Outgrown your digital marketing agency?
In the world of digital marketing, performance agencies are the ones doing the most to bring in tangible ROI for their clients.
The hard part is finding the right fit for your business. Which is why review lists like these are so helpful.
We’ve done the legwork for you and compiled a diverse list of talented, experienced, and respected performance marketing agencies from established and emerging markets.
Take a look at our list of top performance marketing agencies in America, Europe, Australia, South Africa and Russia.
But first, let us define what performance marketing is:
The following video by PerformInsidercom explains this term and the difference between affiliate marketing and performance marketing:
While this video talks about performance-based agreement, please keep in mind that many performance agencies ALSO ask for a monthly retainer.
This retainer is calculated, in many cases, as a percentage of the monthly advertising budget.
Definition: Performance Marketing
Performance marketing refers to the combination of paid advertising and digital brand marketing. Like affiliate marketing, performance marketing involves a merchant or brand paying a commission to an affiliate publisher to promote their business and send them traffic or sales. It is often purely performance-based, and payment is made only when the desired action (visit, click, sale, etc.) is completed.
Performance marketing agencies utilize a range of channels in order to maximize their marketing efforts. These include:
AGENCY SNAPSHOT
Founded: 2007
Location: Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Santa Barbra, California, USA; and Plymouth, UK
Number of Employees: 220
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Gen3 Marketing is an award-winning leader in performance marketing with over two decades of experience, global reach, and access to expertise, data, and publisher relationships on an impressive scale.
Specializing in affiliate marketing, PPC, and SEO, Gen3 Marketing offers a full suite of personalized services for each, along with customized strategies designed to drive incremental revenue and growth and achieve tangible results to reach your unique goals.
Gen3 Marketing is a global leader in performance marketing, with global reach and over two decades of award-winning experience.
It is a full-service agency that specializes in affiliate marketing, PPC, and SEO, offering a full suite of services for each, from customized strategies to ongoing management and optimization.
As the largest affiliate agency and core of the Gen3 Group of agencies, Gen3 Marketing offers benefits that only come with an agency of that size.
Access to a wealth of data and insights that smaller competitors can’t match, combined with the expertise and experience of their award-winning teams, gives Gen3 Marketing a unique advantage.
Gen3’s vast network of valuable publisher relationships across every vertical and platform is another unique advantage. No matter what you need, they have an established, high-quality relationship for you.
That said, Gen3 develops custom strategies for every client, taking a collaborative approach and developing a personal relationship with every client.
They will get to know your business and understand your unique goals to create a bespoke strategy that drives incremental revenue, growth, and tangible results to achieve your goals.
Gen3 is a 15+-time Agency of the Year winner, and in 2022 it was awarded Agency of the Year twice by both Rakuten Marketing and CJ Affiliate.
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 performance 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: 2002
Location: Sarasota, USA and Banja Luka, Bosnia
Number of Employees: 51 – 200
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Perform[cb] Agency is one of the most versatile agencies for performance and affiliate marketing. They serve clients of all sizes in every industry and emphasize innovation, client relationships, and strategic partnerships to ensure sustainable growth.
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 performance marketing 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: 1998
Location: Chicago, Illinois, USA, with an established global footprint
Number of Employees: 1001 – 5000
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Performics is one of the oldest and most experienced performance marketing agencies. As they’re part of a broader network of agencies, they have access to a huge bank of expertise, and resources, and established partnerships with major marketing channels and publishers.
Performics is the performance marketing arm of Publicis Media and part of a collection of agencies under the Publicis Groupe network. Founded in the late 90s, they are true pioneers in performance marketing with their background in SEO and SEM.
The agency offers clients the added benefit of its large network of creative and media resources, as well as their deep partnerships with search engines and social media networks.
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: 1996
Location: Boston, Massachusetts, USA, with an established global footprint
Number of Employees: 5001 – 10000
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iProspect is a global performance 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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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: 200+
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Ad Agents is based in Germany, but they’re part of the Ad Pepper Media Group, which operates in more than 50 countries. They offer a range of performance marketing services, including the iLead platform for quick campaigns across different markets.
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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Kwanko specializes in performance marketing, particularly cross-device performance marketing and offers a full-suite platform to run and scale campaigns.
Kwanko is a leading marketing and advertising agency with a specialization 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 campaigns.
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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Antevenio is a well-established and experienced agency that specializes in performance marketing. With offices in both Europe and the Americas, they’re well-equipped to serve a variety of needs across a wide range of locations and contexts.
Antevenio is a pioneering performance marketing 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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Quisma is part of the world’s biggest advertising media company and specializes in performance marketing for the German and European market.
Quisma is a performance marketing 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.
AGENCY SNAPSHOT
Founded: 2004
Location: Moscow, Russia
Number of Employees: 80
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ADLABS is a leading Russian performance marketing agency, with over a decade of experience. They also offer a proprietary campaign management platform to automate and deploy campaigns.
ADLABS Advertising Agency, a division of Add Labs, is one of the leading performance agencies in Russia, offering a wide range of internet marketing services for over 10 years. They are also well known for running their advertising campaigns through their very own automated advertising management systems.
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 popular Russian marketing agency. They specialize in a wide range of marketing and advertising services, including performance marketing.
E-Promo is a very popular performance marketing agency in Russia, well-equipped to develop and customize a sound mix of advertising channels and tools for a wide range of companies. They also perform marketing work as a subcontractor for other marketing agencies, such as iProspect.
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 dedicated performance marketing agency that emphasizes analytics and running data-driven campaigns that are designed to produce growth.
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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WHY CHOOSE THEM?
Contevo is a full-service 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.
Contevo is a conversion-focused digital marketing agency and one of the most experienced in Australia. 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 and digital marketing agency in South Africa. They’re highly specialized and use data-driven insights to execute successful campaigns for clients of all sizes from anywhere in the world.
Algorithm is a leading performance marketing and data specialist agency 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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Rogerwilco is an award-winning digital marketing agency with a special focus on performance marketing. As a full-service agency, they have the expertise to run performance marketing campaigns that are well integrated into an overall marketing strategy.
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 performance marketing 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 an agency 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.
When assessing potential performance marketing agencies for your business, one might get a bit dazzled by their client portfolios, awards, or beautiful websites. However, it is important to take the following criteria into consideration when appointing your new agency, and don’t forget to ask those tough questions.
Remember, it all depends on what your business needs are. Whether it’s straight up SEO or part of large integrated campaign that requires content and design, there’s an agency for you on this list.
Finding the Best Performance Agency for Your Unique Needs
Choosing the best agency comes down to finding the agency that is the best fit for what YOU need. Define what your needs are and determine exactly what you’re looking for and find the agency best suited to those needs. Sometimes the best fit will be an unexpected choice, so knowing exactly what you need is vital.
A branding agency and a performance agency may appear similar, but they are in fact, very different. A branding agency solely concentrates on developing the identity of an organization or business through a range of marketing services.
These include creating a unique identity and logo, conducting market research and customer surveys to understand the target market, and then segmenting and profiling the target market. A performance agency rather focuses on helping a brand reach a broader audience.
These audiences are reached through a wide range of marketing channels (as listed above). Other services include search engine advertising, copywriting, conversion rate optimization, paid social media ads, and landing page creation, amongst many more.
Digital agencies and performance agencies differ largely in the variety of marketing services they offer, while they also have a level of overlap.
Performance agencies specialize in optimizing a brand’s reach through all the marketing channels listed above and focus primarily on marketing performance.
They achieve this by adhering to each company’s unique set of KPIs. Performance agencies often have a very wide marketing reach.
On the other hand, digital agencies tend to offer a much broader range of marketing services that focus on growing and optimizing a company’s digital assets, such as its website, online stores, audio-visual media, logos, etc.
A digital agency can also be seen as a full-service agency, in which case they might offer performance marketing and branding services as an additional service.
These services would also include using performance marketing channels, such as search engine marketing, native advertising and affiliate marketing.
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.
Find the performance marketing 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-
a. Compatibility
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.
Performance Marketing is a method of interactive advertising which is only paid out on a completed action, based on the “performance” of the agency. The action required is based on a sale (Cost Per Sale) or on a lead (Cost Per Lead), including Cost Per Download. Affiliate Marketing is a subset of Performance Marketing which is based on a cost-per-sale, where the revenue is shared and the affiliate receives a portion of the sale of the product.
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/