Attracting Brands to Performance Marketing
ADOTAS – Last month I spoke on a panel with some other very talented folks, including EJ Hilbert of Online Intelligence (part of Epic Advertising) at OfferVault’s Performance Marketing Leadership Summit, about how as an industry we can attract more top-tier and brand advertisers to the performance marketing industry.
As I’m sure many of you know, performance marketing has grown by leaps and bounds in a relatively short amount of time, due to the intrinsic benefit of the accountability and ROI of only paying for actual results, but we still have a long way to go. Many brand advertisers do not recognize performance marketing as a viable online marketing vehicle, even as the results that direct marketers are seeing shows that they should be.
Although there were differing opinions on the panel, the general consensus was that as we look to reach the next level and continue to attract larger brands that have remained on the sidelines, advertisers and publishers will have to work together to enhance the experience for everyone. Here, I outline my recommendation for getting more brand advertisers on board, focusing on regulation, education and innovation.
Self-Regulation. Because of the industry’s still-evolving regulatory environment, there are still quite a few unscrupulous companies wearing the banner of performance marketing while working to defraud and deceive consumers, publishers and advertisers.
It’s no secret that this “just here to make a quick buck” attitude has served as a detriment to the reputation of the industry, and responsible, ethical parties will have to band together to reduce these risks so that brand advertisers will feel comfortable in this space.
The Performance Marketing Association is making great strides to establish standards and codes of conduct for those on both sides of the fence, but as individuals, we need to step up and take responsibility for our own actions. If everyone insists on making traffic flow more transparent, for example, we can reduce some of the risks and fraudulent practices that are taking place today.
In addition, though it will not be an easy task, if we don’t do a better job of policing our own networks, it’s only a matter of time until a governmental organization that doesn’t understand the ins and outs of the industry steps in to do it for us.
By working together to institute rigorous standards for publishers and advertisers, we can help to block the small percentage of unethical parties that are damaging the performance marketing industry and begin to shed the reputation that has plagued us for so many years.
Education. As we step up regulation and begin to reduce fraud, the next step will be educating brand advertisers who are not familiar with the industry. One way to do this is by clearly conveying the value proposition and promoting successful performance marketing case studies (if you’ve got them, share them!). If we paint a picture of how the industry model really works and how it benefits both advertisers and publishers, we’ll be able to clear up some of the common misconceptions.
Performance marketing has evolved and clearly has benefit on brand awareness. The right approach can be integrated into nearly all channels of a brand marketer’s marketing plan, including search, email, social media, display and mobile — even offline. Let’s identify and highlight these stories of success to show brand marketers the potential of performance marketing.
Innovate
Though we’ve seen evolution in the performance marketing space, it has been primarily human-driven, with little technological innovation. For the most part, performance marketers have used the same tools and technologies that were available during the industry’s inception. This is something we have the power to change.
With minor updates to technology we will be able to better enforce the rules that we set as an industry, reduce fraud, give advertisers and publishers the right tools to do their jobs and increase the likelihood of a transaction — in other words, make performance marketing even more effective.
By striving for constant innovation and not settling for the status quo, we will see results with performance marketing that cannot even be conceived of at this time.
If we all work together to make these things happen, we’ll soon start to attract more respected brand advertisers and thus more dollars to the performance marketing channel — a win for all.
Reader Comments.
Great info, thanks for sharing this.
What we try to do is develop strategic relationships, say web develpers who have uper tier advertisers. The second thing we do is to service our existing clients to the fullest and beyond their expectations. We have had some really huge clients refered to us by our customers.
Adam thats the best way to grow. Do as you say and say as you do… referral business means you are delivering …. we also look at how we can solve problems and create highly customized programs. that ” all partners are not created equal, and have unique needs” 
this is what builds our performance marketing industry reputation and we all grow together
CPA networks will never woo big brands unless they are able to do the following:
- Have publisher transparency
- Provide non-incentive traffic
- Provide non-email marketing traffic
- Eliminate fraud by using better screening and order/lead verifying procedures.
- Have better publisher management making sure all the traffic and sales/leads are on the up and up…
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