The ‘Boring Marketing’ That Makes Performance Marketing Work

I love performance marketing, it’s a big part of my work and creates those exciting metrics that we all love: measurable ROI, conversions, click-through rates (CTR), and more. These are exciting numbers to check in on for both myself and my clients.

What is Performance marketing? It is the measurable end of marketing — Google Ads, Meta Ads and other activities where we can directly track things like clicks, leads, conversions and return on investment.

Whilst it is often the first lever to get pulled, the best results are achieved when the ‘boring marketing’ infrastructure has been well executed.

I define ‘boring marketing’ as the basics of good marketing that never really change. They’re all the activities that form the scaffolding of a really good, reliable brand that is capable of withstanding the ups and downs of the economy — of which there are lots in these times!

It also provides the solid foundations that underpin and elevate everything performance marketing is trying to achieve and smooths out conversion cycles, which ultimately affects reliable cash flow in your business.

So, what are the solid, reliable, boring marketing basics every business needs?

I consider these the basics that everyone needs right from the beginning.

Branding

Probably the first thing that most business owners start thinking about, but too often I see this underinvested in.

It is something you will be known for — it’s how people will remember you. From the sign on your business premises, to the first thing you see on your website, to the logo on the pens you give out — all of these form touchpoints and interactions with your business and another link in the memory chain of your customers.

And no, sorry, ChatGPT is not the answer here unless you want to look like everyone else.

We’ve all seen the AI graphic design slop — AI posters, I’m looking at you! Not only do they look unprofessional, they aren’t memorable or form part of the broader plan for your brand. Is that something you want associated with your business?

There’s a reason we aren’t seeing them from McDonald’s, Kmart, Bunnings and many other cohesively branded businesses.

What’s yours saying about you?

What colours are you using? Do you know what these colours evoke in colour psychology? Is your branding clear enough to be memorable?

Do yourself a favour and invest in good graphic design from a qualified professional from the very start.

Not only will you get branding that touches on all of this (there’s a reason why it’s a university degree!), you will also get a brand kit and guide which encompasses your brand fonts, logos in different formats and sizes, taglines, brand colour themes and more.

This will become a key part of your business basics toolkit, and you will be surprised how often your team will use it. It ensures professional and cohesive branding across all business activities and is something any third-party contractors will ask for — signwriters, marketing consultants, web designers and more.

Ideal Customer Profile

Who is your customer?

Do you know their demographics and interests? What’s your service area? Are you more likely to align with females? Males? Both? If so, what rough percentage?

Even if you have just started a business, we live in a world of information readily available at your fingertips — research your competitors!

Who do they seem to be resonating with? What are the demographics of people used in their ad strategies? What common complaints do they seem to receive? (Product development gold.)

Your ideal customer profile is something every business should revisit throughout the year.

Has it changed? Are there opportunities in other markets? What’s your feedback been? How can you take it on board for the next quarter’s activities?

CRM (Customer Relationship Management) Software

There are so many amazing systems out there now, and they have come a long way in the last 10 years.

I am a big fan of the old pen-and-paper system, but when it comes to keeping track of customers over a long period of time, you need systems in place!

A good CRM will do more than just help you recall conversations that happened last month or last year. It will allow you to gain data over the lifespan of your business, which then allows you to glean valuable insights into the ebbs and flows of your business.

Want to know what happened at the same time last year in order volume?

Who are your top returning customers? What products are they coming back for?

If you are someone who is dealing with customers over a longer conversion window (hello, builders), what emails are they opening? What content are they engaging with? What are their pain points? How long did it take them to move through the funnel, and what conversations or content turned them into a real contract?

If you are a service-based business like a hairdresser, who are your top returning long-term customers? What’s their age range? Do they respond to loyalty incentives? Are they opening your email marketing campaigns?

The answers to many of these questions will also help you make strategic business decisions on marketing budgets, sales strategies and more.

A well-set-up CRM is at the heart of every great business, which brings me to my next point:

Your CRM is only as good as the data you feed into it. Garbage in, garbage out!

What’s your tech stack like?

Many business owners would relate to the fact that they spend so much time working in the business, they rarely get time to work on the business.

Trying to be across everything that is happening — client communications, supply, inventory, logistics, bookkeeping, sales and everything else — means wearing a lot of hats.

Marketing is a HUGE function and is often more than a full-time job if you want to stay up to date with everything that’s happening, especially if you are already wearing all these hats.

If you do nothing else, be sure to have these set up properly:

Google Analytics (GA)

One of the first things I check when I take on a new client is whether their analytics and conversions are actually tracking what matters to the business.

Consider GA a sieve that your website traffic passes through before landing on your page.Google Analytics is a wonderful free tool that, when set up correctly, provides insights into where your traffic comes from, geographic data, key event occurrence and oh so much more.

Correct setup is essential, so please don’t DIY this one.

Even if you don’t have time to use it, set it up correctly at the start of your business so it quietly ticks along collecting data for when you do have time to make great use of it.

It’s also super fun to jump in and see those huge traffic spikes from any promotional activities you may have done!

Unfortunately, GA is not retrospective, so it will only collect data from the day you set it up. So get to it.

Google Tag Manager

A sophisticated cousin of GA, GTM provides advanced conversion tracking and other information that can be customised to how your customers interact with your business.

Where GA provides key event information like form submissions, phone clicks, etc., GTM can be customised that one step further by creating key events like specific form submissions on your website, unique button clicks and so much more.

This is a platform best left to the professionals and is absolutely worth the investment if it’s relevant to your business.

Correctly identifying with Google which key events are most important for your business is critical to your digital advertising strategy.

Building that data within Analytics allows you to capitalise on it at a later date and, most importantly, optimise towards the correct metric.

If you outsource your digital ads, check in with your agency or consultant and ask how they are measuring what success looks like.

You would be amazed how many accounts I come across that are not correctly optimised for the specific goals of the business (yes, even the big agencies!).

Website Integrations

Is your website correctly configured to communicate with all these platforms?

If you have Meta Ads or social media profiles, are they connected? Is Google Analytics correctly installed across your website?

There are considerably more platforms that I could discuss, but these are my top recommendations that I think every business should have been doing yesterday.

They create real value not just for business owners and other departments within the business, but provide great scaffolding for any marketing activities you decide to invest in.

Because performance marketing works a whole lot better when the foundations underneath it are doing their job.

Got any questions? Reach out to schedule a chat or email me.

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