Five Mistakes Performance Marketers Make
- allscope
- May 6
- 3 min read
Performance Marketing continues to evolve across traditional and digital channels, with an increasing emphasis on data-driven strategies, measurement, and optimization. With these enhancements come new opportunities to drive performance along with many areas for marketers to make mistakes that limit or even reduce their ROI.
Below are five common mistakes we see in performance marketing campaigns:
1. Failing to Clearly Define Business Goals & KPIs
Many marketers struggle with performance campaigns because they do not prioritize goal setting as it relates to business outcomes. We often see a lack of alignment across teams, lack of clarity in business objectives, and/or a lack of measurable benchmarks when setting up campaigns.
Solution:
Align marketing objectives with business goals at the beginning of all performance campaigns and ensure they are specific, measurable, and realistic.
Define all metrics and KPIs related to achieving business goals. Ideally this should start with historical benchmarks from prior campaigns or work back towards specific, quantifiable outcomes (e.g. increase lead volume by 15% YoY by increasing conversion 5%/reducing CPLs by 5%). Even better, define KPIs and benchmarks by media channel to properly understand the contribution of each to business goals.
Implement proper tracking and analytics to allow for continuous monitoring of performance. Tracking should be at the most granular level possible – down to individual campaign or creative execution for the most actionable data insights. Develop a cohesive taxonomy for tracking and analytics so learnings can easily be shared across teams and used for future campaign development.
2. Poor Audience Targeting & Segmentation
Marketers often rely on broad demographics rather than data-driven audience segmentation. A strong understanding of existing and/or most profitable customer segments is the best starting point. Ideal customer segments should be defined based on demographics, psychographics, media consumption habits, and purchase/response behavior.
87% of marketers report that data is their company’s most under-utilized asset (Invoca, 2023).
Solution:
Use current customer insights and/or first-party data to create more precise audience segments and identify the best media-mix to reach the target.
Leverage media channels to ensure ads reach high-intent consumers when, where, and how they are consuming media. For example, rather than relying solely on broad-reaching TV channels, identify smaller niche networks that better align with the behaviors of current customer segments to reach new targets.
Use lookalike audience modeling and retargeting for better conversions and stronger ROI. In the absence of first party data, marketers can leverage contextual, behavioral, and offline insights to reach the right target at the right time.
3. Limiting Channel Potential Based on Traditional Media Roles
Many marketers assume TV and radio are only effective for brand awareness and don’t track response or assume channels such as OOH lack measurable performance. This is inaccurate and can lead to misattribution, inaccurate or incomplete ROI, and under-investment in performance driving channels.
Solution:
Use direct response mechanisms (dedicated URLs, unique phone numbers, QR codes, text prompts) to measure response across channels traditionally used for awareness.
Execute performance-based TV and audio campaigns through cost-efficient direct response buys, CTV, and/or programmatic platforms for better targeting and measurement.
Use mobile location tracking and geo-fencing to measure foot traffic from OOH campaigns or use NFC-enabled billboards for direct response tracking.
4. Lack of Cross-Channel Attribution
76% of marketers say they struggle with attributing ROI across channels (HubSpot). Many marketers track performance in silos, failing to understand how different media channels work together.
Solution:
Develop benchmarks for each media channel to track KPIs and performance trends over time and understand how channels impact each other.
Test incrementality by flighting channels to allow impact on performance to be measured.
Monitor and optimize performance across and within channels via a unified dashboard solution for a single source of truth.
Implement a unified measurement platform like MMM or MTA and use multi-touch attribution models to assign value to each media touchpoint.
5. Ineffective Budget Allocation
Many marketers allocate budgets based on historical trends or even habit rather than performance data, leading to inefficient or wasted spend.
Solution:
Use a test-and-learn approach—continuously allocate 10-20% of media budgets for testing. This includes testing within and across channels to identify opportunity areas.
Shift spending dynamically based on performance insights from real-time dashboards.
Regularly assess media mix to ensure spend is optimized for the best performing channels.
Conclusion
In today's competitive landscape, performance marketing campaigns are essential for driving business growth and maximizing ROI. A successful campaign hinges on clear goal-setting, data-driven decision-making, and continuous optimization. Without well-defined objectives and KPIs, marketers risk wasted ad spend and missed opportunities.
