Where Does Performance-Based Marketing Stand?
In the world of digital advertising, performance-based marketing is a dream come true in that any action a user makes when conducting an online search is tracked and measured in real time. In current times, with inflation rising and growing uncertainty, where is performance marketing headed, and what should you know?
Pay-per-click and beyond
As time and technology have advanced, performance-based marketing has gone beyond pay-per-click (PPC) models to encompass e-commerce sites and social media influencers, among other digital presences. The data that performance-based marketing provides enables marketers to adjust their campaigns as necessary in order to save money as well as maximize return-on-investment (ROI). Yet marketers must be on the alert. As with anything else, there is a potential downside to performance-based marketing.
A real click—or not?
While the advances in digital technology have great benefits, they also make way for great risk, and performance-based marketing is no exception. Through ad fraud and click fraud, malicious technologies give the impression that an ad has been clicked. These click are not from a human being but by a bot—which then gives false information to marketers about a campaign’s success. Diligence and care must always be given to the smallest detail in examining the results. And while ad fraud and click fraud are always lurking, there are emerging concerns that marketers should know about when conducting performance-based marketing campaigns.
What to know for the future
There are several developments that are currently on the horizon which call for marketers to step back, examine, and possibly change up how they manage their performance-based marketing campaigns. As explained by Jacqueline Dooley in MarTech, these developments are:
1. Digital ad fatigue
The expression “too much of a good thing” indeed applies to the impact of performance-based marketing. Online users apparently are subjected to between 6,000 and 10,000 ads per day. As ad exposure has increased, so has ad blocking technology that limits how many ads are delivered to one user. Alternately, some marketers have proactively adapted to the “Thoughtful Marketing Movement,” where users are given the option of choosing what digital advertising they wish to receive.
2. Rising competition
Again, falling under the “too much of a good thing” definition, the effectiveness of performance-based marketing is well-known, and the number of brands and businesses that want to benefit continues to grow. By the end of this year, approximately two-thirds of global spending will be digital, and will go beyond $867 billion by 2026.
3. Privacy
For the last couple of years, the topic of privacy has been top-of-mind among users and marketers everywhere. The understandable worry that consumers have about the collection of data and how it is being used has led to the movement to phase out third-party tracking technologies by the end of 2023, as well as new privacy policies that Apple introduced to iOS 14, and iOS 15.
Performance-based marketing, while very advantageous, also raises a lot of questions and concerns. With this in mind, consider enlisting the help of the Raydeus Digital Dashboard, which will give you peace of mind in tracking your campaigns. Each and every important metric is connected and visible in one place, and you can keep track of the performance of your brand 24 hours per day, 7 days per week. Everything—social media, paid search, email marketing, call tracking, e-commerce, and website analytics— are available to you through the Raydeus Digital Dashboard.
Contact us if you have any questions and would like to learn more. We will help your performance-based marketing campaigns outperform above and beyond.