Performance marketing is key to brand success

Asia-Pacific (APAC) is forecast to increase its share of global ad spend to 33% by 2023, continuing to grow as brands leverage digital platforms in their marketing mix.

Although not all APAC brands have reached digital maturity, data driven marketing is key to performance, leading the way to increased revenue and cost efficiencies.

Brands can achieve success through measuring every metric of their performance marketing campaigns, including clicks, conversion rates, bounces, and more, which offers a deeper understanding of consumers.

With this data, brands not only see how successful their current campaigns are, but can apply this knowledge to future planning.

Through informed decisions, marketers are better able to appeal to the APAC market, as their consumers demand an optimal brand experience.

By using a comprehensive view of the consumer journey to inform their strategies, brands will ultimately increase return on investment (ROI) and encourage further spending in APAC’s advertising sector.

The importance of performance marketing

When it comes to APAC consumers, marketers need to offer a seamless digital experience to promote online activity.

Whether through a mobile friendly website or a dedicated app, brands should look to optimize their customer experience on all platforms.

Performance marketing is an important component in this process, as it allows brands to gain further insight into the consumer journey.

Harnessing data across all touchpoints ensures that every customer interaction is meaningful.

Marketers are able to identify and resolve any pain points in the customer journey through a full understanding of user behaviors and patterns, enhancing the brand experience with data-led decisions.

Payment methods, for example, are a key factor when appealing to consumers online. Knowing which options resonate best with customers enables brands to offer greater choice and facilitate a smoother path to purchase.

The benefits of consumer data can be applied to all aspects of a digital campaign, with marketers feeding this intelligence into their on-going or upcoming strategies.

What can brands do to optimize the opportunities for performance marketing?

Above all, marketers need to establish key performance indicators (KPIs) before diving into performance marketing.

Performance is unique to each brand, but also to each campaign depending on marketers’ goals – boost in online sales, or app usage.

To do this effectively in APAC, brands need to recognize the regional differences across their consumer base.

Asian millennials account for nearly 15% of the world’s population, but marketers must understand their performance will be measured differently across this demographic, depending on which region they target.

India for example, is the fastest growing digital market in APAC, highlighting the need for brands to prioritize mobile optimization as they embrace performance marketing.

Singapore’s digital market, however, is more mature and technologies such as 5G will mean brands need to tailor their KPIs to reflect the developments in this region.

Additionally, marketers can harness direct-to-consumer (DTC) sales, as this is a more efficient way of measuring success.

If all of a brand’s conversions take place on its own website, or through its own ads, attribution is simpler and first-party data builds a clearer picture of consumer behaviors.

This strategy has worked for many homegrown brands, which used performance-based, DTC marketing to drive ROI.

How does this lead to campaign success?

Research demonstrates that APAC consumers prefer local brands over global, offering APAC marketers a great opportunity to optimize their digital campaigns for a receptive market.

By utilizing performance marketing as an effective tool, brands can capitalize on this to increase their appeal for consumers and generate better returns.

Performance marketing allows brands to ensure they only pay for results, which creates greater cost efficiency and shares the potential risk between the brand and its agency.

The most successful way to adopt the full potential of performance marketing is with data.

Marketers should keep data privacy differences front of mind when targeting local regions, but leveraging consumer data builds affiliations, more effective strategies, and stronger personal appeal to individuals within APAC’s diverse consumer base.

Through keeping a finger on the pulse of what can make an impact, and forecasting future trends or developments, brands can successfully enhance and future-proof their performance campaigns.

This applies particularly to the roll out of 5G, as marketers will need to make certain their strategies are compatible with increased mobile speeds.

When making media buying and business decisions, marketers should place customer experience at the top of their priorities.

Brands need to be able to maximize conversions by guiding users along the marketing funnel not once, but multiple times.

Marketers that put their customers first, building brand loyalty and connecting with consumer bases, will ensure continued growth with their performance campaigns.

By looking ahead – and preparing for developments in technology and potential data regulations – brands can continue to offer an optimized customer experience across all platforms.

Marketers that establish KPIs, understand regional differences in consumers, and leverage data in their strategies, will reap the rewards of informed, impactful performance marketing.

In eight years as Creative Director at MGID, Karina Klimenko has focused on creating ads that tell a story, working with MGID’s global teams to ensure ad creative is localized for audiences across the globe. She is passionate about learning and applying her global findings to campaigns across the advertising ecosystem, and monitors consumer trends closely to understand the ever-growing industry.