Many digital and performance marketers often depend on a familiar mix of channels to disseminate their messages, including well-known platforms such as Google, Facebook, YouTube, and Instagram.
A data-driven marketing strategy goes beyond replicating what’s currently effective; it involves experimenting with new avenues.
This blog post will delve into the 10 best performance media channels that merit your advertising efforts or experimentation in 2024.
In this post:
- What are performance marketing channels?
- 10 Best performance marketing channels in 2024
- Which types of advertising formats are applicable on performance marketing channels?
- Summary
What are performance marketing channels?
Performance marketing channels are online platforms and avenues, including digital marketing and display advertising channels, that enable businesses to execute marketing campaigns with the specific goal of achieving measurable results.
These results typically revolve around key performance indicators (KPIs) such as clicks, ad views, downloads, and app installs.
These channels provide businesses with the means to track and measure the performance of their campaigns in real-time, allowing for a data-driven approach to optimize marketing strategies for better outcomes.
10 Best performance marketing channels in 2024
Snapchat
Snapchat is frequently underestimated by marketers, a significant oversight. With its continuously expanding number of daily active users, it presents a potentially lucrative performance marketing channel.
Utilizing Snapchat Ads to reach potential customers (Snapchatters) based on demographics, interests, devices, and even location.
Leveraging AR shopping lenses that empower brands to seamlessly integrate their products into content, allowing users to effortlessly browse, interact, and make direct purchases from their catalog.
2. Reddit
Reddit serves as a network of communities where individuals immerse themselves in their interests, hobbies, and passions. In 2024, tap into the influence of Reddit’s extensive and closely-knit communities, referred to as “Subreddits,” to access the engaged and highly impressionable market of Redditors.
Redditors demonstrate a nearly 50% higher likelihood of trusting a brand that advertises on Reddit compared to other social media platforms and websites.
Key ad products on Reddit include:
- Reddit Pixel: This tool empowers marketers to utilize the insights of actively engaged Reddit users, optimizing campaigns, targeting qualified leads, and driving conversions.
- Promoted Carousel: Reddit’s Promoted Carousel feature enables brands to craft a compelling narrative, connecting with customers in a distinctly Reddit-oriented manner through images and GIFs.
- Engagement retargeting: Build a stronger connection by re-engaging with users who have previously encountered or taken action on your Reddit Ads.
3. TikTok
In 2024, having a digital marketing strategy without TikTok is impractical. The app dominated the download charts in 2022, surpassing Instagram by over 100 million downloads (672 million total). Its popularity has sustained through 2023, showcasing the platform’s continued significance. TikTok boasts an exceptionally engaged audience, with a remarkable 91% of users taking action after watching a TikTok video – a rate six times higher than other channels!
TikTok provides diverse avenues for performance marketing campaigns, including:
- Paid Ads: Through TikTok Promote, advertisers can select a goal—whether it’s achieving video views, gaining new followers, or driving website visits. The video presentation is tailored to TikTok users based on the specified goal.
- Ad auctions: These auctions enable advertisers to bid on TikTok Ads, ensuring optimal results for their performance marketing campaigns. Bid options include cost per view (CPV), cost per click (CPC), cost per mille/thousand impressions (CPM), and optimized cost per mille/thousand impressions (oCPM). For those seeking increased website traffic, bidding for cost per click is a viable option.
4. Quora
Quora stands out as a unique Q&A social media platform where users pose questions, seek answers, and engage with one another.
Given its substantial engagement levels, Quora presents itself as a performance marketing channel worth exploring in 2024, offering access to its 300 million monthly users. Utilizing this platform can assist in building authority and driving high-quality traffic and leads to your website and products.
Quora provides a self-service ad platform that empowers advertisers to craft customized native ads targeting users based on interests, geography, and browser preferences.
Quora Ads are exclusively available through auction, requiring advertisers to specify a bid value for each click, akin to platforms like Google Ads and Facebook Ads. Notably, there is no minimum budget constraint for Quora Ads, allowing advertisers to choose their budget freely.
5. Twitch
For those aiming to connect with a youthful demographic, Twitch proves to be the ideal platform, as the typical user falls within the 16–24 age range, often identified as Innovators. With over 140 million unique monthly visitors on this gaming platform, the majority of whom are receptive and enthusiastic about consuming content, Twitch provides a fertile ground for engagement and action.
Twitch offers two advertising programs: banner ads and in-video ads. Advertisers have the flexibility to strategically place their ads before, during, or after a stream, aligning with the optimal timing based on when the partnered creator anticipates the highest viewer count.
6. Native advertising with Outbrain
The most effective advertisements improve a user’s website experience rather than causing interruptions. Native advertising allows the creation of ads that seamlessly blend with the regular content of a website, avoiding competition for consumers’ attention.
Instances of native ads encompass:
- Article suggestions placed at the conclusion of a blog post
- Hashtags on platforms like Twitter or TikTok
- Filters in Instagram or Snapchat stories
- Trends on TikTok
Outbrain plays a role in expanding brands’ customer bases through its recommendations, facilitating connections with approximately one-third of global consumers engaged in online content.
7. Pinterest
Individuals visit Pinterest to seek inspiration for items they already desire. As a result, 85% of Pinterest users actively seek visually appealing content, highlighting the platform’s unique ability to host a diverse range of content, including blog posts, photos, and videos.
On Pinterest, users, known as “Pinners,” share their content on dedicated boards for their followers to discover. This creates a cascading effect for marketers, allowing content to spread from user to user on Pinterest, serving as a powerful method to boost brand awareness and reach. Notably, 83% of Pinterest users have made purchases based on content encountered on the platform.
The platform’s allure lies in the fact that users often visit Pinterest with specific interests in mind, such as home trends, fashion, and beauty. Consequently, they are primed to make immediate purchases once they find what they are looking for, streamlining the marketer’s task. Simply by presenting an eye-catching and engaging ad for products, marketers can attract buyers effortlessly.
Emphasizing the significance of numbers, Pinterest Ads reports that marketers leveraging the platform can reach a vast audience of 400 million Pinners on a monthly basis.
8. Email marketing
In every conceivable niche, there are bloggers catering to diverse interests, spanning from cat enthusiasts to chefs, tech analysts, and makeup artists. A considerable number of these bloggers offer newsletters that you can subscribe to, providing a valuable opportunity for advertising.
While some may argue that sponsoring a newsletter doesn’t strictly fall under traditional performance marketing (as it doesn’t involve paying per user action), it can be construed as such when you negotiate a mutually beneficial arrangement with the newsletter sender. For instance, you might agree to pay a fixed amount per email opened or per user who visits your website.
Alternatively, an affiliate marketing model could be employed, where compensation is made only when the publisher’s email results in lead generation for your business.
9. Search engine marketing channels
Utilizing search engine marketing (SEM) as a performance-driven channel involves displaying ads on search engines such as Google, Bing, and Yahoo, targeted at specific search terms. When online users search for a particular term, your ad is prominently featured at the top of their search results.
As an advertiser, payment occurs when a potential consumer clicks on the ad. You have the flexibility to manage your SEM performance independently or opt to engage a specialized SEM company, compensating them based on campaign results through a commission structure.
Integrating SEM with a robust SEO strategy for your business has the added benefit of enhancing the search engine results pages (SERPs) algorithm. This approach contributes to higher rankings and increased discoverability. Many local businesses have effectively employed these performance marketing campaigns.
10. Podcast
Podcasts have firmly solidified their status as a formidable industry. Presently, over 62% of American consumers engage with podcasts, and forecasts anticipate a global surge in these numbers heading into 2024.
Podcasting stands out as a personal and intimate medium. The primary motivation behind people downloading and listening to podcasts is their affinity for the host and the genuine connection they share. Consequently, when a host endorses a product, their listeners trust the recommendation, often leading to consideration and purchase.
A notable advantage is that by providing a podcast host with a unique promo code for your website, you gain the ability to precisely measure the number of individuals who discovered your brand through that specific podcast.
This positions podcasts as ideal collaborators for brands seeking to reach niche audiences, simultaneously delivering value to listeners (potential customers) through entertaining, informative, and/or educational content.
Which types of advertising formats are applicable on performance marketing channels?
After selecting your performance marketing channels, it’s crucial to consider the methods and ad formats for your campaigns, which may encompass:
Video and CTV
Video advertising boasts the highest engagement among digital formats, with an average CTR of 1.84% (Online Marketing Gurus).
Particularly effective on social platforms like Facebook, where videos outperform image ads in driving engagement (Databox), it serves as an ideal way to capture the attention of target users in the upper funnel.
Video ads often perform well programmatically, either embedded within videos or rolled before or after video content. Typical pricing models include Cost per View (CPV) and Cost per Completed View (CPCV).
Programmatic Media Buying
This method involves buying or selling advertising programmatically, tailoring ads based on users’ interests and viewing history.
Native advertising, as an informative and engaging form, captures consumer interest and sets the stage for effective retargeting in the user journey.
Programmatic media buying can be applied to native advertising, social media (Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat), affiliate marketing, and display advertising.
Display Advertising & Programmatic Display Advertising
Display advertising, encompassing various formats such as banner ads and rich media, utilizes images, video, audio, and text to convey messages and calls-to-action on websites, blogs, publications, and apps.
Programmatic display advertising enables publishers to collect audience and segmentation data, facilitating the strategic placement of display ads through advanced contextual targeting.
While global programmatic ad spend reached an estimated $129 billion (Statista), it’s essential to note that the average click-through rate (CTR) for online display and programmatic ads is 0.05% (Smart Insights). Common pricing models include Cost per Click (CPC) and Cost per Mille/Thousand Impressions (CPM).
Summary
Analyzing your ad performance becomes straightforward for performance marketers, advertising experts, and social media managers with Windsor.ai.
Windsor.ai empowers users to craft a diverse array of insightful and visually rich data visualizations, allowing constant monitoring of key performance indicators (KPIs). Moreover, it facilitates delving into the data to identify inconsistencies, trends, and revenue opportunities.
In addition to presenting performance marketing channels transparently, Windsor.ai ensures that your marketing team retains complete control over campaigns, fostering a commitment to the overall success of the company.
- The setup is done in minutes
- No coding is required
- SOC 2 Type 2 certified, supports single sign on and multi factor authentication
- Windsor.ai supports API integrations, allowing businesses to connect with other tools and platforms seamlessly
- Businesses can create customizable marketing dashboards tailored to their specific needs
- Windsor.ai’s multi-touch attribution modeling software enables analysis and optimization of customer journeys across all touchpoints
- 75+ data sources to 14 data destinations
- Extract – Transform – Load functionality for all data destinations available on all plans
Try Windsor.ai today
Access all your data from your favorite sources in one place.
Get started for free with a 30 - day trial.