The evolution of online advertising is continuing at a fast pace, and the latest trend to emerge is Online Performance Marketing (OPM).

What is OPM?

OPM is a way for marketers to get more information about their customers in order to improve their performance. In other words, OPM is about using marketing analytics to optimize marketing activities.

OPM uses a combination of Big Data, marketing analytics and CRM (customer relationship management) software to create a more efficient marketing funnel from initial engagement through to eventual product purchase. In this way, marketing activities such as ads, campaigns, website visitors, and social media engagement are all considered part of a single performance marketing campaign.

Why do marketers want to get to know consumers better? For many businesses, customer experience (including the customer journey) is becoming more important than ever before. If consumers have a bad experience, they will tell others about it – and that could result in lost business. So it’s important for businesses to ensure that every aspect of their marketing, from strategy to execution, is as flawless as possible.

As a result of these concerns, marketers are looking for ways to get closer to their customers. One of the best ways to do that is through social media. With more than 500 million monthly active users across platforms, marketers can gain invaluable insight into their target audience’s behavior, interests, and the effectiveness of their advertising messages through social media.

In addition, marketers can also measure the impact of their digital marketing efforts through attribution modeling. This allows them to attribute conversions (e.g., orders, registrations, inquiries, and so on) to previous marketing exposures (e.g., ads, social media posts, and so on).

OPM takes all of this a step further by collecting and analyzing data on an individual customer’s web browsing, purchase behavior, and social media presence.

OPM is about using marketing analytics to improve marketing ROI and to identify opportunities for growth.

How is OPM being adopted?

Based on the success of programmatic advertising and the emerging trend of in-house data-driven marketing, it’s not a huge surprise that marketers are rushing to adopt OPM.

Amongst B2B marketers, the interest in OPM is particularly high, with 69% saying they’re planning to adopt some form of it. And amongst marketing professionals, interest is also high at 64% – which is slightly higher than the overall average of 58% for all industries.

Why? B2B marketers want to be able to get a better understanding of their customer and be able to predict their behavior. Similarly, marketers in all industries want to be able to get to know their customers better and identify opportunities for growth.

The demand for OPM is being driven by a combination of factors, including:

• Emerging technologies that make it easier for marketers to gain deeper insights into their customers.
• Marketers’ desire for more personalized, relevant advertising.
• Businesses’ need to cut through the clutter and get to the heart of the matter when it comes to customer experience.
• Marketers’ use of social media to get close to consumers.

What makes OPM different?

First, let’s consider the types of data that marketing analytics platforms such as Coremetrics, Marin Real Estate Software and Market Share use in order to create OPM. These platforms typically collect data such as:

• Demographics: This includes things such as age, gender, and location.
• Web traffic: This includes things such as referring sites, previous visits, and referring words.
• Transaction Data: This includes things such as payment methods, shipping information and order details.
• Social data: This includes things such as the people, products and topics that matter the most to the customer.

As just mentioned, one of the major benefits of these platforms is the ability to track conversion events throughout the customer journey. This means that marketers can see not only what happens after someone interacts with their website, but what happens before – in order to improve their website’s conversion rate.

What makes OPM different is that it takes all of this one step further. It uses Big Data to gain even more insight into the customer’s behavior and preferences. This is especially beneficial for marketers who want to target the right audience and engage them the right way.

How can marketing analytics help with OPM?

When used properly, marketing analytics can help marketers with OPM in several ways.

The first way is by providing a better understanding of the customer.

Marketers use web analytics and customer behavior analytics in order to gain an in-depth understanding of their target audience. This includes things such as their demographics, interests, and behaviors. As a result of this analysis, marketers can create unique personas and target specific groups of people with tailored messages.

The next way that marketing analytics can help with OPM is through customer engagement and sentiment analysis.

When someone visits your website, for example, they might see a big red button that says “Order Now”. Before they even reach the point of pulling the trigger, there’s a good chance they’ve already clicked on some enticing ad or played a marketing video.

Although the person might not consciously realize it, they’ve been influenced by your marketing efforts. Now, as a result of their interaction with (or lack thereof) your business, you have the opportunity to engage with them and show them how much you care.

Sentiment analysis measures the emotional tone of a piece of text, and it can give you a better understanding of the general mood or feeling that your target audience has when they’re reading your copy. For example, if you wanted to know whether or not your customers felt that you were an honest company, you could ask them about your reviews or examine their social media posts for hints.

In conclusion, marketing analytics can help marketers with OPM by providing a better understanding of the customer. This, in turn, can help businesses to grow, optimize, and remain relevant.