Marketing can be tough, especially now, with rising costs, dwindling budgets, and the need to do more with less.
With the rapid improvement of digital technologies and tighter operating and marketing budgets, performance marketing has become a focus for businesses across Aotearoa / New Zealand seeking tangible results and a clear return on their marketing investments.
But what does performance marketing even mean? Performance marketing is a results-driven approach that focuses on measurable outcomes and actions. It's about paying for specific, quantifiable results, such as clicks, leads, sales, or downloads, rather than simply paying for advertising impressions or potential reach.
These data-driven strategies allow businesses to track and analyse their marketing campaigns, ensuring that every dollar spent is working towards achieving concrete business goals.
From search engine marketing and social media advertising to affiliate marketing and email campaigns, performance marketing encompasses a wide range of channels and tactics, all with the common objective of delivering measurable results.
Traditional Marketing vs. Performance Marketing
Traditional marketing, often characterised by mass media advertising and broad brand awareness campaigns, has long been the go-to approach for businesses. However, with internet penetration in New Zealand now at 95.7% and 4.13 million social media users in January 2024 (datareportal.com), performance focused digital marketing has become the efficient way for brands to connect with their customers. Coupled with high internet usage, consumers now have more control over their information consumption and purchasing decisions, the limitations of traditional marketing are becoming increasingly apparent.
Traditional marketing often relies on indirect metrics such as impressions and reach to gauge success. While these metrics can provide some insights into brand visibility, they fall short when it comes to demonstrating concrete business outcomes. Additionally, traditional marketing can be costly and difficult to track, making it challenging to optimise campaigns and allocate budgets effectively.
Performance marketing, on the other hand, prioritises measurable results, allowing businesses to track the direct impact of their marketing efforts on key performance indicators (KPIs) such as lead generation, sales, and customer acquisition. This data-driven approach enables marketers to make informed decisions, optimise campaigns in real-time, and allocate budgets towards strategies that are proven to generate the highest return on investment (ROI), and Return On Advertising Spend (ROAS).
Why Performance Marketing Matters for New Zealand Businesses
In the modern marketing environment, businesses of all sizes are constantly seeking ways to stand out from the crowd, differentiate their business, and connect with their target audiences. Performance marketing provides a powerful solution to achieve these goals by:
- Maximising ROI: By focusing on measurable results, performance marketing ensures that your marketing budget is allocated towards strategies that deliver the greatest return. This helps you avoid wasteful spending on ineffective campaigns and achieve a higher ROI.
- Targeted Reach: Performance marketing allows you to precisely target your ideal customers based on demographics, interests, behaviour, and other relevant criteria. This ensures that your marketing messages are reaching the right people at the right time, increasing the likelihood of conversions.
- Data-Driven Optimisation: Performance marketing relies on data and analytics to continuously measure and improve campaign performance. This allows you to make informed decisions based on real-time insights, optimise your strategies, and achieve better results over time.
- Flexibility and Scalability: Performance marketing campaigns can be easily adjusted and scaled based on your budget and business objectives. This flexibility allows you to experiment with different tools, tactics, and channels, adapt to changing market conditions, and grow your marketing efforts at your own pace.
- Transparency and Accountability: Performance marketing offers transparency into campaign performance. With the right setup, you can track every click, lead, and sale, providing a clear picture of how your marketing budget is being utilised and the results it's generating.
Key Performance Marketing Channels
- Search Engine Marketing (SEM) / paid search advertising: (e.g., Google Ads, Microsoft ads) SEM helps businesses reach potential customers who are actively searching for products or services related to their offerings, commonly paying only when someone clicks on your advertisement to visit your website.
- Social Media Advertising: Platforms like Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Snapchat, and LinkedIn offer sophisticated targeting options and ad formats to reach specific audiences and drive engagement – from video views and reach through to link clicks, purchases, and form completion.
- Display advertising / banner adverts: From the Google display network through to programmatic, or direct, display advertising has the ability to find new audiences that are likely to engage with your brand (through in-market audiences, past search history, or a range of other targeting means), delivering a compelling brand story, and motivating action.
- Affiliate Marketing: By partnering with affiliates, businesses can leverage their reach and influence to promote their products or services and pay commissions based on performance.
- Email Marketing: Email campaigns can be used to nurture leads, build relationships with customers, and drive conversions through targeted and personalised messaging.
- Content Marketing: Creating and distributing valuable content can attract and engage your target audience, building brand awareness and driving organic traffic to your website.
Implementing Performance Marketing in Your Business
To get started with performance marketing, consider the following steps:
- Define your goals: Identify your key business objectives and the specific outcomes you want to achieve through your marketing efforts.
- Choose the right channels: Select the performance marketing channels that are most relevant to your target audience and business goals.
- Set clear KPIs: Establish measurable key performance indicators to track the success of your campaigns.
- Develop a performance marketing strategy: Create a comprehensive plan that outlines your target audience, messaging, ad creative, and budget allocation.
- Track and analyse: Use analytics tools to monitor campaign performance, identify areas for improvement, and optimise your strategies. Real-time dashboards make it much easier to keep a track of performance and respond as needed.
Partnering with a Performance Marketing Agency
For businesses that lack the in-house expertise, time, or resources to manage their own performance marketing campaigns, partnering with a specialised performance marketing agency is a great investment. A performance marketing agency can provide the following benefits:
- Expertise: Expert, hands on knowledge of performance marketing best practices, strategies, and technologies.
- Resources: Access to specialised tools and platforms that can enhance campaign performance, increase efficiency, and deliver accurate, real-time reporting.
- Time Savings: Outsourcing your performance marketing frees up your internal team to focus on other core business activities.
Performance marketing is a key component in the modern marketing mix for businesses seeking to maximise their marketing ROI and achieve measurable results. By embracing a data-driven approach and focusing on specific, quantifiable outcomes such as Return On Ad Spend, businesses can optimise their marketing efforts, reach their target audiences effectively, and drive long-term business growth.
Whether you choose to manage your performance marketing in-house or partner with an agency, the key is to start pulling your performance marketing strategy together today.
If you need some help, ROAS Performance Marketing are here, with the knowledge, experience, and expertise to help you get started today.
Just fill in the form below, and we’ll be in touch to help you get started.