How Performance Marketers Are Scaling Beyond Social Media Advertising

Social media ads have been a bit of a golden ticket for performance marketers. Launch a campaign, target your audience, and sit back while qualified leads flow in at predictable rates. But those days feel like a passing memory.

It’s not that platforms have changed for the worse – it’s that they’ve changed for the more expensive, more crowded and ultimately, more stringent. CPMs on Facebook and Instagram have risen steadily for years. iOS updates wiped out retargeting. Industries ranging from finance and healthcare to supplements have ads needing approval before they even run – by which time, it’s too late to capitalize on momentum.

So what have performance marketers done? The smart ones haven’t ditched their social spending forever; they’ve simply decided not to rely exclusively on one source anymore.

The Pitfall of Platform Politics

Here’s what happens when you’ve got all your eggs in one social media basket; you’re beholden to the whims of the platform itself. Algorithm changes mean performance can dip overnight. Ad accounts getting suspended mean dropped revenue for weeks at a time. And when costs increase across the board, you have nowhere else to turn.

This isn’t a hypothetical situation. Many businesses have seen customer acquisition costs spike 2X or 3X within mere months with no change to creative or targeting. The systems in place changed, but the business did not.

Therefore, the marketing professionals who successfully scale at this moment understand one thing: diversification is not just for risk mitigation purposes – it’s for traffic allocation before competitors pump them up with added ad spend.

Where Marketers Are Reallocating Their Dollars

Display ad networks have been around forever, but many agency professionals dismissed them years ago as outdated with low-quality placements. However, that’s begun to shift.

Modern networks combine the sophistication of targeting capabilities (and costs) from social media platforms but rely on publisher sites and applications that exist independent of increased bidding pressure. Therefore, you can access similar audiences without competing for auction-based placements with those in your niche on Facebook or Instagram.

Similarly, performance marketers are reviving formats that still convert. Think popunder ads. When paired with a quality pop ads network, they can use effective targeting, reaching an interested audience at the right time instead of blasting random traffic into submission.

And the results will pleasantly surprise anyone who would dismiss them out of hand. Browsers already browsing often possess higher intent – and the conversion rates reflect it. The goal is to use the format correctly for lead gen apps, installs, and e-commerce offers that don’t mandate immediate action to lock in conversion right away. Because if a popunder opens in the background, users will inevitably see it when they’re ready instead of when they’re actively annoyed.

When Native Advertising is Actually Native

Another performance marketing channel that’s grown dramatically in recent history is native advertising – but not as most think. The most effective native placements do not feel like advertising at all; rather, they blend into the sponsored content so seamlessly that users interact with them as if part of the articles or feed they’re reading.

Much native advertising still feels like native advertising – even when it’s supposed to be native – or organic content. The headline screams “sponsored,” or the creative differs from anything else nearby. But when it’s done right – and paired with quality editorial placements – native ads can convert engagement rates that shatter traditional display-based rates.

This works exceptionally well for content-heavy organizations or those that can tell a story since explaining the product/service benefits generally trumps impulse buys. Therefore, native placements provide room to breathe instead of coming across as an overt sales tactic.

Push Ads Are Back (For Now)

And finally, push ads are being revived relative to interests from performance marketers. Push ads denote opt-in notifications sent to people’s devices despite not being logged into any site currently.

The good part? The targeting is sophisticated enough to hone in on users based on intent and demographic capabilities.

But performance marketers love them because it allows an easy avenue to compel action without hoping users scrolling through their feeds will ever spot a call-to-action. Instead, the notification goes directly to users’ screens, and if the offer resonates, they can immediately click through.

But use this option at your own risk – and only when the user has given permission. Push ads that come across as spammy means rejection at record speed and users bowing out completely; however, when an offer is genuinely worthwhile or time-sensitive, engagement rates will shine.

Programmatic Advertising Made Easy (Finally!)

Programmatic ads once required significant tech-savvy appreciation – but that’s no longer the case. Self-serve options mean even smaller advertisers can gain insight into real-time bidding systems established for enterprise brands without needing a dedicated crew to help navigate it.

The benefits include speed and scale since testing various placements, formats and audiences comes easily, and then doubling down on what’s been working means efficient use of budget dollars – even if learning how to pull reports is time-consuming.

But once performance marketers have tackled that learning curve, campaigns can be set up more swiftly than ever before without manual efforts controlling placements.

Testing New Channels From All Angles

But the biggest downfall of performance marketers expanding beyond social media relies heavily on everyone’s initial expectations. Unless performances immediately meet metrics from best-in-class campaigns (which won’t likely happen), channels should be dismissed too soon.

There should be a test-and-learn phase where 10-20% of a budget exclusively goes towards testing these avenues – allowing campaigns to run long enough to amass meaningful results – whether impressions driven or conversions incurred – to contextualize data patterns regardless of what’s generally anticipated within days after launching.

Performance marketers need signals such as whether people engage with the content at all – even if they step up to conversion but do not complete it fully. As long as traffic quality exists – even if campaign construction fails – there’s no reason to stop testing.

Beyond Risk Mitigation: Why Multiple Traffic Sources Are Beneficial

Not only does diversification lower potential risks when something goes sideways or demands budgets across all channels need shifting – but it gives leverage to performance marketers who explore audience data points from multiple fronts.

Chances are that one of the best-performing campaigns happens when learnings travel from one avenue to another – for example, if there’s an angle that crushes it within native ads, it’s worth testing a version of that angle on a social campaign; or finding an audience in a display network never considered for Facebook or Instagram before might help bolster numbers.

Either way, while social media advertising isn’t going anywhere – and it shouldn’t be eliminated from your arsenal either – it should not be considered your #1 option – or even your only option – as that’s money left on the table with potential risks should it decline drastically.

The marketers who scale successfully now are those who realize social media advertising isn’t going to get cheaper or easier; they built systems that work across various channels and are seeing the benefits of diversifying day in and day out.