Ever wondered, if performance marketing software can help you optimize your campaigns and ultimately your profits? There is a big chance that as a B2B marketing professional, you focus on results. Also, it would help if you were engaged in performance marketing.
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It’s good to have a lovely brand, it’s good to have a slick website, but in the end, you are in the numbers game. It is all about the results of the marketing and sales activities. So, what is a performance-based marketing software, and what can you do with it in B2B marketing?
What is Performance Marketing?
Performance marketing is the use of activities that lead directly to measurable results. This can include variables such as;
- the number of clicks generated
- the number of page visits
- the volume of downloads of an online product such as a white paper
- the quality of items added to a shopping cart
- the number of products/services purchased
Therefore, the nature of performance marketing is that measurable results emerge from the activities that can be attributed to those activities.
A popular form of this is
- Paying per click (Cost per Click, CPC)
- Or, paying per lead (Cost per Lead, CPL)
- Or even paying per conversion (Cost per Sale, CPS).
In affiliate marketing, the latter corresponds to the case, where the publisher receives payment once a sale can be traced back to the publisher’s efforts.
Performance marketing examples
Many marketing activities are now measurable and focused on results. This makes marketing a somewhat automated business. This is why “pay per performance” is becoming increasingly popular. Read this Forbes article if you want to learn more about it.
In practice, this mainly refers to campaigns that focus on the concrete generation of leads or increasing turnover. Examples of performance marketing activities are:
- a lead generation campaign via LinkedIn through the use of lead forms
- a Facebook ad campaign with a product range that leads to a product page in an e-shop
- an email marketing campaign aimed at offering an additional service that leads to an application form
- a google advertising campaign with the promotion of an e-book that can you download in exchange for an email address or other data
There is always a clear call to action and a measurable relationship between the marketing effort and the result.
Because online marketing is ideal for this type of marketing, it is also a go-to route for setting up performance marketing.
This is where performance marketing software comes into play.
Performance marketing software is so popular nowadays because it is relatively easy to set up and provides detailed statistics about your campaigns. You can quickly scale up and see where specific tipping points are and fix or optimize them as you go.
How to maximize your benefit from performance marketing software?
A good scoring performance marketing campaign will have to meet several conditions. It’s more than just pouring a ton of money into ads. Some focus areas ensure greater success.
Choose a channel that suits your target audience
This is a basic marketing rule, which is probably the most important one. If your target group is active on Facebook and proves to be receptive to your marketing message, it is wise to experiment with this.
You can experiment with multiple channels and keep only the channels that score best. Don’t forget to also take into account the timing and seasonal influences. Maybe your LinkedIn campaign scores well during the day, and your Facebook campaign for the same target group perform better in the evening.
Ensure a seamless flow in all your communications
Ensuring a seamless flow is also an important variable to watch out for when creating a campaign. What does your flow look like?
The expressions you use should connect seamlessly.
For example:
Your Google ad will appear in the search engine at the top of the target group searches for a relevant term such as ‘Affiliate Marketing Software.’ The ad promises the following; ‘request a free test drive on our affiliate marketing platform.’ Then you land on a general website where you cannot find any of what was promised in the ad.
This is an example of a flow or marketing funnel that does not connect seamlessly and results in poorer (or zero) performance and conversion.
It would have performed better if the visitor was to land on a sleek landing page after clicking on the ad with more information about requesting the free test drive, with a simple form and a ‘request’ button.
Performance marketing requires creativity
Due to the measurability and the sense of manufacturability of performance marketing software, people sometimes forget to use the variable ‘creativity.’
By enhancing your campaign with a powerful theme, great images, and functional use of the right language – you can add a perfect creative angle and increase your campaigns’ performance.
Try and invest in an excellent creative set-up of your marketing activities. The goal is to make sure that the whole funnel is perfectly assembled from start to finish. Translate the strategic marketing plan and base your concrete idea and actions on it.
Make sure you touch your target audience with your resources and message.
Measure the right points
Measuring is knowing. This is 100% true for performance marketing campaigns and performance marketing software.
An important task of all performance-oriented marketers is the continuous analysis, adjustment, and optimization of campaigns. That means you need to be able to see (based on the data you collect), where certain improvement opportunities lie. If your campaign consists of several steps, you will have to set the correct measurement indicators for each and every step. Remember, that this is also crucial to eventually determine a good ROI of your website.
If we only look at the online advertisements, here are some essential indicators for your campaign:
- the number of impressions your ad receives
- the number of clicks on your ad
- the time of the day when most clicks take place
- the days of the week with the highest clicks
- the underlying keywords on which your ad was displayed
- which of your ad variations has been clicked the most
- which ad variation led to the most conversions
Conclusion
As you can see, you can analyze and optimize multiple key points for every step in your performance campaign. You can pull all this data from your performance marketing software, which tracks clicks, leads, and sales. This will ultimately allow you to make the right changes and to maximize the profits of your campaign.
Last Updated on January 17, 2024
