Why are Brand Marketers Turning to Performance?

Last Thursday, AdExchanger published an article about how one brand is shifting attention to Performance.

Namely, Reebok is beginning to explore how Performance can help them garner more measurable results in their US marketing strategy. David Oksman, Reebok’s Head of US Marketing, stated that Performance is increasingly entering Reebok’s brand equation, largely because of its ability to map audiences through their sales funnel.

Tracking audiences and understanding how deep they are in the sales funnel and moving them through your CRM not only allows for potential retargeting and more precise messaging, but also helps close the ‘leaky’ funnel one might have with content or brand engagement alone.

Indeed, on Performance Oksman stated “we make sure that we’ve got objectives and KPIs set up not just at the top of the funnel, but across the entire consumer purchase funnel, in order to maximize content.” He added, “The content [Reebok is] creating as well as the dollars we’re spending on media are really just about finding the right efficiencies in order to maximize reach. The balance of content creation and media investment is something we’re thinking hard about.”

Brands are beginning to demand more attributable results and accountability from their campaigns. And with that demand, more forms of media – paid content, ads, and TV – are becoming measurable beyond just engagement.

With such pivotal news we asked Debrani Ghosh, Programmatic Client Services Director at ClearPier, what her thoughts were on the growing shift.

What are your thoughts about brands shifting gears towards Performance?

The bottom line for brand advertisers is that Performance provides true, measurable KPIs where ROI tracking wasn’t possible before. But it’s effecting more than just our ad strategies.

Performance is also changing the client-vendor relationship in many ways as well. We’re seeing brands demand more from their campaigns and they’re doing so by putting vendors in the spotlight to be the main ROI drivers.

And as a result, vendors have to step up their game across data and insights capabilities, technology, client services and education to stay competitive.

Is shifting to Performance a smart move?

Absolutely. What’s the point in spending your ad dollars without measurable KPI objectives? Performance coupled with data encourages results and helps reduce waste compared to traditional methods.

For example when brands work with ClearPier on a Performance basis, we’re able to identify your potential consumers beyond site demographics, down to the page level with first-party data layering. So the result is you don’t have to spend time or money in the prospecting stages to gather more info. It’s also a controlled environment because of our direct relationships with each publisher, so beyond Performance, clients are also assured brand safety.

Does the future of all marketing belong to performance?

E-commerce trends indicates that an estimated $34 Billion will be spent online by Canadians alone this year. Worldwide, retail e-commerce sales will reach $1.9 Trillion this year. The rise in e-consumption will dictate changes in marketing budgets globally as well.

And if brands are demanding more results, you can bet that they’ll also be shifting more of their marketing dollars towards Performance.