performance tools. What is performance marketing. What is performance

On investments in the company K50, which develops a platform for managing advertising.

Georgy Ternovsky, CEO of K50, wrote a column for the CPU about what changes await the market contextual advertising, what is performance marketing and why the banking industry, along with Travel, is the most savvy in terms of contextual advertising.

The word “crisis” is already so tired that I will try to use it as rarely as possible, although the material, in principle, is about our difficult time. And, in my opinion, the contextual advertising industry, which even now is predicted to grow by 10% annually in 2015, should be one of the first to adapt to new realities.

In recent months, I have been actively looking for projects with a normal sales funnel, when the CRM system stores data in the context keyword, for which the purchase was made, and where data on repeated and additional sales throughout the life of the user. This is necessary to start managing bids in Yandex.Direct systems and Google AdWords with an understanding of the exact profit on a key request, and not at the level of "far-fetched indicators".

Over the past quarter, more than a hundred large advertisers have gone through this search, and only two have a normal funnel with an acceptable margin of error, which really can't be helped. At the same time, most agencies say that their profile is performance marketing, and most advertisers think that the transition from working on CPO to ROI is cool.

This is really good, but not enough for 2015 - we should all fly on skateboards, and we still ride on a homemade board.

Let's understand the concepts.

performance marketing- the direction of advertising on the Internet (first of all, contextual and advertising on price platforms), aimed at the most transparent ratio between the budget for the channel and actual sales. In a normal approach - sales determine the budget for advertising.

CPO (CPA, CPL)- cost per order (action, lead) - outdated, but still the most massive KPI of the Russian beau monde of advertisers. I recalled the story of how my friend was fulfilling a transaction plan for a startup that recently left us: plastic cups, forks and other goods up to 300 rubles in the special placement of Yandex and Google gave an excellent CPO indicator, but the business was not brought to good.

ROI- return on investment in advertising, the top thought of most experts. And really, it wouldn't be so bad. If every fifth advertiser counted ROI from revenue, and not from turnover. Or, for example, it would be based not on the average margin for a store or service, but on the actual margin data for each keyword.

No one from the projects I know has reached the data on repeat purchases, at least during the year in the context of the keyword. I'm almost sure that a couple of projects in Travel do this, otherwise they would have closed long ago at their lowest margin.

Why is this happening? Or why the author, if such D "Artagnan, did not do it himself? All because there is little competition, and dumping in Yandex.Market is the main model of competition in Russian e-commerce, and this industry is one of the most advanced. But nothing, this year will fix everything, and soon we will have a real performance marketing.

Now I will try, mainly based on fragmentary experience, to formulate the main claims to the market in the context of industries.

Banks

Probably the most advanced industry, on a par with Travel. But Travel is simpler - 99% of orders are online, the main thing is to calculate LTV - and everything is already cool. In banks, serious financiers still break through a cool approach, working with data on user history, the level of loan refusals for a specific keyword. Why don't you have a flying skateboard?

For example, Tinkoff Bank uses one of the most advanced solutions for tracking the effectiveness of contextual advertising, which I have seen for Last year, and many banks are copying this approach.

But dynamic call tracking (CallTouch and others) costs much less than 10 banks - and it's not a fact that the data is uploaded to CRM.

My usual dialogue with a client looks like this (although it goes much softer, so hereinafter in the text the dialogues are from my head, but this is the meaning. But I want to speak just so harshly, but my upbringing does not allow - this is actually the idea of ​​​​the article) :

Deposits are opened only by calls, and not through the form. Yes?
(Client) - Yes!
- Don't need deposits?
- Needed.
- Why don't you put call tracking?
- We have a branded phone number.
- And name it by heart ...
- I don't remember him, but I understand it all, but the leadership doesn't really understand it. (In fact, what is dynamic call-tracking, most often he himself does not understand)
- Explain, or the management will explain to you, that in the country there is such a situation that there will be no redundancy benefits. And somehow they will understand you, probably, that’s how they built the bank, it’s not “forks in special accommodation” for you.

In general, the banks are great, however, only those few banks that are constantly advertised in the main positions, and not these that conduct advertising campaigns on the Internet for a period of two months. As they said in my childhood: "If it weren't for people like you, people like us, there would be where people like them are."

Car dealers, real estate and others who work on contacts

2014 was a breakthrough year for these segments. Previously, they bought traffic, now they set up dynamic call trackers, chats and track the number and cost of calls (call + chat + application). But the dialogue is also heavy.

Why didn't they go further?
(Client)- Where else?
- You can already track deals and margin...
- Why?
- Well, to manage rates in contextual advertising.
- Oh, that's good, yes, that's what we want. True, our deals have a long cycle. Sometimes up to a year.
- And you less than a year are you going to work here?
- No, but our CRM does not allow integration, it has been set up (written) there for a year and a half, but I will not go to programmers.
- Go to management.
(Further as with the bank)

Let's digress a little and return to the sounded concepts.

Dynamic call tracking- a system for tracking calls by keyword. Undoubtedly, the key and most correct trend of the past year.

(Client)- And what should I buy, 10 thousand numbers?
- No, 10 thousand numbers are not needed, the system substitutes numbers only for those who are currently on the site. From 10 to 30 numbers is enough to count really big advertisers.
- Error?
- 5%-10%.
- It's a lot!
- Yes, I understand that now you have zero error. You are buying traffic. In general, such advertisers usually have indicators sometimes 10 times higher.
(Then usually about the brand number begins and about the terrible management)

LTV- life time value (there is also the concept of cost per buyer) - the profit that the attracted user will bring during the "life", that is, while he interacts with your Internet business, and, accordingly, the cost of such a user.

Startups and startups

There is a lot of understanding and ideas here. True, the lifespan of an average startup usually does not allow time to calculate LTV. Well, where are you - businesses with corporate parties in honor of the 10th and 20th anniversary? You can! I know it's late, but better than never. Just don't be lazy. Your analysts can do everything and can do everything. They just need to be persistently asked.

Other

I have little experience with other industries. But I think it's even worse. It's just a causal relationship.

E-commerce

Here is the most difficult case. Those who should be the first, in principle, are the worst.

What is performance marketing?
They talk a lot about performance marketing (performance based marketing), devote separate sections to it at specialized conferences, and it may seem that this is a tribute to fashion, and not real efficiency. And yet, does it work or not?

Despite the fact that attention to the term has given rise to many definitions, all of them are somehow related to the result. By performance marketing, we mean an approach in which various promotion channels (contextual advertising, affiliate marketing, SEO, RTB placements, etc.) are used to achieve specific business goals: sales volume, customer acquisition cost, ROI. It is important that the activity can be flexibly managed with a focus on results, preferably in real time.

Using a multi-channel approach, we can interact with the user not only at the moment when the desire to make a purchase has already formed, but also at other stages life cycle the consumer, when he is just making a decision, choosing among several options, or ready to make a purchase again. By collecting statistics on each buyer action, online marketers can evaluate the effectiveness of their marketing efforts at all levels of the sales funnel and continuously optimize the campaign based on the obtained data.

Why is this needed?
The emergence of performance marketing has significantly changed the approach to planning advertising activities. The scheme, in which the creative part exists separately from the purchasing part, no longer works. The current situation calls for rapid change advertising campaigns. When different structures are responsible for their development, implementation and adjustment, the process of obtaining data and optimizing an advertising campaign inevitably slows down. Performance marketing avoids these problems. This approach is based primarily on managed channels, which allow and even require constant optimization of the structure, targeting and communication with potential customers, and therefore creative solutions become not only elements of strategy, but also tactics, and require almost daily attention.

The main thing is the result!
Now the market requires a performance approach to the entire marketing mix. Electronic commerce, perhaps the most striking example of when business and marketing work as one. The competition in this area is so fierce that companies must constantly optimize costs and each of their actions.
In most cases, an online store simply cannot afford to spend money on advertising and not conduct a thorough analysis of the results of these efforts in real time. That is, it is important not just to run a campaign, evaluate its effectiveness after some time, and then, having drawn conclusions, start planning the next flight - you need to constantly measure performance and adjust placements.

Any activity: from clicks to blog post views or downloads mobile application should be aimed at solving specific business problems. It is important to understand that the implementation of a performance approach is impossible without integrating with the client's CRM to obtain data on attracted clients and their value. So, for example, did "TKS Bank". Now all the company's marketing activities are clearly subordinated to the KPI of the business (the number of new customers that the bank has received), advertising activities need to be measured in real time and see what effect they have on the business. Thus, advertising campaigns are constantly optimized based on real-world performance data.
The introduction of performance marketing allows you to focus on those tasks that require the least cost and bring the most results - here the Pareto law is classically manifested (“20% of efforts bring 80% of the result”).

An important point is that performance based marketing can be applied not only to online promotion channels. You can also analyze the effectiveness for business in the case of offline campaigns. For example, after a TV commercial is shown, we can measure changes in the volume and structure of search queries and, based on these data, indirectly judge the effectiveness of an advertising campaign.
The performance approach is also used when a business advertises online and monitors how online campaigns affect offline sales. UK retailer Debenhams is an example - 57% of the sales generated by online campaigns came from offline stores, proving that online resources can be successfully used to increase offline sales.

Of course, to achieve these results, brand marketers and agencies need to have access to real-time end-sales data. This is the only way to quickly track the impact of certain steps on sales and the emergence of new customers in order to make the necessary adjustments to the course of the advertising campaign.

Where does it not work?
The performance approach to marketing always works, the question is that when promoting some goods and services, we can get quick sales, but not when promoting others. For example, we will not be able to get quick sales when launching a new online service or product, when brand knowledge is not formed and direct demand is very small, but we can work with intermediate KPIs, get statistics, optimize advertising campaigns and move towards a more business-oriented KPI . You can work in the same way when promoting goods and services that have a long sales cycle (for example, investment products, luxury goods, real estate, and others). Here, the main problem is on the side of statistics: it is necessary to accumulate enough data in order to move on to optimizing campaigns for business KPIs.

What's next?
Tools for promotion should always be chosen based on the real business objectives and its specific goals. At the same time, the development of technology contributes to the use of performance marketing - this approach has more and more opportunities.
Already, each user has a lot of devices that he uses during the day at work and at home. For example, he can start looking for information on one gadget, continue on another, and complete business needs action from your home computer. In this situation, you need to track its actions on different platforms and, when planning communications, take into account the features of each device in the context of the goods and services being promoted.
In the near future, iBeacon, an indoor positioning technology, will gain popularity and new targeting options will emerge. If a customer chooses a product on the site for a long time, puts it in the cart, but doesn't order it, using iBeacon, the retailer can offer a discount on this particular product as soon as the customer enters the store.
The system of sensors will also help to analyze the behavior of visitors: who, at what shelf and how long they have been standing. Based on this data, you can send a personalized message and track which customer offers are of interest and which are left unattended.

One of the trends of the future is a deeper connection between offline and online performance marketing and, in this regard, maximum personalization. Then, based on online actions, we will be able to address the user offline, and vice versa.

Do you know what performance marketing is? The term performance marketing is half a year, as in the language of every "lazy". What is this dish and what is it usually eaten with?

Yesterday I saw a post on Facebook:

Load oranges in barrels

If you do not see blatant nonsense, let's quote from the screenshot:

Checklist for Finding a Contractor to Boost Your Bank Account

Trying to talk about the economy, the bank account, the growth of business indicators, is only reasonable if you have knowledge in the field of economics. The economy says that it is possible to increase a bank account simply by a creditor or by a decrease in the profitability of transactions and oh, by the colossal costs of promotion, which make the business itself unprofitable. What's the point of "increasing the account" of a company?

And what does SEO-performance and S.E.Advertising have to do with all this?

Well, what kind of nonsense is publicly climbing from Internet marketers ?! Gentlemen, Internet advertisers and website promoters, when you sit down to write such texts, do you open a dictionary of business, economics and marketing terms?

In the article from which this screenshot is taken, the author defines the concept of "performance marketing" that he applied:

Recall that performance marketing is an approach to managing Internet marketing aimed at achieving real business goals.

Dear Internet Marketers! Coming to the customer, you, about the real goals of his business, cannot even have a clue. Do you even know that the goal of "profitability" may simply be absent from the company. A business may have a goal of capitalization or scalability. The fact that the owner has a task to increase capitalization, enter an IPO or sell a business, you have no idea!

Digital performance marketing agency for the purpose of accessing the client's bank account! Do you feel "load"!? About the nonsense that Internet advertisers sometimes publish,. Now, I believe that you will be more careful with economics and profitability that are unfamiliar to you!

But how ridiculous and absurd is the concept of performance marketing, invented and cultivated in the digital environment, let's figure it out.

What is the term performance marketing in the digital company environment?

In fact, in marketing environment such concept as "performance-based advertising" is used. It has been used for a long time - ever since the concept of contextual advertising came into use. Knows this term and the Western Internet, they know the dictionaries of Internet advertising and Wikipedia. If you try to translate this term, then "performance-based" means "based on indicators (on numbers)". The word "advertising" means - "advertising". While not disputing the concept of "performance-based advertising" itself, its meaning is that any advertising on the Internet must be counted. The advertiser should pay for advertising only when there are measurable and clearly understood figures.

They know dictionaries, "Western sources" and the concept of "performance". Moreover, the term "performance" is common in Russian and far beyond the digital sphere, and, as one might expect, "performance" is not the same as performance-based".

Thus, there is the word "performance", and there is the phrase "performance-based". The term "performance-marketing" is not in dictionaries and other primary sources!

And then what about the countless pseudo-practical conversations among SEAs and SEOs about performance marketing?

So how did performance-based advertising evolve into performance marketing for performance agencies?

In 2008, the media communication group VivaKi misinterpreted the term performance-baset advertising and the public, from the understanding that "marketing is cooler than advertising", proposed the option "effective marketing", which, however, failed to gain a foothold in professional environment, but it had a devastating impact on the fledgling minds of digital specialists!
The fact is that the very concept of "effective marketing" is meaningless and stupid. Dear digital advertisers...

The whole team and each of the marketers in the company works on the effectiveness of marketing. Marketing cannot be ineffective - what the hell is it, otherwise, is it needed!? A "productive marketer" is as funny as a non-successful football player (and the "non-successful" players took to the field just to run around?). The phrase "performance marketing" is as silly as the phrase "driving car," "writer who can write," or "web-savvy marketer." There is no other marketing, except for the effective one - there are non-effective managers.

And so, marketing is always effective. There is the concept of performance-based advertising, but there is no concept of performance marketing. What does the word performance actually mean?

What is a performance?

or like this:


To the attention of the author of the post and to the attention of colleagues, the term "performance" in the Russian language has a quite specific and well-established definition. Performance (when written like this, in Russian) - form contemporary art, based on the action of the artist, in which the object of art is only an excuse to demonstrate the process of creativity in a certain place and at a certain time. At the same time, the consumer is a contemplator of the creation of an object of art.

To see how art is created is the goal of the consumer, this is performance.

Let me quote a nasty anecdote that is in circulation among students of art universities, which quite intelligibly explains what "performance" is:

If you first ring the professor's doorbell and, in front of his eyes, shit under the door, this is called a performance. And if you first spoil, and then call - this is already called an installation.

Friends, puffing out their cheeks, echoing what others have said without even trying to look at the source - this is today the norm of communication with people of Internet agencies! Is there performance at all in marketing?

What is performance in marketing?

Let's use cases, I think that this is how everything will immediately become clear: performance in marketing- this is when the future owner of a Lamborghini, Ferrari or Tesla car sits at the factory behind glass in an armchair with a bottle of whiskey, and in front of him his future car is manually assembled for him, and a pretty model tells him in colors how the horseradish cedar grew, from which they are now cutting out a lid for him ashtrays. So "sell", for example, items.


Another example. There are goods that cannot be sold without performance. How to sell "a miracle thing for cooking in just half an hour without oil, water and salt? Aha! Got it, yes, what am I talking about?

Performance is an indispensable tool for the sale of TV stores, show programs with elements of advertising on TV, the sale of complex equipment, when the visualization of the process of using the marketing object and demonstrating the performance results of such use causes a burning desire to purchase it.

Performance is also used in trade marketing. For example, in order to involve the consumer, he is invited to take part in the performance. The IQ team that promoted Ax deodorant came up with interesting idea and developed a special design - mounted the cans in special racks and placed them in the men's toilets.

Another example: to show the merits of your cleaning product, at promotions in the Baltics Reckitt Benckizer suggested that shoppers launder money - if you dip the coins in a cleaning agent, they become almost like new.

Producers resort to performance. There is a webcam on the Internet with a view of the Ostankino sausage shop. The all-seeing eye observes and demonstrates how the sausage is cooked. The same applies to Good Wood, a manufacturer of country houses made of timber. The picture from the camera installed in their production is accompanied by a running line indicating which numbered order is currently being processed at the production site and the customer sees the execution of his order with his own eyes.

Friends, this is marketing performance! In marketing, performances are developed and used by special people and entire agencies. Who creates, plans and conducts performances in order to better satisfy the consumer?

What is a performance marketing agency?

Companies that organize performances are called performance agencies.
What is included in the scope of performance agencies? First of all, this is everything that belongs to this area. marketing communications, as events, business events, shows, MICE, party organization.

Event in performance format for marketing

Performance brought the effect of complicity to the field of advertising marketing - bright and emotional events in the show format involve the audience in a relationship with a product or service. Performance is relevant and in demand as a form of modern communication between the seller, the product and the buyer. The performance has two waves of impact on the audience, which is important from a marketing point of view
a) the performance affects those present at the time of the event;
b) the performance affects the audience watching the video filmed during the event.

What is the mistake of digital performance marketers?

1. There is no term "performance marketing", equal to the term "performance-based advertising" because, so that SEO and SEA specialists do not think about themselves, marketing is aimed at customer satisfaction and sales - a universal metric of a comprehensive marketing work ! LTV, sales revenue, number of sales - these are the marketing quality metrics, and not at all leads, clicks, conversions, "cost-per-crap" and other advertising nonsense. All marketers know this!
2. Another of the tasks of marketing is to satisfy the market demand for goods and services as much as possible. Metrics of quality and quantification satisfaction with goods and services also exist: the number of checks with the promoted product, the number of repeat sales, the number of sales of new products under the promoted brand. If someone says that he knows how to consider the effectiveness of marketing as something special - he is mistaken or lying!
3. There are no performance marketers - as marketers who know how to do marketing better and more efficiently, because there is no other marketing than effective. Ineffective "marketing" is simply not paid, so it does not exist.
4. Advertising is not marketing. Advertising is just a part of the communicative whale, one of the marketing tools. Advertising alone, without other marketing tools (product creation, trade marketing, pricing) does not lead to marketing goals. by yourself advertising does not replace marketing.
5. Digital advertisers: SEAs, SEOs, SMMs, SPAmers they have little knowledge not only in the creation, positioning and promotion of goods and services, but they understand little even in offline advertising. That is why they are not only not the best, but absolutely narrow specialists in one of the areas of Internet management.
6. The concept of "performance", written exactly like this - in Russian, before your birth is defined completely different than "performance-based advertising". Not marketing education at least learn english!
7. Performance can be used as one of the elements of quality amplification advertising impact, but "sculpting" the word performance, not even for advertising, but for the very concept of "marketing" - is illiterate!
8. Dear digital advertisers! You are not engaged in branding, you do not know how to create products and do not understand how a product differs from a product. You are not familiar with the mechanics of trade marketing. You are not marketers! If you are already doing high-quality performance-based advertising on the Internet, continue to do it calmly and efficiently. No need to try on a crown on your head without taking off your hat with earflaps.

And the key for advertisers of agencies that sell their services to the market. FROM the above is understood by all without exception marketing specialists, marketing directors and business owners who have a higher marketing or economic education, many years of work experience and just life experience. So they understand all this, and you come to them, bring nonsense about a "performance agency" with you and try to "sell" them your ability to just do advertising on the Internet with this sour mash.

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The basic principle of performance marketing can be explained by next example. Imagine that you want to buy a house. To do this, you contact the realtor and agree that his commission will be paid only if you purchase the proposed option. The reward will be calculated as a fixed percentage of the value of the property - meaning you will be able to estimate the costs. And you pay only for the result - the purchase, regardless of the total number of views of the proposed options.

Performance marketing: what is it?

• image campaign;
• performance marketing.

The first task is to reach as many users as possible in order to increase brand awareness.

And the priorities of performance marketing are to increase sales and determine the specific and measurable effect of investments in promotion. This method of promotion is aimed at a quantitative result that can be measured.

• coupon codes;
• referral links;
• individual phone numbers.

The use of this method implies a fairly large amount of testing and tuning. In the end, it pays off much more. ROI indicator(return on investment - return on investment) and the ease of determining whether the launched campaign is successful. A large number of businessmen prefer this type of advertising, as its productivity is easy to measure.

What determines the cost of advertising

Performance marketing differs from other models in that the payment is made only if the target action was performed (following a link, calling, filling out a form, placing an order), and not for ad impressions. This is called the (-cost per action) approach.

The two main types of CPA used are:

• : cost per sale - the cost of the sale.
• CPL: cost per lead - cost per lead.

CPS implies the accrual of commission for advertising only when purchasing a product or service; and is one of the most popular methods among advertisers. There are two payment options - as a percentage of the purchase made by the user or a fixed amount in monetary terms. Ideally, sales affect advertising costs.

The CPL method is also often used. It is based on the number of attracted leads (potentially interested visitors) who filled out the registration form with their contact details on the company's website or landing page.

The least popular method of evaluation and payment is CPC (cost per click - cost per click) since the actual click may not lead to a change in sales figures and the quality of the click itself is very difficult to assess.

The main channels of performance marketing

The main channels used in performance marketing are:

• search engines (advertising in search networks, contextual);
• social networks (targeted promotion);
• partnership programs;
• mobile advertising;
• e-mail marketing;
• marketplaces.

The main tool of performance marketing is traffic analysis. The main factor influencing the success of the campaign is the precise definition and search for a specific target audience.

In most cases, the impression is determined by the price auction. Companies determine rates for displaying ads to users with certain characteristics (gender, age, marital status, and others) in the selected region. Moreover, the message is conveyed not to an abstract audience, but to a specific consumer. To analyze the effectiveness of channels, all steps from clicking on a banner to making a purchase should be taken into account. Google Analytics and Yandex.Metrika do a good job with this task.

• only what the user is interested in;
• exactly at the moment when he needs it;
• where it suits him.

The key advantages of performance marketing for the customer are payment for a specific target action, and not for the number and time of advertising display; the ability to control the budget and set the maximum allowable value conversions, as well as a visual display of spent and received funds.