With the 13th edition of the Performance Marketing Awards (PMAs) taking place on April 30 at the Grosvenor House Hotel, Park Lane in London, the shortlist for the awards showcases more depth than ever before, featuring the latest industry leaders that are shaping the UK performance marketing activity, which no doubt proved a difficult task for this year’s judging panel.
PMA judging panel
Digital marketing consultant Leo Harrison, who judged this year’s entries said that many of the categories “were closely fought affairs, some with wafer-thin margins,” highlighting the record-breaking numbers for individual categories.
“The process ensured all the selected winners fully deserve their prizes. There were so many fantastic submissions to dive into – a huge credit to the industry,” he said.
Following an action-packed judging day, which saw judges from some of the top companies in the performance marketing space, including Acceleration Partners, Publicis Media, eBay, BT and Expedia, deliberate, debate and review award-worthy entries, the group came to a conclusion with an eclectic range of entrants shortlisted across a broad range of categories.
New categories shine
As with last year, entrants battled for a number of new categories, including Best B2B Campaign and Best Team in Performance. Both categories shone with the likes of Sage UK Ltd, MediaVision, Croud, Awin, CJ Affiliate, TopCashback and Rakuten Marketing shortlisted. Meanwhile, making a comeback following 2018’s introduction was Best Use of Automation & AI and Industry Disruptor, which sees Sizmek, Increasingly, Cloudfind, CJ Affiliate, Global Savings Group and Zoopla all making the cut.
Channel, campaign and vertical awards
Over to the heavyweight categories for the channel, campaign and vertical awards with the year-on-year returns of Best Use of Data, Best Managed Affiliate Programme, Best Influencer Marketing Campaign, Global Excellence, Best Integrated Performance Marketing Campaign and Best Retail Campaign.
Best Use of Data was by far one of the hardest categories to judge with so many strong entries. Making the shortlist for this category are Fetch Media, iProspect, Partnerize, Wavemaker and RevLifter, while global networks Awin, CJ Affiliate, Webgains, Optimise Media and Tradedoubler battle it out for Best Managed Affiliate Programme.
Influencer marketing continues to growth at a rapid rate and the level of entrants in this category certainly reflected this, with Takumi, Vamp, Zorka.Mobi and Awin making the shortlist. Meanwhile, the Global Excellence category sees Rakuten Marketing, Partnerize, Qatar Airways and RevLifter facing each other for one of the night’s biggest categories.
Saving the best of the campaign and vertical awards to last with Best Integrated Performance Marketing Campaign and Best Retail Campaign, Global Savings Group, Merkle, Planit and Wavemaker demonstrated solid campaigns among others while Groupon, vouchercloud, finder.com and eBay take each other on for Best Retail Campaign.
Entries from Smarterclick, Wavemaker, Essence and Awin made the shortlist for Best Technology and Telecoms Campaign while Crafted, Digitas, CJ Affiliate and Reprise made the shortlist for Best Travel and Leisure Campaign.
The ever-popular Best Performance Marketing Technology and Most Effective Agency awards are back once more with a competitive group of shortlisted entrants competing for the top prize. The likes of Databowl, Impact, Productsup and RevLifter are shortlisted while iProspect, Croud, Click Consult and M&C Saatchi Performance compete to be crowned the most effective agency.
Vote for your Industry Choice and Rising Star
Today also marks the opening for the peer-voted Industry’s Choice of Publisher and the revamped Publisher’s Choice of Network respectively.
Some important notes to be aware of before casting your vote; voting is only open for 1 week for both categories, closing at midnight March 6. Furthermore, you can only put forward one vote per company and votes from publishers are accepted only for the Publisher’s Choice of Network.
Lastly, following the shortlist announcement for the Industry Rising Star, voting is set to close midnight February 28. This is your last chance to vote for the young prospects who deserve industry recognition for all their hard work and have made inspiring movements in the industry over the last 12 months. Vote now for your 2019 Rising Star.