Top 3 Performance Marketing Channels You Need to Use

7 Min Read

In marketing, you’re looking for an edge over the competition and a meaningful way to reach more consumers. Technology makes it easier to seek out customers directly and intimately, but the ubiquity of video and streaming services can also mean it is hard to compete with distractions. When you do find an innovative way to break through, it can get pricey.

That’s where utilizing the best performance marketing channels can provide a real solution.

What Is Performance Marketing?

Performance marketing refers to digital marketing in which advertisers are trying to drive a specific measurable outcome, such as ROAS or a website visit.

Other measurable metrics and KPIs include the number of leads an ad generates or the conversion number down the sales funnel, which is of particular interest for B2B performance marketing.

These are distinct from ads focused on driving awareness, bought en masse in the hope they would generate demand, but with little in the way of measurement tied to specific outcomes.

Benefits of Performance Marketing

You can summarize performance marketing’s benefits with the following points:

• Cost-Effectiveness: Since you only pay for achieved results (like clicks, conversions, or sales), it can be a highly cost-effective marketing strategy.
• Measurable: Performance marketing allows you to accurately track and measure the success of campaigns, providing clear insights into your return on investment.
• Targeting Capabilities: It offers the ability to target specific audiences based on various demographic and behavioral data, which can increase the effectiveness of campaigns.
• Risk Mitigation: By paying only for completed actions, businesses can mitigate the risk typically associated with upfront marketing costs.
• Scalability: If a campaign is performing well, it can be easily scaled up to enhance its impact.
• Flexibility: Performance marketing campaigns can be adjusted in real time based on their performance, providing businesses with a high degree of flexibility.
• Brand Awareness: Although the focus is on measurable results, performance marketing can also significantly boost brand visibility and awareness.

Performance marketing is a leaner and more efficient way to reach your goals, and the following types of performance marketing all aim to break through the clutter and reach your target audience:

1. Social Media Marketing (SMM)

Social Media Marketing (SMM) as a performance marketing channel primarily focuses on ads on social media platforms like Facebook and LinkedIn — for which video can be a powerful marketing tool — Instagram, TikTok, etc. Social media consumes vast amounts of Americans’ time, so it makes sense to try and engage consumers where they already are.

2. Search Engine Marketing (SEM)

Search Engine Marketing (SEM) uses ads to place your product in a highlighted position on search engine web pages. When you use Google to search for “vitamin C” and the top few results are ads, that’s search engine marketing in action. It can be especially effective as a performance channel because you are targeting an audience already motivated to look for your product and know you’re matching it directly to their interests.

3. Connected TV Advertising and Over-The-Top Advertising

OTT advertising refers to content streamed across all devices such as mobile and desktop. It can include content from services like Netflix, Hulu, and HBO Max, but often includes other less-prestigious video sources that wouldn’t normally be considered television content. The content is delivered “over the top” of old-fashioned broadcast or cable network programming. 

Connected TV (CTV) is television content accessed by apps and streamed over smart TVs, or a connected device such as an Amazon Fire Stick, Roku, or Playstation that is hooked up to a television. While OTT can be accessed via mobile and desktop, Connected TV can not, and instead streams content onto smart TV screens. Content quality is high, sourced from top networks like Hulu, HBO Max, Netflix, and others, and is more in line with what you would expect from television content.

Connected TV Advertising

Connected TV advertising can be an especially powerful performance channel. That’s in part because of the large audience available (92% of US households watch CTV), as well as the attention and focus of the medium in which that audience is served ads—the TV screen. 

The ability of CTV to generate data on viewership statistics means you can combine the virtues of performance marketing and targeting with clear, actionable information on your campaign. And if you want to make changes to your campaign to improve performance, CTV allows much more flexibility than traditional forms of TV advertising. 

CTV advertising can take two avenues: 

• Increasingly, streaming services that were initially subscription-only have included ad-supported tiers through their platforms. There are also free ad-supported services like Tubi, whose popularity might surprise you, particularly with older viewers. 
• Roku and other CTV home screens have valuable advertising real estate that can reach viewers while they’re engaged in making their viewing choice, a process that can add up to forty-five hours a year, according to Vox.

Both of these avenues use highly-sophisticated data science to target audiences with precision.

Other Marketing Channels to Consider

The types of marketing below can sometimes be confused with performance marketing channels, but they are not the same. However, when these strategies are integrated with broader marketing initiatives, you can amplify your message.

1. Content Marketing

Content marketing focuses on disseminating relevant and informative content to targeted audiences. That could consist of how-to or explainer videos or more subtle, sponsored content that feels journalistic but still ties into your brand and marketing goals. The idea behind content marketing is to build authority and trust for your brand.

2. Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is another type of marketing that uses searched-for keywords to boost your content in web page rankings. So even if your content is not a paid ad, Google or other search engines may favor it in their rankings. SEO has become very sophisticated and can apply to visual content, both static and video, as well as to written content.

Attention spans are short, and SEO helps your content pop up on the more valued search engine real estate, such as the first page of results. That can make all the difference in whether your content is absorbed or ignored.

3. Native Social Advertising

Native advertising refers to content that feels organic to the platform it’s on and can refer to style and tone. For example, LinkedIn is more professional, whereas Instagram is more casual and lifestyle-oriented. It can also refer to technical specs, including aspect ratio (Instagram tends to be square or vertical; Facebook is generally in the classic 16:9 horizontal ratio) and length. In either case, the idea is to make content that feels like a piece of the other content a user is enjoying. If the ad does not feel out of place for the environment it is in, consumers are more likely to enjoy your content for its entertainment value.

4. Partnership Marketing

Partnership marketing involves two or more businesses or entities teaming up to increase their reach and impact. As an example, sometimes a brand has a niche product or expertise, and a smaller audience to which they can get their message out. Through partnership marketing, they can borrow the gravitas of a more well-known brand. The crucial thing to guarantee success is to ensure your goals are aligned.

Affiliate Marketing

In affiliate marketing, one site links to another (typically a shopping website) and earns a percentage of the sales that result from that click. For example, shopping recommendation sites like NYMag.com’s Strategist offer a roundup of the best products in many categories, then link to Amazon and specific business sites, earning a commission from those sales.

Influencer Marketing

Influencer marketing involves using social media or celebrity influencers with large numbers of followers to expand your marketing’s reach. After all, it’s undeniable that these figures play a significant role in making products and services appealing to their millions of followers, acting as a stamp of approval.

Connected TV Is Key to Successful Demand Generation

The best way to not passively receive interest from your potential customers but to actively generate demand is via Connected TV. That’s because CTV has already captured your viewers and can engage them in a dynamic, entertaining, and targeted way. This type of advertising turns them from possible customers into people who are engaged and excited about your offerings. And programmatic media buying technology makes it a complete system of building interest, generating demand, and then being able to have your target audience act on it immediately.

Rather than the old days of making and buying expensive ads and then hoping your target audience sees them during a popular show, Connected TV allows you to: 

• Build an accurate profile of your ideal consumers
• Target those audiences
• Drive new and highly-qualified traffic to your site immediately, making for a seamless process. 

Performance Marketing Channels: Final Thoughts

Performance marketing channels can be a powerful tool to make sure you are reaching your audience in a measurable and effective way. And by advertising on a channel like Connected TV, which combines the best of digital advertising and the best of TV advertising, you can ensure your brand achieves its marketing goals.

So if you’re serious about reaching your demand generation goals, get in touch with MNTN today — and start crafting a CTV campaign that’s smart, targeted, and gets results.

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