting for directly measurable results: Retargeting is one of the pillars of performance marketing and extremely efficient. Personalized banners can be measured directly and are only charged when a user clicks or sometimes even only if a user buys something. All online shop owners are familiar with the following situation: A customer is on a product page, but just before buying he leaves the shop. Same as in a brick-and-mortar shop, he then buys most probably the product anywhere else, or has already forgotten his intended to purchase at all.

Individual and context-specific advertising is here the key to success. If your website belongs to a retargeting network, a cookie identifies the surf profile of the customer. Relevant advertising will then be played specifically for him on other websites. Personalized ads always have a higher incentive for users to click and thus increase the conversion.

By Daniela La Marca