In our series of articles titled INsider Questions, we have sought some of the industry’s top figureheads to see what they think advertisers should be asking performance marketers to eke more out of their campaigns.
Each feature will cover a different topic and for today’s piece, Assaf Suprasky, executive vice president media at Matomy Media, has provided what he feels are the most important questions in regards to quality and quantity in performance marketing.
Do marketers really need to choose between quality and quantity when it comes to their lead sources?
We believe that quality and quantity are not mutually exclusive. There is a wide spectrum between quality and quantity, but the mid-range is so wide that one should not choose one at the expense of the other. Rather, it is a matter of scaling up the sources that bring quality and quantity together. The right performance media partner will help advertisers find the sweet spot between quality and quantity, which will ensure the advertiser’s campaign acquires a large enough base of quality users or customers to make it profitable for the client.
What resources and skills are necessary to find the sweet spot between quality and quantity?
Finding the sweet spot between quality and quantity requires a deep understanding of how different digital media channels perform for different verticals, as well as a clear visibility into the client’s offering and what makes it unique for its customers or users. Once you have transparency to the way the client works and measures its performance in a real-time manner, you are able to adjust and make necessary modifications to the campaign in order to achieve quality results at a large scale. The same is true for the performance marketing company’s ability to slice and dice its media sources according to the different categories it is trying to match to achieve the right results for the advertiser.
What is more important for today’s digital marketers: quality or quantity of new users or customers?
The debate over quality vs. quantity really depends on the client’s product and timing in the life cycle of the marketing campaign.
There are niche products that do not have a viral nature but have a great cost-per-acquisition value for the client. These advertisers will almost always require high-quality users at the expense of quantity.
On the other hand, you can find direct-response advertisers with a real need of viral distribution and they will prefer quantity over quality. They are willing to forgo the “golden” user in order to achieve enough leads to fulfil their customer acquisition goals.
What is important is that both the advertiser and their performance media partner are in clear agreement and constant communication regarding the goals of the campaign and whether to emphasise quality or quantity. At Matomy, we advise our clients that they do not have to sacrifice quality for quantity, and vice versa, but we appreciate that some clients have a preference for the types of users they wish to acquire.
What is your preference as a performance media company, quality or quantity?
There is often a big temptation to go for volume rather than achieve quality in a customer acquisition campaign. Performance marketing campaigns that are measured on quantity of users acquired are easier to scale and measure, but as they say, what comes around, goes around. Performance campaigns that place greater emphasis on the quantity of users acquired than on the quality of users acquired come with the risk that those users might not bring much long-term value to the advertiser and could cause volatility in revenue.
Matomy always prefers a good balance of volume-oriented campaigns alongside advertisers that look for specific, high-quality clients. The latter performance campaign type is more stable and long term in nature. It might take time to find the sweet spot between achieving quality and quantity of users acquired for the specific campaign, but once you are there you are bringing a lot more value to the client.
Are there different rules when it comes to balancing quality vs. quantity for mobile apps and web-based user acquisition campaigns?
The mobile economy has placed more emphasis on volume than quality due to the nature of the apps products. Ultimately, though, we believe that even “best seller” apps need to have high-quality users in order to be profitable and justify the investment. Again, it requires a balance between quality and quantity and this is something that the client and its performance media partner need to work together on in order to achieve mutually agreed goals.