Performance Marketing Vs Brand Marketing: Which Strategy Drives Real Results?

Gen Z or other individuals do not have the attention span today that they did before. Businesses have to try different marketing strategies to be in the market. However, they do not understand the basic difference between performance marketing vs brand marketing. Both are important for business growth.

Research shows that 81% of marketers focus on brand marketing for long-term success, while 40% of ad budgets worldwide go to performance marketing for quick returns.

 

However, brands are required to track their marketing performance, and for this, they can use performance marketing software like Trackier to optimize their performance, saving their marketing budget by reducing fraudulent activities and identifying which of their channels are performing better.

What is Performance Marketing?

Performance marketing is a results-driven marketing strategy where advertisers have to pay only when a specific action is completed. For example:

• Click
• Lead
• Sale
• Download

Unlike traditional marketing, performance marketing is more focused on getting results that can be measurable so that they can optimize their campaigns to get a better ROI. Let’s take a look at some of the industries in which performance marketing is extensively implemented:

• eCommerce (to drive online sales)
• SaaS (to scale subscription numbers)
• Affiliate networks (for expanding affiliate reach) 

There are so many other reasons why these industries are using performance marketing. Other than this, there are some important metrics that are used in performance marketing:

• Cost Per Acquisition (CPA): It is the cost of acquiring a new customer.
• Click-Through Rate (CTR): It is the percentage of people who click on your ad after viewing it.
• Return on Investment (ROI): It is the profitability metric of your campaign relative to its cost.

Features of Performance Marketing

There are many features of performance marketing, and we have already talked about some important ones in detail, such as being measurable, ROI-focused, and data-driven.

1. Measurable

You can track and analyze every action using performance marketing software like:

• Clicks
• Impressions
• Conversions
• Sales

Whether you’re managing an affiliate program, running a display ad campaign, or measuring influencer performance, you can evaluate the effectiveness of each of your campaigns.

For example, if you’re running a PPC campaign, you can track how many clicks your ad gets, how many of those clicks result in conversions, and which of your ads generate the highest ROI. With these comprehensive insights, you can make changes in your campaign instantly to improve your campaign effectiveness.

2. ROI-Focused

Performance marketing is all about generating results and ensuring that marketing spends deliver a positive ROI. Unlike traditional marketing methods, where businesses may struggle to directly link their marketing spend with results, performance marketing is more focused on specific goals:

• Leads
• Sales
• Sign-ups

This goal-oriented approach helps businesses to make data-driven decisions about:

• Where can they allocate their budget?
• How much budget can they spend?
• Where do they have to give more focus: Brand marketing vs performance marketing?

3. Data-driven

Performance marketing is all about data. Marketers need to make their campaign decisions based on real data so that they can refine their marketing strategies. Performance marketing software provides comprehensive data insights. Marketers can use Trackier to track their:

• Customer behavior
• Campaign performance
• Conversion rates

Through advanced analytics, marketers can identify trends, audience preferences, and customer behaviors to create more targeted and personalized campaigns.

Examples of Performance Marketing Channels

Let’s talk about some of the examples of performance marketing channels that will also help you find the best one for your next marketing strategy.

1. Pay-Per-Click (PPC) Advertising

PPC advertising is one of the best performance marketing channels where brands have to pay a fee each time their ad is clicked. Platforms like Google Ads, Bing Ads, and social media networks such as Facebook and LinkedIn offer PPC options to:

• Drive traffic
• Generate leads
• Increase sales

For affiliate program managers and performance marketers, PPC is the best performance marketing channel for lead generation and driving conversions. Many marketers leverage a Google Ads management agency to optimise their campaigns, boost ROI, and gain additional insights into:

• Geographic
• Device
• Time-of-day targeting

Whether you are targeting e-commerce companies, SaaS businesses, or media buyers, PPC helps you to reach your target audience.

Example: If you’re running an e-commerce store of shoes and want to sell online, you can create a Google Ads campaign with the targeting keywords like “buy shoes online,” and you have to pay only when someone clicks on your ad.

2. Affiliate Marketing

Affiliate marketing is a cost-effective performance marketing channel and brand partnerships with different affiliates (partners, publishers, or influencers) to promote their products or services. They only have to pay affiliates a commission when they actually drive a specific action, like a sale, lead, or click.

But why should you choose affiliate marketing? Affiliate marketing is growing as a top choice in the industry, this is because it is:

• Scalable: You can work with multiple affiliates to extend your reach or to promote your products or services.
• Performance-Based: It is performance-based marketing where you have to pay only for results and ensure to get a higher ROI.
• Targeted Reach: Different affiliates have different niche audiences. You can target your potential customers based on your products or services. For example, to sell a smartwatch, you can target a Gen Z audience. 

Pro Tip: Use the best performance marketing software like Trackier to manage, track, and optimize your affiliate campaigns seamlessly.

3. Social Media Ads

Social media is one of the most powerful performance marketing channels that effectively helps businesses reach and engage their target audiences while driving measurable results.

Social media platforms (eg, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, X, TikTok) have billions of active users that attract many advertisers to run ads and optimize them with the help of performance marketing software and get better ROI.

Types of social media ads in performance marketing:

• Paid search ads on social platforms
• Sponsored posts and stories
• Display ads
• Influencer marketing
• Retargeting and remarketing ads

4. Native Advertising

Native advertising helps brands to engage their audience without disrupting their experience. There are many types of native advertising, which include sponsored content, social media ads, and in-feed ads.

Why does native advertising work in performance marketing? Because it helps in:

• Increased engagement
• Better user experience
• Improved ROI
• Brand awareness

What is Brand Marketing?

Brand marketing is the process of promoting your business to build a connection with your target audience.  You can create a memorable identity and emotional connection, and build trust with your customers over time.

People feel more connected with brands that are successful in:

• Telling their brand’s story
• Focusing on values, mission, and building an emotional connection

Features of Brand Marketing

There are some unique features of brand marketing that are beneficial for businesses that want to build long-term, strong relationships with their customers.

1. Building Brand Awareness

Building brand awareness is a part of brand marketing that helps businesses establish a strong presence in their target market. Many brands also use this type of marketing to differentiate themselves from their competitors.

To build brand awareness, brands have to make sure that their message and visuals are the same across all channels:

• Website
• Social media
• Emails
• Affiliate networks

But do you know why consistent branding works? A consistent tone and look help your people to recognize and connect with your brand, which will eventually boost their recall and brand loyalty.

2. Long-Term Strategy

Brand marketing focuses on creating a strong and recognizable identity for your brand over a period of time. It helps to keep your business more relevant and visible through:

• Storytelling
• Campaigns
• Visuals

It ensures your audience remembers you, even when they’re not ready to buy your products or services instantly. With so many brands and options in the market, you have to differentiate your brand with a:

• Unique voice
• Mission
• Create a strong connection with your audience.

3. Emotional Connection

One of the most powerful features of brand marketing is its ability to build an emotional connection between your brand and your audience. This connection isn’t just about products or services—it’s about building meaningful relationships.

Buy, why does emotional connection matter? Because it:

• Builds trust
• Boost loyalty
• Creates differentiation

You can create emotional connections with your customers by:

• Storytelling
• Understanding customer pain points
• Consistent messaging
• Personalization

Examples of Brand Marketing Campaigns

Here are some examples of brand marketing campaigns that you can look at and find out which you can use in your next brand marketing campaigns.

1. TV Commercials

For brands, TV commercials are still one of the best marketing campaigns to create awareness, build trust, and establish a strong brand identity. You can use TV campaigns to reach a huge audience base through visual storytelling that will create a memorable impression on your potential customers.

Here’s how TV commercials are beneficial in brand marketing:

• Massive Reach and Visibility: TV commercials help brands reach millions of viewers. It is the best way to promote their mass-market products and services. To ensure smooth broadcasting of these commercials, many companies rely on advanced TV playout software. For example, during peak-time shows or major events like sports championships, a single commercial can create a memorable advertisement for your audience.
• Emotional Storytelling: With high-quality visuals, sound, and narrative, TV ads build emotions and connect with audiences on a personal level. For example, a heartwarming commercial from a healthcare brand can build trust with viewers.
• Enhancing Credibility: Being featured on TV enhances a brand’s credibility. It gives the signal to the audience that the brand is established, trustworthy, and capable of delivering quality.

For brands and marketers,  TV campaigns are easily trackable using Trackier. Compared to a TV ad where the KPI is brand recall, it is possible to use many new-age tracking solutions like unique links, QR codes, or attribution models to combine those efforts with leads and sales. Using a QR code generator allows marketers to create trackable codes that connect offline campaigns to online actions, enhancing the measurement of conversion impact.

2. Influencer Partnerships

Partnerships with influencers are the best method of reaching out to the audience in a credible way. Working with influencers in a niche community of interest in a particular category helps brands to spread their message, establish trust, and get conversions.

For example, A skincare brand partners with a beauty content creator to sell a newly developed product. The influencer creates an Instagram Reel with instructions on how to use the product and provides followers a code to use to buy the same product at a discounted rate. The brand uses Trackier to monitor sales, check engagement, and see how much their campaign contributed to brand recognition.

3. Content Marketing

Consumers love valuable content, and brands can effectively use content marketing to reach out to their target audience. By providing valuable content that is consistent and relevant, businesses can attract new customer and retain their existing ones.

The aim is very clear, and that is to gain trust and credibility, and indirectly remind them of the product and create a demand for it.

For example: Coca-Cola’s “Share a Coke” Campaign: To capture the consumer’s attention and make each experience unique, Coca-Cola wrote customer names on the bottles. People could share social media photos of their named bottles, which helped create a lot of UGC and increase engagement across platforms.

Performance Marketing vs Brand Marketing: Key Differences

In the table below, you can see the difference between performance marketing and brand marketing based on different aspects like their focus, metrics, channels, and many more.

When to Choose Performance Marketing?

Now, you have to decide whether performance marketing will be for your brand or not. It is the best choice when you need quick and clear results to reach your business goals.

1. Ideal for Startups and Growth-Focused Businesses

Performance marketing is the best way for startups and businesses to scale their operations. During their initial period, money is limited, and therefore, it is usual to use those strategies that can get a better ROI.

Performance marketing is the best way to address this need, given that business owners only pay for measurable results like clicks, leads, and sales. This way, every dollar spent on marketing is worth it.

Why should startups or businesses use performance marketing? Because it is:

• It is cost-effective.
• They can get measurable results.
• Startups can refine their campaign strategies based on real-time data.

2. Suited for eCommerce Companies

Performance marketing is highly relevant for any e-commerce business that wants to grow. This differs from traditional marketing, where businesses aim to create awareness or a number of impressions with their products and services.

Performance marketing is all about paying for real actions and results – click-throughs, conversions, or even sales. This makes it suitable for companies that wish to get direct returns from their marketing strategies.

Why does performance marketing work for e-commerce companies?

• It is cost-effective and more forced on getting a better ROI.
• E-commerce businesses can make data-driven decisions.
• They can scale their performance marketing campaigns.
• Businesses can target their niche audience.
• They can use performance marketing software for better conversion tracking.

Case Study: Wakefit’s Success with Trackier

Wakefit, a mattress and pillow industry leader, wants to boost its affiliate operations to generate more revenue. They have partnered with us for measurable and data-driven results.

Wakefit produces genuine products that are approved and lab-tested, and sold at more affordable prices, almost 50% lower than those of famous brands. Their primary objective was to boost sales and conversions through a more targeted and effective marketing strategy.

In 2020, they partnered with Trackier to track their user journey more effectively. Here are some growth numbers that they achieved after partnering with Trackier:

• 25% growth in revenue
• 32% increase in profit
• 40% boost in conversion rate

Read the full case study to boost your own sales numbers and increase your revenue with Trackier.

When to Choose Brand Marketing?

As already mentioned above, brand marketing is a long-term strategy focused on building awareness, trust, and emotional connections with your target audience. Let’s understand if you can opt for brand marketing.

Best for Businesses Seeking Long-Term Growth and Trust

If any business wants to aim for long-term growth and wants to establish trust in their industry, they can go for brand marketing. There are so many reasons why brand marketing is best for businesses:

• Enhance brand recognition.
• Differentiate from their competitors.
• To create a strong connection with their audience.
• To maintain organic growth. 

Best for Established Companies Expanding Market Reach

If any established brand wants to grow further, it can go for brand marketing to get long-term success. Some other reasons are:

• To reach new customer segments.
• Want to enhance their customer loyalty and retention.
• Want to differentiate themselves from their competitors.
• To build trust and credibility with their customers.

Conclusion

In conclusion, understanding the difference between performance marketing vs brand marketing is necessary to understand a business’s growth, depending on its objectives. If any businesses want immediate and measurable results, they can go for performance marketing. As it is data-driven and more focused on ROI.

But if any businesses want long-term growth, trust-building, and emotional connection with their audience, they can go for brand marketing. Although by implementing unique marketing strategies, brands can go for both performance marketing and brand marketing.

FAQs