Once upon a time, performance marketing was all about the bottom-funnel. It was a world dominated by conversion-driven tactics like affiliate marketing, paid search, shopping ads, and retargeting. The name of the game? Optimize for the conversion event, hit those cost-per-acquisition targets, and move on. As long as those campaigns were churning out conversions efficiently, all was well in the marketing kingdom.
But times have changed. With acquisition costs skyrocketing and customer journeys becoming more fragmented across channels, this siloed bottom-funnel approach is evolving. The savviest of brands are now seeing the light—they’re realizing the immense value of rethinking performance marketing holistically across the full funnel.
The path to conversion isn’t a straight line anymore. Customers are dancing in and out of the funnel at various stages, twirling across multiple touchpoints. Building cross-channel strategies to engage customers wherever they are in their dance is crucial.
Performance marketing principles like measurement, optimization, and efficiency are no longer just for the final conversion. They’re being applied across the entire operation—from the first twirl of awareness through the lasting waltz of retention and loyalty.
Brands are pushing the boundaries of performance strategy beyond just the bottom funnel. Here’s how they’re shaking things up:
Why should brand marketing be left out of the accountability and measurement party? Brands are tapping into performance tools and tactics to quantify and optimize upper-funnel programs like video, display, influencer, and content initiatives. They’re tracking measurable outcomes like site traffic, engagement, and lower-funnel continuation metrics.
With a blended full-funnel measurement approach, brands can more efficiently orchestrate audience targeting, creative messaging, and budgets across various channels. It’s like connecting all the disparate pieces into one cohesive performance marketing machine.
By harnessing advanced data science and machine learning techniques, multi-touch attribution modeling can evaluate the incremental impact of each interaction along the customer journey. This intel fuels more intelligent cross-channel budget allocation and optimization for driving measured performance.
Breaking down the organizational silos between marketing and sales teams is critical for harmonizing performance efforts across the full customer lifecycle. Unified metrics, collaborative processes, and shared data assets are key for optimizing seamless prospect hand-offs and measuring end-to-end funnel performance impact.
As acquisition costs rise and retention rates become a key efficiency driver, existing customer marketing has become a critical performance channel itself. Applying performance rigor to retention initiatives through loyalty programs, cross-sell/upsell campaigns, winback efforts, and customer experience optimization creates a substantial lever for driving measurable incremental value.
At its core, the shift toward full-funnel performance marketing is about evolving beyond just rigidly focused conversion pixels. It’s about infusing an end-to-end measurement mindset and performance-driven decision discipline across your entire marketing operation.
In this customer-obsessed era, efficiently managing every touchpoint’s measurable contribution to driving target audience behaviors is what will separate the performance leaders from the laggards. Don’t get left behind—start expanding your performance marketing horizons now.
Ready to waltz into the future of performance marketing? Contact Tribu today and let’s create marketing magic together!
