The importance of a performance mindset

A new era of marketing accountability

This relentless pace has put renewed focus on marketing effectiveness: how can these new capabilities tell us definitively what is working and how? A new era of accountability, defined by practically real-time data, AI-powered buying and - most of all - C-Suite expectation that all investment is accountable to the bottom line.

This means all media can contribute to performance: all spend on behalf of clients must take them further towards achieving business growth goals, ever faster as we learn more about what works through experimentation. According to the CMO Survey, 36% of marketing leaders now expect experiments to determine marketing impact, a 16% rise on last year.

This is what we consistently hear from every client, from London to New York, Mumbai to Istanbul. Put simply, they need help demonstrating and optimising the performance of all marketing working in concert – not separately. So how do we deliver this?

The answer is the power of '&'

It’s not good enough for data to stay in its lane. We must be able to apply it to the broader challenge: whether brand & performance; media & content or commerce & creativity. This necessity to integrate has always been at the heart of our agency.

The current dichotomy of brand and performance – and their associated datasets – is as much culture as capability. Performance experts know within 60 seconds whether someone really knows performance. Didn’t mention incrementality? Get out. And the same can be said for brand strategists. Observe basic human behaviour and claim it as an insight? Get out too. But through the power of &, we have an opportunity to integrate these seemingly separate mindsets.

Business outcomes trump media metrics. As we gain more sophisticated ways to optimise towards business values (customer lifetime value, or profit), our understanding of effectiveness throughout the funnel shifts. With access to outcome data - not always easy - we leave behind planning to simple media metrics.

Experimentation is as critical in proving effectiveness as modelling. The cornerstone of a performance mindset has always been relentless test & learn, based on the ability to impact performance in near real time. But this is as true for brand shifts as it is for commerce outcomes.

As cookie deprecation and widespread privacy updates take hold, incrementality testing takes on a new importance: quantifying optimisations as small as frequency capping or as large as marketing mix modelling. Incrementality provides many immediate wins to better prove media value in driving business outcomes – but they must be connected.

Full-funnel optimisation

Integrating experimentation across the full funnel means integrating very different measurement speeds. To solve this for our clients, we developed our 3x3x3 measurement framework: integrating measurement in 3 second, 3 week and 3 month timeframes. We connect learning from each stage, for a truly full-funnel measurement approach.

Algorithms optimise metrics such as online sales or ad attention in near real time (3 seconds); longer-term business effectiveness is understood through rapid media mix modelling (3 months). But the real area of opportunity is cross-environment measurement through incrementality testing (3 weeks). By creating one view across all of these experiments, we can develop the holistic picture of marketing accountability that brands now require to succeed.

Google, Amazon & Meta are built on the world’s best AI and it’s long been the role of a performance specialist to think algorithmically first: how to optimise within undisclosed biddable environments, but also how bespoke code can out-compete each auction. But as Large Language Models solve for ever-greater challenges, planners have faster access to richer media & creative insights across the funnel, providing predictive answers to connect brand & outcome dots across these very different speeds of data return.

Our performance mindset

Businesses are asking for accountability in all marketing spend. They recognise the need to build brands, but there is also nervousness to invest in upper funnel metrics without being able to prove the returns. Meanwhile, there is very often an over-reliance on performance media to deliver short term results.

Our 3x3x3 approach means we can optimise to business outcomes, no matter the channel. This full-funnel accountability roots all media in meaningful metrics, proven and optimised through experimentation while not losing sight of the biggest drivers of growth through advertising.

This is our performance mindset. Not just because it is what will help our clients grow, but because it will help our people grow in a world where integrated brand and performance has become an essential skillset.