How to optimize performance marketing channels for first-party data
Wunkerkind’s Power of Performance Marketing guide outlines the tactics and best practices brands can follow to optimize their website, email, text messaging, mobile apps, and ads to generate results. Here's a breakdown of its findings.
Marketers are turning to first-party data and identity networks to combat a number of converging marketing challenges.
The death of third-party cookies is a looming problem for those who still rely on them as a path to remarketing. Meanwhile, the 2024 election cycle will suck the air out of paid channels, driving up costs and limiting availability, both of which will negatively impact ROI. And of course, consumers want more personalized treatment while at the same time putting tighter controls over what information they’re willing to share.
That’s why brands need to stop relying on third-party data, and start making a bigger effort to identify and learn more about their customer directly. That means turning anonymous website and app traffic into known contacts through established identity networks capable of recognizing devices visiting a digital property, mapping it to an individual, and then to an email or mobile number.
When brands identify unknown traffic, they unlock scalable revenue opportunities by connecting with audiences through personalized messaging via owned channels.
That’s the strategy. But like in any battle, success or failure depends on the tactics employed. Wunderkind’s recently released guide The Power of Performance Marketing in 2024 details, among other highlights, several steps brands can take to ensure their efforts drive the results they desire.
Here are some best practices from that report, broken down by channel, that brands can put into place today.
Website
Your website is your online storefront, your face to the world. And the traffic it generates can be enormously powerful once you are able to identify and follow up with visitors. So it’s essential to put your best digital foot forward.
Allocate budget
Customers have increasingly high expectations for the usability of brands’ sites. Retail brands invest an average of 10% of their budget on developing a quality website. Keep up, or get left behind.
Don’t spam
There are many ways to grow your email list that don’t require the use of third-party cookies to identify visitors or tools with limited segmentation and frequency capabilities. Instead, choose best-in-class solutions rooted in data to better learn who is visiting your digital property, which creative, copy and incentive will get them to convert as well as when and where to make that ask to opt-in.
Have a strategy
Focus your list growth strategy on the users visiting your website to identify those who arrive, browse, and even abandon. Those who don’t risk losing out on the potential revenue that can be realized from anonymous traffic.
Email marketing might not be the newest kid on the block, but it works. Here’s how to leverage email in today’s landscape.
Personalized experiences
Batch-and-blast messaging is over. Today, any web or app interaction can trigger an email, offering an opportunity to personalize offers to drive conversions. On the flip side, any changes or updates to your inventory, price, or other signals can also activate emails to consumers ripe for that back-in-stock, price drop, or just-added opportunity.
Content/channel alignment
Customers interact with different channels in different ways with different expectations. Make sure your content is designed to match each, such as using text for promotional and time-sensitive notifications, while using email for rich, brand-forward content.
Nurture brand loyalty
Don’t miss out on opportunities to turn first-time buyers into lifelong brand evangelists with your owned channels. Maintain and build long-lasting relationships with your customers through brand-forward content and retargeting.
Text messaging
Text has become one of the strongest channels to promote product discovery among customers. The average open rate for an SMS campaign is 98%, and 70% of people say SMS is one of the best ways to grab their attention. Here’s how to leverage this channel properly:
Text triggers
Text messages triggered by a visitor’s category, cart or search abandonment are a proven strategy for converting first-time buyers.
Product discovery
Engage customers with new campaigns to help them discover products that might inspire a new purchase, but also be sure to keep any upselling promotions hyper-relevant using historical data, or even look-alike data, to make an offer to the right consumers.
Win back customers
It’s not uncommon for some customers to disengage after their initial purchase. Win them back with promotions around new items or deals that are both compelling and most likely to convert based on what you know about them.
Mobile apps
More consumers than ever are shopping on mobile, and consumer trends show an increasing preference for apps over browsers.
Not an option
Our data shows that mobile apps drive an average of more than 30% of overall traffic to the brands that use them, making it a powerful channel for brands who treat them as an extension of their of their site purpose-built for mobile-first users.
Loyalty driven
The customers who download your app are your most loyal brand advocates. Make every effort to surprise and delight them by making it easier to access your company information, products, and other benefits.
Cross channel
Mobile apps shouldn’t exist in a silo. Customers are multi-device, multi-channel by nature so be sure to compliment your app with triggered emails, texts and more.
Ads
Online ads provide a significant revenue stream, but are often seen as deceptive and disruptive to readers. Low-quality and invasive pop-up ads not only turn off customers, they make your brand look bad. Instead, opt for effective ads that respect the browsing experience and utilize proven exit intent signals that enhance rather than disrupt.
Relevance and personalization
Personalized marketing can reduce customer acquisition costs by as much as 50%. But only if the ads are relevant and tailored to their interests. This is where identity solutions trump cookies, which better match the right ad to the wants and needs of the consumer.
Frequency balancing
Your ads shouldn’t stalk your target customer around the internet any more than your data collection practices should. Setting capping limits on the number of times an ad appears to the same person is vital to maintaining a positive customer experience.
Smart design
Don’t erode the perceived quality of your products with a low-quality ad. Aim for striking, high-impact visuals with thoughtful creative content delivered in a non-disruption way for ultimate conversion.
Don’t intrude
The best ads provide a service, not an interruption. Why disrupt a user who’s actively engaged with your content with an ad that distracts them from the experience. Angering readers isn’t the first foot you want to put forward.
To learn more about these steps, and discover more about the power of performance marketing solutions in today’s consumer landscape, download Wunkerkind’s Power of Performance Marketing guide free today.