A new battle between traditional marketers and new tech profiles is coming.
From time to time, some question emerges that is felt to be key to the future of marketing and to achieve good results. It is what the industry sees as the great secret to success, the element that will obtain the best data. In times of crisis or economic instability, the obsession with having the magic key grows. So it’s no surprise that the marketing industry is, right now, looking for a hot skill. It’s called performance marketing.
Companies are prioritizing for their senior positions —both marketing executives and COs— professionals with skills in this discipline, as published by The Wall Street Journal. The scope of the economic newspaper is the American one, but these trends usually end up becoming global by contagion effect, so to speak.
As the newspaper points out, the trend will further complicate the job market in marketing. For one, it will make switching jobs more difficult for marketers with backgrounds based on traditional marketing.
On the other, it will increase the pressure in the fight for talent, which is already somewhat complicated in a universe in which they already compete in other areas for profiles that are highly oriented to technological issues.
What exactly is performance marketing?
Performance marketing is an approach to digital strategy in which advertisers pay only for measurable results, such as link clicks or conversions (sales, signups, etc.). Instead of paying for impressions or screen time, advertisers pay only for the actions that really matter to them, allowing them to better measure the return on their ad spend.
Common performance marketing channels include affiliate marketing, pay-per-click marketing, and pay-per-action marketing.
Basically, performance marketing is based on a strategy of constantly measuring and adjusting campaigns to ensure the best possible performance and the best return on investment. It does not take into account, for example, familiarity with the brand or other values that are worked from more traditional marketing.
However, even in the industry they also see a generation gap. Younger marketers are more data-driven and much more focused on digital issues and how to use technology tools, while older ones are more focused—or have more skills—on those branding issues.
The dark side of this jump
Therefore, all that glitters is not gold. This obsession with performance marketing could have a long-term negative effect on something crucial for the future of brands, the construction of brand identity. As one marketing expert explains to the Journal, this obsession with this type of marketing shows “a myopic focus on profit growth” of companies.
Faced with this obsession, yes, another marketer model emerges, one that offers good data on results —and therefore controls the keys to marketing performance— but that also understands the basic needs of building a brand image and long-term relationships. It is what in English they call a “full-stack marketer”. The modern marketer should deliver results and branding.
Finding it, even so, is not easy either, because it requires asking marketers for even more skills. And, as the Journal recalls, having to choose between one and the other, companies are sticking with the performance-savvy marketer.
