TL;DR
What is Growth Marketing?
- Focuses on acquiring new customers and increasing revenue from existing customers over the long run
- Employs content, SEO, social media, paid channels, personalization to engage prospects
- Uses analytics and testing to continuously improve the customer experience
Growth Marketing Tactics
- Data-driven approach with constant testing and measurement
- Content creation introduces brands and increases awareness
- Tools like analytics and automation help scale across channels
Leading Growth Marketing Companies
- Amazon, Netflix, Hubspot, Canva acquire users through content and optimize retention
- Continuous testing and metrics uncover opportunities to improve journeys
Future of Growth Marketing
- Deeper insights from first-party user data
- Blurred lines between marketing, product and UX impacting metrics
- Predictive analytics and machine learning for personalized engagement
What is Performance Marketing?
- Focuses on direct ROI and attribution from ad spending
- Centered around paid search, display, social and affiliate channels
Performance Marketing Metrics
- ROI calculated from profit generated vs. campaign costs
- Attribution models connect multi-step journeys to touchpoints
- Objectives like leads, downloads measured against benchmarks
Performance Marketer Role
- Campaign setup and optimization across paid channels
- Constant A/B testing and data analysis to optimize performance
Growth vs Performance Marketing
- Growth emphasizes long-term awareness, retention, lifetime value
- Performance prioritizes short-term ROI and optimization
- Combined approach tracks users across all channels for best results
What Is Growth Marketing?
Growth marketing is the process of acquiring new customers and increasing revenue from existing customers using a mixture of traditional and digital marketing practices.
The Goals of Growth Marketing
The primary goals of growth marketing are acquiring new customers and increasing revenue from existing customers over the long run. Acquisition is the first step – getting users in the door.
Then the focus shifts to optimizing customer retention, repeat purchases, and lifetime value.
Growth comes from striking a balance between attracting new users while also retaining and engaging current users through continuous improvements.
Key Tactics Used By Growth Marketers
Growth marketing manager employ a data-driven approach, constantly testing different initiatives and measuring results via analytics and metrics.
Content creation and search engine optimization introduce brands and products to potential buyers. Social media, retargeting ads, and other paid channels help convert interested prospects.
Conversion rate optimization and personalized experiences on websites smooth the purchasing process. Tools like tag management, analytics platforms, and marketing automation help scale these efforts across channels.
Companies Doing it Well In Growth Marketing
Companies like Amazon, Netflix, Hubspot, and Canva are masters of growth marketing.
They acquire users through educational and entertaining content to build awareness of their brands. But the real magic lies in how they optimize the product and user experience to retain customers and encourage repeat purchases or expanded use over time.
Continuous A/B testing and analyzing metrics help uncover opportunities to further improve the customer journey.
Future of Growth Marketing
Looking ahead, growth marketers will glean even deeper insights about customers by gathering more first-party data directly from users.
The lines between marketing, product, and user experience will continue to blur as user flows and functionality directly impact core business metrics.
Predictive analytics and machine learning will also power more personalized engagement at scale by leveraging largevolumes of behavioral data.
These emerging trends will become essential for companies of all sizes focused on sustainable long-term growth.
What is Performance Marketing?
Performance marketing differs from growth marketing by its sharp focus on direct response and measurable return on investment (ROI) from campaigns.
Common Performance Channels
Central to performance marketing are paid search, display advertising, and social media ads – all of which facilitate direct tracking of clicks and conversions.
Other core channels include affiliates/influencers, email, and mobile apps where specific actions like downloads, purchases can be attributed.
Measurement and Attribution
ROI is calculated by comparing the profit generated from a campaign to its total cost.
Sophisticated attribution modeling is also needed since customers often visit multiple touchpoints along their journey.
Analytics tools then measure objectives like leads, downloads or revenue against baseline metrics.
Role of the Performance Marketer
Day-to-day, performance marketers setup and optimize campaigns across paid channels.
They conduct constant A/B testing, analyze data to optimize bids/budgets, and track attributable ROI.
Strong skills include data analysis, mechanics of paid platforms, and working closely with product/tech teams to align initiatives.
Tools Used By Performance Marketers
Performance marketers leverage platforms like Google and Facebook Ads managers to run campaigns.
Tag managers, analytics and marketing automation integrate various data sources for unified reporting. CRM databases house structured attribution and profile data.
Best Practices For Performance Marketing
Testing different creatives, audiences and bid strategies is paramount.
Establishing clear objectives and ROI baselines ensures accountability. Performance marketers also trend analysis to identify new high-potential channels and stay on top of constant algorithm/interface changes.
In all, performance marketing depends on science, metrics and constant optimization.
Growth Marketing Vs. Performance Marketing
While both drive revenue growth, growth and performance marketing differ in focus.
Lets check out an in-depth comparison of their goals, strategies, channels, metrics, tools and best uses to help marketers apply the right approaches.
| Growth Marketing | Performance Marketing | |
| Goals | New customer acquisition, retention, lifetime value | Direct campaign ROI, attribution |
| Strategies | Content creation, optimize customer journey | Testing ads, audiences, bids to maximize conversions |
| Channels | Owned channels like SEO, blogs, social media | Paid channels like search, display, influencers |
| Metrics | Soft metrics like website visits, subscribers | Hard metrics like cost/lead, direct ROI, profits |
| Tools | Marketing automation, analytics | Paid media platforms, attribution tools |
| Best Uses | Early brand awareness, indirect sales goals | Direct response, transactional short-term goals |
Goals
Growth marketing centers around acquiring new customers and maximizing retention and lifetime value through brand awareness.
The goals are long term – attracting more website visitors and converting them into buyers over several interactions. Performance marketing prioritizes achieving direct ROI and attribution from each advertising channel spent.
Its aims are short term – generating qualified leads and tracking sales back to campaigns.
Strategies
Growth relies heavily on content creation and optimizing the customer journey.
Resources focus on constructing an extensive acquisition funnel through owned channels like blogs and social media.
Performance marketing emphasizes continually testing ad copy variations, adjusting bidding strategies, re-targeting windows and optimizing audience segmentation until the highest ROI is found.
Its strategy is nimble and data-driven to maximize profitable conversions.
Channels
Growth marketing leverages organic channels under a company’s control like search engine optimization (SEO), blog posts, social media profiles and email newsletters.
The benefit is building a captive audience without per-click costs, but wins take longer to manifest.
Performance marketing zeroes in on paid platforms like search marketing, display advertising and influencer campaigns where acquisition costs and outcomes are readily measurable.
Metrics
Growth KPIs tend to be soft metrics that pave the path for future sales. Common goals include growing website visitors, followers or newsletter subscribers.
Conversions may be further downstream events like trial registrations or content downloads rather than immediate transactions.
Performance marketing prioritizes hard, directly attributable metrics like cost per acquisition, lead generation, and most importantly the direct ROI or profit from each campaign.
Tools
Growth teams rely heavily on marketing automation and analytics platforms to track user journeys and improve the overall customer experience.
Performance disciplines require robust paid media platforms and attribution modeling tools that connect clicks through a multi-step purchase funnel to marketing touchpoints and spending.
CRM and marketing databases also play a strong role to house structured campaign and profile data.
Best Fits
Growth strategies ideally suit earlier brand awareness stages and objectives requiring time to impact sales indirectly.
Performance is best for direct response calls-to-action or when transactional goals can be achieved within campaign cycles.
Often both are used together effectively – performance introduces buyers who integrate into owned acquisition funnels managed by growth efforts long term.
Conclusion
While their focuses differ, growth and performance marketing are equally important within complete marketing programs.
Growth builds sustainable competitive advantages through high lifetime user value, whereas performance maximizes short-term ROI and ensures its optimization.
The most optimal approach integrates multi-touch attribution models to track users across both paid and owned channels, feeding learnings back into continuously refining media, products and messaging.
When combined thoughtfully based on business goals and constraints, growth and performance marketing unite to drive powerful revenue results.
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