Performance Marketing in the Media Mix

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There’s something that the highest-performing marketers have in common: they’re investing more resources, time, and talent into performance marketing. A new study by Forbes shows that the best marketers dedicate a full 27% more staff and resources into the analytics, benchmarks, and models needed for world-class performance measurement, spending at least 10% of their budgets on measurement, planning, and modeling.

At TUNE, it’s one of our core beliefs: all marketing should be measured on performance. In this blog post, we’ll uncover some of the most popular areas we’re seeing performance marketers invest in to get the most out of every dollar spent.

Marketing Analytics: Growing by 229%

Currently, marketers spend about 5% of their budgets on marketing analytics, but that number is expected to more than triple by 2021. When asked, “What’s in your marketing budget,” 3 out of 4 marketers mentioned marketing analytics.

Social Media: No Longer Just About Brand-Building

Part of that shift is in how brands are using social media. Whereas social media used to be a channel for brand building and reputation, marketers are increasingly using it for conversion.

“Brands are looking at social media not just for brand building but for acquisition and performance media,” said Marissa Tarleton, CMO at RetailMeNot Inc. “In the past, marketers were putting aside a social budget for brand building, but brands are now putting more investment on social media because they can see a return on investment.”

According to The CMO Survey, marketers currently allocate about 10% of their budgets to social media spend, but that number is expected to nearly double over the next five years.

To get the most bang for your buck, invest in platforms that give you the most targetability and measurement capabilities.

Attribution: Models Reflecting the Entire Customer Journey

Part of getting a clearer idea of where your customer comes from is expanding your view of attribution, from single-click to multi-touch. The customer journey is complex; customers could see an ad on social media while surfing their mobile phones, later check out the company website on an iPad, and finally take action when they see an ad while watching Netflix. It’s no longer sufficient to assume a customer sees your ad once and immediately makes a purchase; customers typically interact with brands at least seven times before actually buying.

So while 8 in 10 marketers say attribution is critical or very important to marketing success, 70% are still using a single-click attribution model. But we’ll see that change over the next 12 months, with 74% of marketers planning on expanding their model to multi-touch attribution.

In fact, according to Forbes, the highest-performing marketers are almost twice as likely to use sophisticated marketing mix and multi-touch attribution models to plan growth strategy, demonstrate sales outcomes, support marketing measurement, and justify budgets.

Ad Fraud: Mitigating Its Impact

Paying for performance also requires monitoring that the clicks you’re paying for are, well, actual people. As such, 6 in 10 marketers said they will increase their direct media buying, and 48% of retailers said they plan to reduce programmatic spend to better monitor the quality of traffic and mitigate the risk of fraudulent advertising traffic.

There are a variety of actions marketers are taking to reduce the risk of fraud, such as monitoring clicks, considering private marketplaces, and watching campaigns for suspicious traffic. (Read our latest post on ad fraud for more.)

Make Performance Work for You

The customer journey has never been more complex, and as such, performance marketing has never been more crucial to know where to allocate your budget, which partners are most effective, and how to get the most return out of every dollar.

At TUNE, we empower marketers to optimize their performance by connecting investments to measurable outcomes across the entire customer journey. Learn more here.

Author

Becky is the Senior Content Marketing Manager at TUNE. Before TUNE, she handled content strategy and marketing communications at several tech startups in the Bay Area. Becky received her bachelor's degree in English from Wake Forest University. After a decade in San Francisco and Seattle, she has returned home to Charleston, SC, where you can find her strolling through Hampton Park with her pup and enjoying the simple things between adventures with friends and family.