Performance Ads vs Influencers: Smart CMOs Reveal Where They're Moving Their Budgets

Performance marketing or influencer partnerships? Joe Perello, CEO of Props, reveals how smart marketers are blending creator content with paid media precision. His approach transforms creator marketing into a true performance channel by maintaining full accountability for business results rather than chasing viral hits. Perello demonstrates how owned media content delivers authentic engagement while providing the targeting capabilities and measurable outcomes of traditional performance marketing. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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  The Martech Podcast is a proud member of the I Hear Everything Podcast Network. Looking to launch or scale your podcast? I Hear Everything delivers podcast production, growth, and monetization solutions that transform your words into profit. Ready to give your brand a voice? Then visit iHereEverything.com.

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  From advertising to software as a service to data, across all of our programs and clients, we've seen a 55% to 65% open rate.

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  Getting brands authentically integrated into content performs better than TV advertising.

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  Typical lifespan of an article is about 24 to 36 hours.

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  If we're reaching out to the right person with the right message and a clear call to action, then it's just a matter of timing.

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  Welcome to the Martech Podcast, a member of the I Hear Everything Podcast Network. In this podcast, you'll hear the stories of world-class marketers that use technology to drive business results and achieve career success. Here's the host of the Martech Podcast, Benjamin Shapiro.

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  I'm Benjamin Shapiro, and joining me today is Joe Perello, who's the CEO and co-founder of Props, which helps brands blend creator content with performance marketing. And today, Joe is going to explain why brand-owned content is the new frontier for marketers who want real, predictable outcomes. All right, moving on. Are you doubling down on performance advertising or influencer partnerships?

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  Well, I think you know the answer to this, Ben, is we're combining the two things. We're combining creator marketing with the precision and scale of paid media. So without the ads, impossible to give you a one-word answer to that because we've really brought these two things together. Creators, not influencers on the attraction side, and paid media without the ads on the scale, targetability, and most importantly, the accountability side. That's really the difference. And you boil it all down to Props, you have this really unique way. We have this great way of using creators. We merge it with paid media. We have the full funnel. But at the end of the day, we are 100% accountable for business results, and that's where most

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  influencers and content marketers stop.

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  For marketers who haven't heard of Props, or let's say there's some customers that you just don't want to work with, and they have to decide between putting their budget into performance marketing or giving it to influencers, people that are creators that have an audience, which one should they prioritize? What's the blend of your budget?

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  I mean, if they don't want to get fired in the short term, I would spend it on performance marketing because at least there, you're in control of the audience. You can track the response. You can always change the creative. In the influencer space, if you have the patience to find a hit, then that could work for you too, but it's you're in the hit business. And that's scary sometimes.

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  When you say you're in the hit business, you mean that you are trying to produce a piece of content that goes viral, right, has exceptional performance where you're basically going to be a volume shooter and hope something takes off? Am I interpreting that right?

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  Yes, you don't really know who a creator's followers, an influencer's followers are. You don't know if they're real. You don't know how many there are. You don't know where they are. You might have an indication, but if you're operating in the US and they have 30% of their followers in Canada, why are you doing that? That's one big thing is there's a lot of mystery behind that. And then influencers are complicated. They have agents. That's a level of complication that you have to deal with. And then they're in the business of making content, which is a very subjective thing. So if you don't get all that right every week, then you're going to risk wasting a lot of money. And that's where blending it with paid media and make sure the content's on the website.

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  That's really where it removes all the risk.

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  All right. And that wraps up this episode of the Martech Podcast. Thanks for listening to my conversation with Joe Perello, the CEO and co-founder of Props. If you'd like to contact Joe, you can find the link to his LinkedIn profile in our show notes or you can visit martechpod.com. You can also find his company's website at props.co. That's P-R-O-P-S dot C-O. And if you haven't subscribed yet and you want a daily stream of marketing and technology knowledge in your podcast feed, hit the subscribe button. Your podcast app and we'll be back in your feed or on YouTube every week. All right, that's it for today, but until next time, my advice is to just focus on keeping your customers happy.

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  Thanks for listening to the MarTech Podcast and I Hear Everything production. Looking to launch or scale a podcast like this one for your brand, then visit ihereverything.com.