Marketing for Startups: How to Scale Performance Marketing

In many ways, the WALK stage of Performance Marketing is likely the most important. 

Why? There’s still significant headroom for growth and learning across channels and enough of a base to invest in capabilities that will pay off as you scale further. 

Before we continue, let’s revisit the CRAWL stage and confirm you’re ready to move forward. 

The 5 CRAWL Essentials: 

1. You focused on generating repeatable volume with one channel that appeals to your audience. 
2. You understood the mechanics of how this works end-to-end: from pre-click [platform targeting and creative/ messaging] to the post-click experience [user journey on your website]. 
3. You could implement basic tracking and measurement and report back on conversions attributed to your campaigns. 
4. Remember: the word repeatable is key. Before you invest further, you’re looking for evidence that this channel has the potential to scale. This is a change of mindset from the pre-PMF stage, when you may have tried many random or quick experiments to acquire users and prove your idea has commercial potential. 
5. Prioritize volume before measuring performance against a strict efficiency goal. You and the algorithm both need time [+ enough data and iteration] to move up the learning curve. 

And now we’re finally ready to WALK. 

1. Channel Scaling & Expansion:  

a) The ‘WALK’ stage is primarily about <span class="richtext-line-highlight">expanding from a narrow intent focus to a broader interest-based approach.</span> This could be initially within your primary channel or diversified to 3-4 channels. 

Here are tips and guidelines to keep in mind: 

• Continually evaluate opportunities to expand on an existing channel you’re seeing success with before trying a new one. This could be adding new keywords, expanding targeting options, or testing new messaging or inventory/placement opportunities.  Treat these as test-and-learns and regularly allocate 10-15% of your budget to these experiments. Pick the winners and scale over time. 

• Why start with existing channels? 
  • Any new channel has a learning curve. It takes time to understand and master audience targeting, creative requirements, bid strategy, and campaign optimization. 
  • People tend to underestimate the lift (and time) it takes to drive volume on a new channel. This is particularly challenging if you have a lean marketing team, inadequate agency support, limited creative assets, or a short timeframe to deliver results.
    

• Are there any caveats to keep in mind to ensure expansion is profitable? 
  • Be wary of targeting tactics that might give you cheap clicks quickly [e.g. off-platform audience expansion or partner networks], but don’t drive conversions. 
  • Similarly, avoid clickbait ad copy that will attract initial attention but is inconsistent with messaging on your landing page. 
    

• When is it clear that you should diversify to new channels? 
  • When you’ve exhausted the TAM/reach of existing channels. This is common for relatively niche platforms - once you hit that user saturation level, any additional spend is likely going to increased frequency with the same user base.
  • When any further expansion is not likely to yield efficient results. At a certain threshold of scale or spend, you are likely to encounter diminishing marginal returns for any additional spends.

• How to manage new channels: 
  • Be conservative in predicting any upside until you have clear signals of repeatable volume.  
  • If you’re starting with automated campaigns [Google PMax, Meta Advantage+] on a new platform, focus on driving conversion volume in the first 2-3 weeks so the algorithm has enough data and a learning period before you constrain it with strict efficiency goals. 

‍b)  Start to <span class="richtext-line-highlight">invest in brand campaigns</span> to drive user awareness, preference, and trust 

This may seem counterintuitive at first glance. Why focus on intangible outcomes if you can acquire and convert users easily in the short term? 

It’s easy for people to forget that performance campaigns often work better when prospects have been sufficiently warmed up, i.e., they’ve had previous exposure to messaging and are aware of the problem you solve. Many prospects may not have been ready to move ahead at that time, but there is still value in building upfront recall and familiarity to tap at a later stage. 

Here are a few tips and guidelines: 

• If you want to start small, start with 20-25% of media spend on reach campaigns on one channel you’re already seeing success with for Performance campaigns. This could be Meta, YouTube, or TikTok for B2C, or LinkedIn for B2B/Enterprise.
• Here are recommendations on how to allocate spend between Brand and Performance by funding stage.
• ‍Test a full-funnel approach by retargeting audiences who engage with brand ads or visit consideration pages on your website. Alternatively, acquire their contact details to continue the conversation via your owned channels. 
• Ideally, brand campaign investments should be amortized over a longer time frame, as they likely have a lagged vs. immediate effect on business outcomes. Consider qualitative outcomes or proxies such as brand lift/awareness studies or share of search and look for correlations to downstream business metrics over time. We’ll continue to explore this in the RUN stage. 

‍2. Invest in Enablers ‍

• <span class="richtext-line-highlight">Creative Excellence:</span>
   
  • Build bespoke creative for all major channels as much as possible. 
    ‍
  • Test  creative assets relevant to different audience segments, e.g., demographics, interest-based segments, or B2B users in consideration/research mode vs. ready-to-buy mode. Remember to also differentiate the landing page experience in these cases. 
    ‍
  • Once you have high-performing creative assets, explore Generative AI tools to automate and streamline variations.

‍Don’t rush to automate before you have first-hand knowledge of what works and doesn’t work. 
‍

• It’s better to test Gen AI for long-tail & low-risk use cases before you scale usage. To understand how Gen AI assets are faring, compare engagement rate or click-through rate % between these assets and the status quo [e.g. human-created assets] in an AB test. Don’t make the mistake of evaluating Gen AI assets based on speed and efficiency alone. 
  ‍

• ‍<span class="richtext-line-highlight">CRM & MarTech:</span>
  ‍
  • ‍As you’re now acquiring users at scale, this is the right time to invest in CRM and MarTech - both infrastructure/tools and talent. 
    ‍
  • Invest in onboarding and building a relationship with your new users/customers. Understand how they activate and try to shorten their ‘time to value’ with your product/solution. This is likely a combination of in-product triggers and marketing [email, messaging] notifications enabled by your CRM. 
    ‍
  • Bonus: If there are material differences between how specific audience segments activate and engage, these insights [demographics, geo] should always be passed on to user acquisition teams to refine their audience targeting. 
    ‍
  • Over time, analyze how your existing customers build a habit with your product/solution and identify engagement signals that could predict longer-term retention or the risk of lapsing. Proactively managing this lifecycle will reduce the risk of overdependence on paid channels to acquire new customers and compensate for revenue misses.
    ‍

• ‍<span class="richtext-line-highlight">Measurement & Analytics:</span>
  ‍
  • ‍Transition from Last-click attribution to Multi-touch (MTA) or Data-Driven attribution (DDA) in your measurement/analytics setup so you can better understand how users interact with your brand before final conversion. 
    ‍
  • If you’re spending heavily on Meta or TikTok, implement the Conversions API [server-to-server tracking] to reduce signal loss caused by privacy blockers, device and browser restrictions.
    ‍
  • Set up additional events and build audience segments in your analytics tool. A few examples for inspiration:
    • Users who are one step away from conversion - e.g., complete ‘add to cart’ but don’t purchase OR visit a form/lead gen page but don’t submit their details
    • Users who scroll 90% or spend a certain amount of time on your blog articles
    • Users who visit category or product/solutions pages but don’t convert on their first visit 

‍3. Primary Focus 

The critical question you should ask: 

What is the ideal mix of channels that can drive volume at a specific (or target) efficiency? 

• Measure all up ‘blended’ efficiency [e.g. CPA or ROAS]  vs. directly comparing the efficiency of lower funnel channels to mid-funnel ones. This is a common mistake. Why? All things being equal, a paid search campaign on Google focused on branded keywords will deliver a lower cost of acquisition [last click] vs. a broader reach or engagement campaign on Facebook / Instagram 

• Channels need to be fairly evaluated based on where they fall in the user journey and the job they are tasked to do, i.e., nudge brand-aware users to action or the heavier lift of driving consideration. 

Ready for more? Explore the RUN stage to learn about how full-funnel marketing can help you pivot to value and long-term effectiveness.

‍