Such channels of performance marketing that brands have for which they aim at specific goals. For example, leads generation, sales generation, or getting an app downloaded. They also use largely different channels, including partner marketing, SEM, social media marketing, email marketing, and interactive marketing.
As can be seen, Statista indicates that in 2024, the global spend on advertising will be $917 billion, up 8.5% more than in 2023 at $845 billion. Going forward, the spending is expected to continue and rise to $1.17 trillion by 2028.With trackier performance marketing software, performance across channels gets optimized, that is, in a single dashboard for marketers to look through analytics, fraud protection, and track performances to fine-tune the strategies and maximum ROI.
What are performance marketing channels?
Performance marketing channels refer to the media, that the brand or company will use in the promotion of the products or services they provide. In general, performance marketers pay only after the completion of a particular conversion, which includes a click, lead, or sale. Best performance channels increase the brands’ marketing return on investment.
Top 7 Performance Marketing Channels
The top 7 performance marketing channels include native advertising, partner or affiliate marketing, social media marketing, search engine marketing, mobile advertising, email marketing, and interactive marketing.
Native Advertising
The global native advertising market is expected to cross $650 billion by 2032. It seamlessly blends with the content on a particular platform. Unlike other ads, native advertising does not interrupt the user experience; it appears naturally and relevant as per the platform content that offers more value to the user without being overly promotional.
For instance, if a user reads news on a website, he will see an article (native ad) related to that news, marked as “Sponsored” or “Promoted”. As I mentioned, native ads are designed to be aligned with the style and format of the platform to ensure that it doesn’t interrupt the user’s experience.
Why is Native Advertising Important in Performance Marketing? Because it:
- Engages more
- Reaches niche audiences
- Improves ROI
- Builds trust
Popular Example: Mercedes in The Washington Post
In the case of Mercedes – a German luxury and commercial vehicle brand, it teamed up with the Washington Post to create a native ad titled “The Rise of the Superhuman. “
This native ad tells readers about new technologies, like robotic exoskeletons and virtual reality, tying these to their “E-Class” series which contains an Intelligent Drive System.
Partner/Affiliate Marketing
Partner or affiliate marketing is a paid performance marketing channel in which brands partner with affiliates or partners to market their products or services.
A partner earns a commission based on their performance like driving sales, generating leads, or downloading an app. Brands prefer doing partner marketing because they have to pay only when they get a conversion.
How Does It Work?
- Advertiser: In this business or brand, a commission is offered to the affiliate or partner, to get that particular action required. It might be sales or sign-ups.
- Affiliates (partners): They market the products or services of an advertiser on their websites, blogs, social media, or even through email marketing.
- Tracking & Attribution: Here, with the help of the performance marketing tool, Trackier, it is possible to track affiliate activities and attribute performance towards the right affiliate in terms of KPI based on clicks, conversions, or revenue.
Social Media Marketing
One of the best marketing channels brands have these days is social media marketing. As of this date, the world has 5.52 billion internet users worldwide, amounting to 67.5% of the population in the world. Out of that number, 63.8% of the population worldwide uses social media.
Different brands can utilize Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, and TikTok as mediums to market their products or services. But before that, a brand has to identify the target audience in which it should invest its time, resources, and budget.
For example, TikTok belongs to Gen Z, but the opportunity is highly unique in terms of creativity in the sense that AI animation can be included within the content to catch the attention of viewers.
Why does social media marketing matter? Brands stand a risk of losing this business considering such massive active numbers of users are available on social platforms. Paid performance channels such as social media allow a brand to connect with its audiences through demographics, interests, and even behaviors. A marketing report template will show how successful these campaigns have run and provide good information that makes way for future improvements in creating strategies for stronger engagement and more effective ROI.
Brands leverage social media campaigns to create awareness of their brands or leads to create sales. Using performance marketing software, brands can track the KPIs and therefore can optimize their campaigns to gain better results and derive a higher return on investment in social media marketing.
Popular Example: Nike’s “Just Do It” Campaign
One of the best examples of social media marketing is Nike’s “Just Do It.” Nike created their brand statement through social media.
Nike doesn’t just come up with their product designs, such as footwear or their sportswear and related equipment. Nike comes up with strong emotional content wherein the audience is a participant because it raises recall of the brands.
Search Engine Marketing
SEM, which is an acronym for Search Engine Marketing, refers to website promotion by sending traffic through paid advertisements running across search engines and displaying results on search results pages. A performance marketer gets ad placement based on a competitive bid on specified and relevant keywords in the search engine.
Every brand does SEM because it provides instant visibility and targets their potential customers based on their search intent and they pay only when interaction results in clicks from their users with their ads.
Why is SEM good for performance marketers?
- Measurable ROI
- Scalable campaigns
- Targeted reach
Specialized traffic checkers, such as those offered by SE Ranking, help analyze traffic dynamics, estimate traffic costs, and identify the best-performing keywords across different locations. Marketers also use these tools to analyze competitors’ PPC campaigns, compare progress, and adjust their strategies accordingly.
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Mobile Advertising
Statista predicts that total spending on mobile advertising will be $399.6 billion by the end of 2024. Mobile advertising is a part of performance marketing that encompasses mobile app ads, website ads, social media, in-app messages, and SMS. Brands send targeted ads directly to the user’s mobile device because people spend most of their time on their smartphones.
Why does mobile advertising matter in performance marketing?
- Precise targeting
- Real-time optimization
- High engagement rates
Popular example: Coca-Cola’s “Shake It” campaign
The best example of mobile advertising is Coca-Cola’s “Shake It” campaign, during the 2012 London Olympics. They launched an app that encourages their users to shake their phones while watching Coca-Cola TV ads to get rewards.
Mobile ads represent so many great opportunities for connecting with a targeted audience for your brand, on ad platforms, such as Google Ads or Meta Ads.
They monitor their performance metrics, including installs, clicks, and user retention- apart from being able to check their metrics Apptrove becomes handy.
They help marketers increase app downloads while increasing engagement on their ads for various channels by optimizing advertising.
Email Marketing
As the number of mobile messages and chat apps increases, e-mail stands as one of the most successful marketing channels. The global number of e-mail users is approximately 4.37 billion in 2023, growing to almost 4.89 billion by 2027
Brands can send specific and targeted e-mails to their potential or existing customers to drive certain actions (for example, clicks, signups, or purchases). It allows brands to care for leads and keep in touch with customers. It allows brands to care for leads and keep in touch with customers. The only minus about email marketing is being marked as spam, but if you use an SPF builder and follow the goodness of marketing ethics, your emails must end in the inboxes of your subscribers.
For example, the “Your Wrapped” campaign by Spotify is the most successful email marketing. Every year, Spotify sends an email to its users with personalized information on what they listened to, their favourite songs, and top artists.
Why is email marketing effective? Because it:
- Driving affiliate engagement
- Retargeting leads
- Nurturing relationships
Interactive Marketing
Interactive marketing is the personalized approach to performance marketing through which brands can interact directly with their audience. Unlike other channels of performance marketing, it focuses on giving its users the best experience that will keep them engaged and encouraging the specific actions taken, such as signing up, making a purchase, or sharing content. This is only possible by building quizzes, polls, interactive videos, or even AR experiences meant to understand what users prefer, and collecting the data that brands will use for refining their next campaigns.
Why Interactive Marketing is Important for Performance Marketers? Because it:
- Improves conversion rate
- Enhanced customer data collection
- Higher ROI
Popular Example: Coca-Cola’s “Share a Coke” Campaign
The best example of interactive marketing is Coca-Cola’s “Share a Coke” campaign. They have replaced their brand logo on bottles with popular first names encouraging their customers to find and share Coca-Cola bottles with their friends’ names.
The people who got involved with this campaign posted those photos on their social media platform which became UGC (user-generated content) free advertising for Coca-Cola.
How to Choose the Right Performance Marketing Channel?
Choose the right performance marketing channel. But the thing depends on different aspects, like who is your target audience, budget, and goals, however, ensure your marketing is performing towards business objectives.
- Understand Your Business Goals: State your business goals, what is it that you want to attain? Is it increasing website traffic, generating leads, driving sales, or building brand awareness? By your objectives, choose the best performance channels.
- Know Your Audience: Before choosing any performance channels, you have to know where your target audience spends their time online. For instance, if you are targeting Gen Z, then Instagram or TikTok might be a better bet. If you are targeting professionals, LinkedIn would probably be one of the top picks
- Evaluate Your Budget: The best marketing channels, including affiliate marketing or partner marketing, are often very inexpensive and bring in conversions with little up-front investment. Others, such as native advertising, will likely require a more significant budget to drive conversions.
- Track and Measure Effectiveness: There is no way to measure your success without having data. Performance marketing is all about data and making sure you track your performance. Performance marketing software helps you monitor your campaigns in real-time, optimize them, and prevent fraud.
Conclusion
The best performance marketing channels optimize brands’ marketing strategies and ensure maximum return on investment. Every performance channel has its pros and cons based on the target audience and the business goals.
Performance marketing software like Trackier can be used to track performance, improve strategies, track performance, and ensure measurable results. So, it is a perfect way in which businesses get the best conversion using the best possible channel for the goal, budget, and target audience.
FAQs
Is email a performance marketing channel?
Yes, email is a performance marketing channel. Brands use email marketing for their targeted campaigns to get conversions and maximize their ROI.
What is the difference between paid and organic performance marketing channels?
Paid performance marketing channels are the ones where a business has to spend money on ads to get targeted traffic through various ad platforms. Organic performance marketing channels require businesses to create valuable and engaging content to get website traffic through SEO and content marketing.
Can performance marketing channels be used for brand awareness?
Yes, and the performance marketing channels may enable the brands to push up awareness levels through display advertising and social media advertising.
