The Fortexx Group

Performance marketing has a reputation problem.

Somewhere between “cost per acquisition” and “scale to the moon,” we quietly swapped out people for metrics and started treating customers like ad impressions with credit cards attached.

The irony?

The more brands chase short-term transactions at any cost, the more expensive those transactions become.

If you want performance that lasts longer than one reporting cycle, you don’t need a new hack. You need an old concept:

Trust.

And no, that doesn’t mean abandoning performance. It means using performance marketing to earn trust instead of eroding it.

Let’s talk about how.

Performance marketing isn’t the villain. Misuse is.

Performance marketing, in itself, is neutral. It’s just:
Clear objective Clear measurement Clear attribution
Nothing evil about that.

It becomes a problem when the mindset shifts to:

“If the ROAS is good, who cares how we got there?”

That’s how you end up with:

Clickbait ads that overpromise Funnels that hide pricing until step 9 “Limited time offers” that have apparently been running since the Stone Age Retargeting that follows people around like an ex who can’t take a hint.

Yes, those tactics can move numbers today.
They also quietly train your audience not to trust you tomorrow.

Human-centered performance marketing asks a different question:

“How do we hit our numbers in a way that makes someone more likely to buy from us again, not less?”

Principle 1: Optimize for clarity, not tricks

Confusion converts… but only once.
Most “high performance” funnels are accidentally optimized for trick clicks:

Vague headlines that bait curiosity but don’t qualify the click Micro-print terms that completely contradict the big bold promise UX that makes it easier to sign up than to understand what you’re signing up for

You get a spike in conversions and a spike in:
Refunds Chargebacks Complaints Negative word of mouth
Human-centered performance takes the hit early so you don’t get hit later.

Questions to ask:

Would a reasonable person understand: What this is? Who it’s for? What it costs? What happens next? Is there anything we’re hoping people don’t notice?

If the answer to that last one is “yes,” you’re not doing performance marketing—you’re doing short-term extraction.

Principle 2: Respect attention like it’s your own

Attention is not free just because the media budget is.

Every time you:

Force a pre-roll ad they can’t skip Blast the same generic email again “just in case” Retarget someone for weeks with the same message

You’re spending trust to buy time.

Human-centered performance marketing treats attention as borrowed, not owned.

Make it a rule:

Every touchpoint should be: Relevant Timely Proportionate

If you wouldn’t tolerate that message, that frequency, or that tone in your own inbox or feed, don’t pretend your audience is magically different.

Principle 3: Use urgency without manipulation

Urgency is one of the oldest tools in the book—and one of the most abused.

There’s a difference between:

“We genuinely only have 30 seats.” and “This countdown timer resets every time you refresh the page.”

The first respects reality. The second insults it.

Human-centered urgency:

Tells the truth about constraints (price changes, inventory, timelines) Uses clear language without theatrics Gives people enough information to make a decision now, not panic

Ask:

“If we removed the fake urgency, would the offer still be attractive?” “Could we justify this explanation to a smart, skeptical customer face-to-face?”

If the answer is no, fix the offer, not just the urgency.

Principle 4: Make the journey feel like help, not a funnel

Internally, you need funnels. Externally, no one wants to feel like they’re being shuffled from one stage to another like a parcel.

The path from ad → landing page → follow-up shouldn’t feel like:

“Welcome to the machine. Please proceed through the conversion tunnel.”

It should feel like:

“You had a problem. Here’s enough clarity and support to decide what to do next.”

Human-centered journeys:

Explain what’s happening at each step Reduce friction that doesn’t serve the customer Add friction where it protects the customer (like confirming big commitments)

Check your flow:

Is every step obviously in service of the customer’s decision? Or is it obviously in service of your CRM, tracking, and upsells?

When in doubt, strip out anything that only makes sense from your side of the dashboard.

Principle 5: Bring humans back into “performance”

The word performance has quietly become code for “digital-only,” but that’s not the full picture.

Real humans still:

Ask questions a landing page didn’t anticipate Have fears a FAQ page doesn’t address Need reassurance that a chatbot can’t convincingly fake (not yet, anyway)

If you’re serious about making performance human, don’t be afraid of human touchpoints:

Live chat staffed by real people who can say, “Honestly, this might not be a fit for you.” Field teams and brand ambassadors who can explain, demonstrate, and listen. Actual callbacks for high-intent leads instead of sending them into a 14-email drip maze.

Yes, humans cost more than automated flows.

But misaligned, confused, or resentful customers cost more than either.

Principle 6: Use AI as an assistant, not a mask

LLMs and automation are incredible at:

Drafting variations Personalizing at scale Organizing data and feedback

They are very bad at:

Caring Taking responsibility Knowing when to say, “We might not be the right choice for you.”

Human-centered performance marketing uses AI to amplify your judgment, not replace it.

Use AI to:

Summarize customer feedback and call notes Suggest alternative ways to explain complex ideas Draft first-pass copy that a human then shapes

Don’t use AI to:

Fake personalization you didn’t earn Generate promises you can’t actually keep Interact with high-stakes customers without human review

If your campaign only “works” as long as no one looks too closely at the promises, AI isn’t the problem.

Principle 7: Measure what you’d be proud to show a customer

You can tell a lot about a company by what shows up on the performance dashboard.

If all you see is:

CPC, CTR, ROAS AOV, LTV (in dollars) Volume, volume, volume

You’re missing half the picture.

Add metrics that indicate trust and experience:

% of customers who buy again Time-to-second-purchase Complaint rate per 1,000 customers Refund and chargeback rates NPS or simple satisfaction scores after key interactions

Then ask:

“Would we be comfortable showing this dashboard to our best customers and explaining how we got these numbers?”

If the answer is no, you’ve found your next optimization project.

Turning the philosophy into a checklist

Here’s a simple filter you can run on any performance campaign:

Ad level

Does this promise something we actually deliver? Would I feel misled if I clicked this and saw the landing page?

Landing page

Is it obvious what this is, who it’s for, and what happens next? Are we hiding anything important in fine print or behind extra clicks?

Follow-up

Are our emails/texts genuinely useful, or just pressure? Do we stop chasing people who clearly aren’t interested?

Human touchpoints

Do customers have a way to talk to a real person if they need to? Are our human teams incentivized only on closing, or also on quality of fit?

If you can answer those honestly and still feel good, your performance marketing is probably more human than most.

The long game: performance and reputation

Short-term performance is easy:
Squeeze harder Shout louder Hide more

Long-term performance is harder:
Tell the truth Respect attention Build systems that serve both the metric and the person behind it

But in a world where everyone is armed with the same tools, hacks, and AI-driven templates, how you hit your numbers becomes your edge.

Transactions keep the lights on.

Trust builds the kind of brand that survives platform changes, algorithm updates, and the next “revolution.”

If your marketing can do both, you’re not just performing—you’re building something worth coming back to.