It was a surprise for the communication management class of 2020; a return of one of their own, and not even from all that long ago, as Anikait Chakraborty, an alumni from the class of 2018, took to the dais to give us a brief look into performance marketing, in his words “The other side of Marketing.”
Opening to a sea of bemused crowd and waving to familiar faces, Mr. Chakraborty went on to elaborate on where his eventful couple of years had taken him. In his own words, Performance Marketing is about online marketing and advertising programs in which advertisers pay marketing companies for when a specific action is completed; such as a sale, lead or click.
He began with a brief introduction into how performance marketing helps create conversions for brands, and is an essential tool towards turning attitudes and beliefs formed by advertising surrounding the brand into hard numbers by which to calculate a given campaign’s effects. He also went on to show us how unlike other forms of traditional advertising, where fees are paid up front and do not depend upon the success of the ads, advertisers in performance marketing only pay for successful transactions. He also illustrated their prevalence in our online consumption with a few examples of the various forms in which performance marketing roams our online spaces, be it via created news portals or sponsored content.
This then led to a discussion on start-ups, where Mr. Chakraborty informed us of his own, called Practical Dreams, where one can customise and create gifts. The lecture moved on into an active discussion on the pros and cons of corporate vs start-up life, and the opportunities and challenges that lie therein. Lastly, the session came to a close with a quick-fire round of questions regarding the difficulties of getting such an enterprise off the ground, and its feasibility in the long run in tandem with one’s already established plans and ambitions, like further study.
All in all, it was a fascinating insight into the life of one who not so very long ago walked the same halls as us, and served as a reminder to us of the professional world out there that we would soon join.
Aditya Khound
(Batch 2020)
