Performance Marketing vs. Customer Acquisition

A company’s marketing strategies deserve a lot of credit for their success. One must continuously monitor the effectiveness of the marketing strategies in order to determine which ones are best for the company. Only 39% of businesses say their marketing strategies are successful, although 66% of them use analytics tools to monitor and evaluate the success of their marketing strategy. 

The two most common marketing strategies are performance marketing and customer acquisition. Later in this blog, we’ll talk about how measurement functions in these two marketing strategies and which one might be better for your company. 

Performance Marketing 

In performance marketing, brand pay marketing service providers only when their business objectives are achieved or when particular actions, like a click, sale, or lead, are completed. As the name suggests, it is performance-based marketing. Since they only pay when the desired outcome is achieved, it gives the advertiser more control. Performance marketing makes sure that only effective campaigns are being funded with the marketing budget. 

More importantly, because all campaigns are highly targeted, marketers consider data-backed decisions and adjust their campaigns based on the result. Performance marketing campaigns typically have a higher success rate. Also, both merchants and affiliates benefit from this. 

How it works 

Advertisers put their ads on a specific channel, and they are then paid according to how well the ad does. There are a few different payment options when it comes to performance marketing: 

• Cost Per Click (CPC): Advertisers are compensated based on how often their ads are clicked. This strategy for boosting website traffic works well.   
• Cost Per Impression (CPM): Impressions are simply views of your advertisement. You pay for per thousand views with CPM. 
• Cost Per Sales (CPS): CPS charges you only when you make a sale that was prompted by an advertisement. This system is also widely employed in affiliate marketing. 
• Cost Per Leads (CPL): Similar to cost per sale, CPL charges you when someone registers for a webinar or email newsletter. CPL produces leads so you can contact customers and increase sales. 
• Cost Per Acquisition (CPA): Compared to CPL and CPS, cost per acquisition is more generic. With this setup, advertisers only receive payment when customers carry out a specific action. 

Pros 

The key benefit of performance marketing is that it is very simple to implement. This strategy appeals to customers because it ensures swift action and prevents overspending. If the agency that is hired falls short of the mark, it receives less compensation. If it succeeds, a reasonable agency fee is paid. The agency gets paid more if the results surpass the predetermined threshold. 

Cons 

One persistent issue with performance marketing is the difficulty in maintaining a good rapport between a client and an agency over time. Goals are generally set and charged for in three tiers: ‘below average,’ ‘performance,’ and ‘exceeding performance.’ When the results outperform the performance a few times and the agency is paid more, the client’s expectations rise after a while. The performance tier for exceeding performance is reduced to average, and contracts are renegotiated or terminated. 

Customer Acquisition 

Customer acquisition is nothing but the process of acquiring new customers. Getting new customers entails convincing people to buy a company’s products and/or services. A Zenith Media report claims that in 2022, digital customer acquisitions are at an all-time high. Companies and organizations use the cost of customer acquisition to determine the value customers bring to their businesses. Customer acquisition management is a set of processes and systems for dealing with customer inquiries and prospects generated by various marketing techniques. 

Customer loyalty programmes, customer referrals, and the like are examples of successful customer acquisition strategies. Customer acquisition management can be summarized as the connection between customer relationship management and advertising, as it is the critical link that allows for the effective acquisition of custom audiences. 

How it works 

Finding quality prospective customers and reaching out to them through call centers and mailing lists is the first step in any fundamental customer acquisition strategy. Getting in touch with prospective customers enables businesses to identify the people and organizations that have expressed interest in or have used products and services similar to those offered by your company. The leads are then further qualified by businesses using a variety of research techniques to ascertain their viability. If you believe you will be able to acquire this new customer, his status is upgraded to prospect and he is assigned to a salesperson for further interaction. 

Pros 

It is impossible to expand into new markets or capitalize on expansion opportunities unless customer acquisition occurs. For new businesses entering the market, a combative acquisition strategy is critical to increasing brand awareness and sales. Customer acquisition is a simple metric to define for businesses; all you need to know is whether a customer is purchasing from you for the first time. This can be accomplished using tools like Google Analytics, making it simple to see if the acquisition strategy you are using is working. 

Cons 

It’s no secret that customer acquisition strategies are extremely time and money consuming for businesses. This quickly turns into a significant drain on your resources, especially if you aren’t making the most of every new client.  It’s not uncommon for businesses to spend all of their marketing budgets on customer acquisition, leaving little money for customer retention. However, the ROI decreases significantly when acquisition efforts aren’t coupled with a workable plan to encourage repeat business.