How to Build a Long-Term Brand with Performance Marketing

Investing in brand marketing is often one of the fastest ways to boost performance of your existing marketing motions.  I’ve implemented this approach successfully multiple times in my career. Brand marketing helps you create an emotional connection with your customers that fosters trust - and that trust makes them more likely to choose you over competitors, even in a crowded market.  You yourself can probably think of many brands that do this well and impacts how you purchase. The key to understanding brand marketing ROI lies in its role as a multiplier for your marketing mix, rather than viewing brand marketing in isolation. So how can brand marketing be additive to your current investments?  Here’s a step-by-step approach.. ❇ Leverage a control/test approach:  Before introducing a new brand campaign, measure your current performance marketing efforts over a consistent time frame.  You can apply a test market vs. control market if you want to start small with the brand investment. ❇ Brand campaign launch:  Introduce a brand campaign highlighting your brand's story, emotional benefits, and unique selling propositions to the customer. It should be designed to resonate with your target audience's aspirations and pain points, leveraging channels that allow for deeper storytelling engagement. ❇ Integrated Marketing Phase: While the brand campaign is running, continue your existing marketing efforts, but include messaging and creative that echoes the brand campaign's themes. This creates a cohesive customer experience across the customer journey. ❇ Measurement and Analysis: Measure the same metrics as in the baseline period or in your test/control markets. Look for changes in website traffic, conversion rates, customer acquisition cost, and sales numbers. Ask the sales team for any qualitative insights they may have.  And, if possible - assess brand health metrics such as brand awareness and brand preference for both you and your competitors. ❇ Comparative Analysis: Compare the pre- and post-campaign performance. An effective brand campaign will yield an increase in direct marketing performance, giving those channels a lower customer acquisition cost, higher conversion rates, and increased overall sales. The uplift in these metrics is a tangible indicator of the brand campaign's additive effect on your marketing investments. This approach to brand marketing highlights that a strong brand acts as a lever and can be the decisive factor that tilts customer preference in your favor, proving that brand investment is not just a cost center but a strategic asset that drives measurable ROI.

In this episode of MythBusters: Brand Builders Edition (aired for only 1 season on ESPN The Ocho), we explore 2 myths we believed in the early days that kept us from investing in brand building, the 3 truths we learned, and the 3 things you can do about it today. **The Two Myths** 1) Brand building is a nice to have because it's not obvious that, or how, it makes us more money 2) In order to invest resources (time, people and money) in brand building, you need to have tons of money - money that we just didn't have **The Three Truths We Learned** 1) The single reason you invest in building and strengthening your brand is to make more money By money, I mean total profit dollar generation over a long period of time The reason a stronger brand generates more total profit dollars over any prolonged period of time (5+ yrs for example) is that with a strong brand, the main reason people choose you isn't a result of being convinced with rational appeals, discounts, promotions or urgency They choose you because of the emotional connection they have with you Put differently, it matters to them that you exist, and that, by purchasing from you, they derive value far beyond the utilitarian value of the actual product They are becoming a part of something, adding meaning to one's life - helping them build, express and solidify who they are, or who they want to be, as a person 2) In reality, you don't need to spend any more than you're already spending Often, when brands start thinking they need to invest in building the brand - reaching lots of people and building deep emotional connection so that people are slightly more likely to choose you rather than competitors, and buy at full price - they also start to look into the incrementality of your existing spend Inevitably, you realize much of your existing performance marketing isn't driving any incrementality, and voila, you have found money to invest in the most long-term incremental spend: brand building 3) You actually need more cash to spend on marketing by not doing brand building Over time, when more people have an emotional connection with your brand, your spend as a % of revenue should go down, not up This is the opposite of what many brands are seeing today as they continue to place the overwhelming focus on measuring success of marketing efforts solely by how it drives revenue in a 1 or 7-day click attribution window **Three Actions You Can Take Today** 1) Get alignment internally on 2 things: a) If given the choice, we would choose more contribution dollars over 180 days than less. b) The tactics and creative that drive the most revenue in a 1 or 7 day period are generally not the things that maximize $ over 180d 2) Assess the incrementality of all dollars spent. Embrace falling ROAS 3) Ensure the whole team, not just paid media, know that their actions can increase the probability that the brand that gets remembered is the brand that gets bought Hope this helps

You need to mix your performance marketing with long-term brand building. Here's why: Most marketers are really good when it comes to performance marketing - think paid ads, instant conversions and measurable ROI. It works great in terms of short-term gains. But sometimes marketers opt for this strategy to get quicker results and give the illusion that the needle is moving faster. While it does play a part in growth, if you were to blend this with consistent brand building, you’d see the company grow to new heights. Why? Because performance marketing brings in traffic, but brand building builds a place for you in the consumer's heart. I know when I say brand building, many people will start to think of brand colors or logos. But that’s not all that it is. It’s more about the story you tell of your brand to form an emotional connection with your customer. A study suggests that customers loyal to a brand are worth up to 10x as much as their first purchase. But how can you build this? - Consistent messaging - Authenticity - Engaging with your audience on a personal level The first question that comes up in a marketer's mind is: how are we going to split the budget and focus? I would advise new businesses to lean more on their performance marketing initially. You want to help get your name out there, capture leads and drive immediate sales. As the brand starts to gain more traction, you can slowly increase your investment in brand building. For established brands, the approach changes. You want to nurture and expand the brand equity you’ve built. You’re going to create content that reinforces why customers chose you to do business with in the first place and then you’re going to continue to validate that choice. Since your brand already has a degree of market penetration, you can afford to think long-term. This means: - New marketing channels and fresh content strategies - Creating a space for a community of your loyal customers - Investing in sustainable brand-building activities like whitepapers, industry reports and blogs. These aren’t going to bring in immediate ROI but will help you plant roots for your market position in the long run. It's two sides of the same coin, you can't just do performance marketing and burn through consumers. At some point, you need to start building a personal connection with your consumers. Because if you don't, you risk becoming just another business for customers to treat as an afterthought. If you can help your customers feel like they're a part of something bigger than just a transaction, you’ll find your product or service to be the first choice that comes to their mind when they have to buy. But this can only happen with a long-term brand-building strategy. The sooner you test and figure out the right balance between your performance marketing and brand building, the sooner you’ll be able to turn a first-time buyer into a lifelong customer. #brandbuilding #digitalmarketing

Sustainable paid media growth, in under 15 seconds: 1. Seed product to your ideal influencers 2. Put no pressure on them to post 3. Wait to see who posts (25-30%) 4. Secure usage rights to content 5. Use the content to scale ads Now if you have more than 15 seconds, here’s the breakdown: 1. Use a targeted micro-influencer outreach strategy. You want the content that exists on their page to feel aligned with your brand. 2. Send them product, no-strings-attached. If an influencer posts about your brand, you don’t want it to feel forced or pressured — this creates the most authentic, native feeling content. 3. With your product plugged, wait to see who posts. On average, we see about 30% of influencers post 1-2 times. Remember, this is all without prompting — genuine affinity for the product is the incentive. 4. When the content starts coming in, make sure you’re collecting it (when you’ve secured usage rights). We use MightyScout. 5. Repurpose these creatives into your ad accounts. As you dial in your outreach to more influencers, you’ll have a steady stream of content — more creatives allow you to test at high volume, unlocking more growth in your ad account. Yes, there’s more nuance and individual steps to take, but this is the overarching framework we’ve used to generate over $100M in revenue for 8-9 figure ecommerce brands at Kynship. Any questions? Let me know 🤝

I get asked often about the role of brand...how important it is, when to invest, and how it fits alongside performance. I actually started my career in performance, so I understand the pressure to acquire efficiently (especially in this market). But over the years, I’ve come to deeply appreciate the power of a strategy that treats brand and performance as interdependent, not competing, levers. 🤝 That said, a reminder: **you can’t outbid your way to differentiation.** In today’s competitive markets, many teams are still chasing scale through performance channels alone, despite rising costs and diminishing returns. Meanwhile, brand-led companies are steadily building something more durable: trust, preference, and loyalty. Couple numbers to keep in mind y'all... 📈 Meta CPMs are up 27% YoY 📊 88% of consumers say brand trust *directly* impacts buying decisions 🔁 Branded search converts 2 to 3x better than non-branded When products are comparable and features converge (basically most categories right now), brand becomes the reason people choose you, and the reason they stay with you. It’s not just how you acquire. It’s how you build with intention. #brand #performance #growth