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The State of Performance Marketing

It’ s Time to Reframe for Strategic Growth

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Executive Summary

For the inaugural The State of Performance Marketing report, MMA Global surveyed more than 380 senior marketers across North America, EMEA and JAPAC. The findings bring into sharp focus a longstanding duality at the heart of modern marketing: the need to balance short-term spending with long-term growth outcomes. Performance marketing was once defined by speed and automation. Now, it’ s a precision-driven growth strategy that ties marketing investment directly to measurable business outcomes. In today’ s climate of increased accountability and digital acceleration, it offers a unique strategic advantage – one anchored in data, focused on results and built to deliver impact under pressure. Performance marketing often uses most of the marketing budget, absorbing nearly 60 % of total spend. But strikingly, few companies are laying the strategic foundation needed to realise its full potential. performance spending continues to grow, as short-term pressures from the C-suite and quarterly reviews lead to reactive budget shifts.

While performance marketing is becoming more sophisticated – driven by data-led targeting, agile activation, and a focus on measurable outcomes – it’ s also becoming far more complex. Marketers now deploy an average of four audience-targeting approaches and manage martech stacks consisting of eight different tools to launch and measure a single campaign, adding operational strain to already stretched teams.

Over 380 senior marketers surveyed, spanning a host of industries x

This paradox reveals a deeper tension in how marketing is managed today. Eight in ten marketers claim to aim for a balanced marketing approach across brand, performance and customer experience rather than being driven solely by performance. Yet in practice,

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