Performance Marketing has taken the world by storm as several brands are betting their money on digital spends mainly due to better reach and higher Return on Investment (ROI).
Does performance marketing fall under branding or paid advertising? We have often seemed confused every time this question arises. What best derives this would be a combination of brand as well as paid marketing put together, but only paid for desired actions taken on the advertisement.
The Evolution and Future of Performance Marketing
Evolution:
Ever since its inception, people and advertisers alike have captured the unique selling points (USP) of their consumers for wider reach. It all started back in the stone age where images were carved out from objects to attract buyers. As the years went by cheesy commercials through radio, TV and billboards took the limelight and dominated the advertising space. This era has widely been accepted as the golden era of advertising, opening up numerous ways and possibilities to capture a user attention.
“Every human life is made to fit some space and there is a place for every life.” said Asa Griggs Chandler a prominent personal from Coco Cola, who through their empathy towards the family audience and a well-executed marketing plan created waves in the commercial space and continue to remain the most preferred carbonated beverage in most household’s till date.
Through offline commercials brands were able to get better reach and awareness. As the years went by the motive’s kept changing, products were no more the centrepiece. Brands shifted to a rather people centric approach and gaining awareness accordingly.
Several medium’s and channels were used over the year’s but what created the revolution was the World Wide Web it created enormous waves and took marketing to a whole new ball game. Advertising had transformed through banner ads a small piece of graphic with compelling content, which was later followed by display ads. Ever wondered why the advertising landscape is subject to change every now and then? That’s mainly because the users are actively choosing not to sit through the ads if it isn’t appealing to them.
Though banner ads created a spark, there wasn’t a good process to determine if those ads drew the expected results. An ROI based approach was later introduced which gave advertisers better flexibility and control over their campaigns leading to a new form of advertising termed Performance Marketing.
Calling popup ads poor would be an understatement, as it did create an impact in the early 90’s even till date. Years went by, the ecosystem equally expanded as advertisers got better control, policies got stricter citing better returns. Search engines gained popularity in the early 2000’s, which lead to pay per click and per placement stemmed popularity thus introducing the bidding model into advertising. Soon social media turned out to be an and most essential prospect as most advertisers bid their money on it due it its massive reach, targeting capabilities and user driven content. “Our strategy is much less [about] increasing the volume of ads and much more about increasing the quality of the content and the quality of the targeting to get the right content to the right people” said Mark Zuckerberg, CEO Facebook.
The need to create compelling ads targeting the relevant audience through content gave rise to a new form of advertising termed Native ads with the idea of generating traffic through content. This wave created new opportunities for advertiser to reach their users through sponsored content. Though things keep changing the crux or the foundation is still on the content and viewing them to the relevant users.
Future:
There’s no doubt that technology will continue to shape the future of digital advertising. The dramatic shift from banner ads to artificial intelligence and Augmented Reality (AR)/ Virtual Reality (VR) are a clear indicator to this. Putting things in a nutshell advertisers and ad-agencies need to adapt to the everchanging diverse marketing ecosystem.
With more data to analyse, niche targeting groups have emerged to be the big players in the market even to the extent where behavioural based targeting has turned out to become the most favoured performance marketing strategy for advertisers. As most of the advertisers eyeing at better ROI’s as key performance indicator’s (KPI), the needs focus lies on creating compelling targeted ad-experience through relevant content and creating responsive ads that’s appeals to the user targeted.
