In the world of digital marketing, the influx of data makes every step of advertising more measurable than ever. Optimizing marketing investments is no longer a jargon but a tactical common practice.
How do you devise data-driven strategies? Who are your target audience, and are you speaking to them effectively? How do you compare channel performances and shift marketing dollars to maximize outcomes? How do you define key performance indicators to achieve the right business goals?
Agencies specialized in performance are the ones doing the most to bring in tangible ROIs for their clients!
We’ve done the legwork for you and compiled a diverse list of talented, experienced, and respected outcome-driven services from both established and emerging markets.
AGENCY SNAPSHOT
Founded: 2002
Location: Sarasota, USA and Banja Luka, Bosnia
Number of Employees: 51 – 200
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WHY CHOOSE THEM?
Perform[cb] Agency stand out for its customizable and scalable solutions for performance and affiliate marketing. They also offer a diverse range of services, including mobile app marketing and distribution, making them a truly full-service agency.
Perform[cb] Agency works with clients of all sizes and at all stages of the business journey, from small start-ups to household-name enterprises. They’re award-winning agency, and were shortlisted for “Best Performance Marketing Agency” by the International Performance Marketing Awards.
They focus on client relationships, strategic growth, and unique, innovative solutions that are designed to meet individual client needs and maximize growth and ROI for every client.
AGENCY SNAPSHOT
Founded: 2017
Location: New York City, USA (fully remote with employees across the US)
Number of Employees: 51 – 200
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PartnerCentric is a leading digital marketing agency and the USA’s largest independent partner marketing agency. It is also a woman-owned (WBE-certified) agency founded by leading industry veteran Stephanie Harris.
PartnerCentric takes a performance-focused approach. They have the know-how and experience to develop bespoke’ speed to value’ strategies using the most effective tactics and technology. Control Suite, PartnerCentric’s proprietary tech platform, is purpose-built to be a revenue and outcome-focused solution for affiliate marketing.
PartnerCentric works with clients of all sizes, from start-ups and SMBs to enterprises and global brands.
AGENCY SNAPSHOT
Founded: 2007
Location: Global, with hubs on three continents and employees in more than nine countries.
Number of Employees: 201 – 500
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WHY CHOOSE THEM?
Acceleration Partners is an award-winning global agency with an extensive portfolio and an excellent track record.
It takes a client-centric approach and develops marketing strategies tailored to your unique needs, challenges, and goals. It focuses on developing strategic, performance-driven marketing strategies in partnership marketing, including affiliate and influencer marketing, as well as content, mass media buying, and B2B marketing.
Acceleration Partners has won numerous industry awards, including the Global Performance Marketing Award (GPMA) for Best Agency and Best Team in Performance. It is also a six-time GPMA winner in the Best Affiliate and Partner Marketing Agency category and has many other industry and culture awards.
AGENCY SNAPSHOT
Founded: 2006 (as a digital media agency)
Location: Jenkintown, Pennsylvania, USA
Number of Employees: 201 – 500
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The Goodway Group is an award-winning agency that is known to produce unique, innovative campaigns that are highly effective in the fast-changing marketing landscape. They also offer a proprietary performance-driven digital advertising platform and a huge range of marketing services.
The Goodway Group has a long history of transforming its business to suit the changing media and marketing landscape – starting in 1919 with the founding of a printing business. The company transformed from a direct marketing company to a leading digital media agency with specialist media services, including a proprietary performance-driven digital advertising platform.
AGENCY SNAPSHOT
Founded: 2003
Location: Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA
Number of Employees: 51 – 200
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WHY CHOOSE THEM?
DMi Partners is a leading digital marketing agency that takes a creative, collaborative and data-driven approach to achieve precise and targeted results for their clients.
DMi Partners brings decades of knowledge and insight to every business problem it is tasked with solving. They know each challenge requires its own approach, a unique strategy, and a little bit of risk-taking. And they’re up for every challenge.
Since 2003, DMi Partners has committed itself to drive growth for its clients from its headquarters in Philadelphia. As a full-service digital marketing agency, DMi is a leader in managing cost-effective, award-winning campaigns that deliver results.
AGENCY SNAPSHOT
Founded: 1996
Location: Boston, Massachusetts, USA, with an established global footprint
Number of Employees: 5001 – 10000
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iProspect is a global digital marketing agency that combines advanced international expertise with local knowledge to drive results. They also have a global network of partners, platforms and specialists, which benefits all their clients.
iProspect is one of the biggest and most well-known performance marketing and advertising agencies in the world and is part of the Dentsu Aegis Network. The agency boasts a worldwide network of specialists, partners, and platforms with a core strength in performance marketing and local market expertise.
AGENCY SNAPSHOT
Founded: 2000
Location: Atlanta, Georgia, USA
Number of Employees: 11 – 50
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WHY CHOOSE THEM?
Hughes Media is a multi-award-winning agency that provides a wide range of marketing services, including content production and email marketing, to their clients. They’re experienced and effective in the performance marketing arena.
Hughes Media is one of the leading marketing agencies in Atlanta with a focus on long-term relationships. According to their website, the average client on their books has been with them for 8 years. The multi-award-winning agency has a wide range of services ranging from content production to performance marketing.
AGENCY SNAPSHOT
Founded: 1999
Location: Herrenberg, Germany
Number of Employees: 201 – 500
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WHY CHOOSE THEM?
Ad Agents is a performance marketing company within the Ad Pepper Media Group – a holding company with customers in over 50 countries. The company focuses on scalable performance marketing with a proprietary platform called iLead – a platform that enables brands to quickly adapt and activate campaigns in multiple markets.
AGENCY SNAPSHOT
Founded: 2003
Location: Ille-de-France, France
Number of Employees: 51 – 200
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WHY CHOOSE THEM?
Kwanko is a leading marketing and advertising agency specializing in cross-device performance marketing. They have just launched the Kwanko Platform: a unified platform that offers a complete suite of tools to create, manage, track, and scale marketing campaigns.
Kwanko specializes in performance marketing, particularly cross-device performance marketing.
AGENCY SNAPSHOT
Founded: 1997
Location: HQ in Madrid, Spain and offices in Barcelona, Mexico, Argentina, Colombia, Italy, and France
Number of Employees: 51 – 200
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WHY CHOOSE THEM?
Antevenio is a pioneering agency with over 20 years of experience in the digital marketing industry. The agency has an experienced team of certified specialists with established relationships within a variety of industries in Europe and America. The company’s focus areas are performance, branding, and loyalty.
Fun fact: Antevenio was the first Spanish advertising company in history to successfully IPO on the Alternext Paris Market.
AGENCY SNAPSHOT
Founded: 2001
Location: Munich, Germany
Number of Employees: 51 – 200
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WHY CHOOSE THEM?
Quisma is an agency that specializes in the German market. The agency is part of Group M: the world’s largest advertising media company. Quisma clients have the added advantage of being able to tap into the vast WPP network of agencies, platforms, and specialists.
ADLABS
Moscow, Russia 80
AGENCY SNAPSHOT
Founded: 2004
Location: Moscow, Russia
Number of Employees: 80
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ADLABS, a division of Add Labs, is a leading Russian marketing agency with over a decade of experience. They also offer a proprietary campaign management platform to automate and deploy campaigns.
AGENCY SNAPSHOT
Founded: 2008
Location: Moscow, St Petersburg, Nizhny Novgorod and Ekaterinburg, Russia
Number of Employees: 12
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E-Promo is a very popular agency in Russia, well-equipped to develop and customize a sound mix of advertising channels and tools for a wide range of companies.
They specialize in a wide range of marketing and advertising services, including performance marketing. They also perform marketing work as a subcontractor for other marketing agencies, such as iProspect.
Metrixa
Melbourne, Australia 51+
AGENCY SNAPSHOT
Founded: 2010
Location: HQ in Melbourne, Australia and offices in Hanoi, Vietnam
Number of Employees: 51 -200
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Metrixa is a data-driven marketing agency with a goal to drive efficiency and streamline digital marketing operations for its clients. The agency specializes in the Asia Pacific market, with offices in both Australia and Singapore.
Bonus: Metrixa offers a free Adwords Audit!
AGENCY SNAPSHOT
Founded: 2005
Location: Melbourne, Australia
Number of Employees: 11 – 50
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Contevo is a digital marketing agency with a special focus on performance marketing. They’re one of the most well-established agencies in Australia and have worked with high-profile, international clients.
The agency offers a full-service suite of services from SEO and PPC to social media and eCommerce.
AGENCY SNAPSHOT
Founded: 2016
Location: Johannesburg, South Africa
Number of Employees: 5 – 10
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Algorithm is a leading performance marketing and data specialist agency in South Africa along with its sister agency Quant. The agency specializes in SEO, SEM and Conversion Rate Optimization. Their approach is to “be brilliant at a few things rather than average at them all.”
AGENCY SNAPSHOT
Founded: 2008
Location: Cape Town, South Africa
Number of Employees: 11 – 50
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WHY CHOOSE THEM?
Rogerwilco is an established full-service digital marketing agency that holds over 30 awards for performance marketing. They are “led by strategy, fueled by creativity and driven by results”. For clients looking for a technical advantage, the agency is a listed partner with Google, Drupal, and IBM, which speaks to their core web development offering.
AGENCY SNAPSHOT
Founded: 2015
Location: Stellenbosch, South Africa
Number of Employees: 11 – 50
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Digital Optimization is a leading agency in South Africa. They place a special emphasis on data, analytics and technology as tools to drive results for their clients.
Digital Optimization is driven by technology and “obsessed with performance”. The agency is listed as premium partner of Google and Facebook and is a Facebook Ambassador Agency for South Africa.
Performance agency optimizes marketing outcomes based on key performance indicators, e.g. increase sales, minimize attrition, etc. They focus on data and analytics and tend to specialize in channels such as search engine marketing, affiliate marketing, various social media platforms, etc. Clients should expect quantitative reporting that are tied to business metrics.
SEO refers to search engine optimization. It is absolutely a part of performance services. This practice increases a business's visibility on search engine result pages (SERP) and, therefore, its online visibility to potential clients, ultimately leading to better brand awareness and higher lead generation.
A performance marketing associate is often an individual contributor who specializes in a specific performance channel, e.g. SEO, SEM, social media platforms, paid search, CRM, etc. Key skills include a good understanding of marketing analytics, problem-solving using data, ability to collaborate with both businesses and technical teams.
A digital agency broadly refers to any agency that utilizes digital marketing channels. Given that modern marketing is increasingly digital, it has become a marketing agency's nomenclature.
A digital agency can be a performance agency, but it can also be a specialty agency that focuses on creative services, branding, etc. These digital services ultimately should deliver on specific business needs. However, a performance agency is more directly managing channels and services that are linked to KPIs, such as affiliate marketing and search engine marketing.
A branding agency and a performance agency have different focuses.
A branding agency concentrates on developing the identity of an organization or business through a range of services, including creating a unique identity and logo, conducting market research and customer surveys to understand the target audience, and then segmenting and profiling the target market, defining the most relevant marketing messages and copywriting, etc.
A performance agency rather focuses on measurable marketing channels. These can include most digital channels, but could also include the more traditional direct mail. They use data to achieve pre-defined outcomes, should it be increasing sales or profit, or maximizing outreach.
Find the agency that suits your company and marketing goals, by looking at the following key criteria:
1. Service & Support a. Does the agency offer multi-channel support and services?
b. Is there a wealth of strategy & experience available to you?
c. Core team- is there enough experience in the core team and do you have access to senior staff?
d. Support team- who does it consist of to provide you with the high quality work you need?
e. What is staff turnover like and will this impact your work?
2. Track Record: look at- b. Client testimonials c. Results-based case studies 3. Added Value: evaluate their- a. Certifications & accreditation b. Other digital services c. Other network or media partnerships that could benefit you.
Companies typically budget for 5 - 15% of their total revenue towards marketing. This will usually be lower for companies with a higher cost of certain goods, such as construction or manufacturing companies. While service related companies, such as technology or SaaS companies, will typically budget more toward marketing. Companies spend approximately 50% or more of this marketing budget on digital marketing.
What is Performance Marketing?: https://www.upgrow.io/blog/what-is-a-performance-marketing-agency
Best SEO Digital Marketing Agencies: https://www.ventureharbour.com/best-seo-digital-marketing-agencies/
What You Should Know About Performance Marketing: https://thepma.org/our-work/the-performance-marketing-industry/
Top 10 Performance Marketing Agencies: https://www.outbrain.com/blog/top-10-performance-marketing-agencies/