What Is Brand Awareness? Definition, Importance & Strategies

What is brand awareness? 

Brand awareness is a marketing term that describes how familiar consumers are with your brand and how readily they recognize or recall it. It represents how your target audience knows your brand’s identity, including its name, logo, products, and services, and associates them with your business. Brand awareness is the bedrock of the sales funnel because customers can’t consider or trust your product if they don’t first know it exists. Whether you’re a startup or a Fortune 500 firm, building brand awareness is often the crucial first step in winning customers and growing your business in the long term.

Why does brand awareness matter for businesses of all sizes? 

Imagine a shopper is about to purchase in your category. Will they think of your company first, or will a competitor’s name come to mind? Strong brand awareness ensures your brand is top-of-mind. It builds mental availability and lays the foundation for all other marketing efforts, from acquiring new customers to fostering loyalty. Every customer journey begins with brand awareness, as people must first become aware of a brand before considering buying from it. This holds true no matter the size of your business. A local bakery and a global retailer alike benefit when more people recognize their name and what they offer. The higher your brand awareness, the easier it becomes to introduce new products, enter new markets, or drive sales.

Brand awareness provides a broad foundation for deeper brand affinity. It’s the first stage in building trust (brand perception) and ultimately loyalty (brand preference), underscoring why awareness is vital in the marketing funnel.

Key Benefits of Strong Brand Awareness

High brand awareness isn’t just a vanity metric – it has tangible benefits that impact your bottom line. Here are some of the major benefits of building strong brand awareness:

Builds Trust and Credibility

Consumers tend to trust brands they recognize. When people are familiar with your brand, they’re more confident that you’re a legitimate and reliable business. According to a 2023 Forrester survey, 77% of B2B buyers consider a company’s brand awareness when deciding whether to trust it. In the consumer world, familiarity has a similar effect–89% of shoppers say they will buy from a brand they follow and recognize on social media over one they don’t. In short, being known instills confidence, making potential customers more likely to choose you over unknown competitors.

Fosters Customer Loyalty and Advocacy

Brand awareness is the first step toward building a loyal customer base. When a brand delivers on its promises, the familiarity and trust it has established translate into loyalty. Over time, customers who know and trust your brand will likely keep buying from you and become advocates who recommend your business to others. Research shows that once trust is earned, 83% of buyers say they’re likely to continue doing business with that brand. Strong awareness creates a fan community: people start sharing positive word-of-mouth, amplifying your reach through their networks. This kind of organic advocacy is the gift that keeps on giving for your marketing efforts.

Provides a Competitive Advantage

In a crowded marketplace, brand awareness can be a deciding factor that sets you apart from the competition. When consumers recognize your name and what you stand for, you gain a top-of-mind advantage. For example, many people refer to searching the web as “Googling” something, a testament to Google’s unparalleled brand awareness. Being the brand customers think of first means competitors must work much harder to sway those customers. Strong brand awareness also contributes to perceived quality and credibility, which can justify premium pricing and make it harder for new entrants to steal your market share. In short, brands with high awareness enjoy greater mindshare and often loyalty that competitors without that recognition struggle to match.

Easier Marketing and Expansion

Another benefit of robust brand awareness is that all your marketing initiatives perform better. When an audience already knows your brand, advertising campaigns see higher engagement, and promotions generate more buzz, because people recognize the name in the ad. A memorable brand can even save you money in the long run. As one analysis noted, a well-known company like Coca-Cola doesn’t need to spend much to explain who they are, allowing them to focus marketing dollars on new product promos. Strong awareness also makes it easier to launch new products or expand into new locations, since consumers carry over their familiarity and positive perceptions to the new offerings. In essence, brand awareness oils the wheels of all your growth efforts.

Investing in brand awareness yields returns in trust, loyalty, and competitive edge. But brand awareness doesn’t happen overnight; it’s earned through consistent, strategic marketing. Studies have found that if a brand stops investing in awareness and brand-building, it can quickly lose ground. One analysis by BCG found that companies that cut back on brand advertising needed to spend $1.85 in the future to regain the equivalent of every $1 saved by those cuts. The lesson: maintaining brand awareness is an ongoing effort, and consistency is key to reaping the long-term rewards.

Strategies to Increase Brand Awareness

Building brand awareness today requires a mix of marketing strategies across multiple channels. The good news is that businesses of all sizes have more tools than ever to get their name out there. Below are some proven strategies and channels for increasing brand awareness:

Leverage Digital Advertising

Online advertising is one of the fastest ways to amplify your brand’s reach. Tactics like display ads, video ads, and paid social media posts can introduce your brand to thousands of new people in a targeted way. For example, banner ads on popular websites or pre-roll video ads on YouTube help create familiarity by repeatedly exposing viewers to your brand name and messaging. Programmatic advertising platforms allow you to target specific demographics or locations, ensuring your brand is seen by the right audience. Unfortunately, many companies face challenges with fragmented tech, multiple channels, and accurate measurement of these efforts. Agility fixes the problems with digital brand awareness channels.

The goal of digital ads for brand awareness isn’t immediate conversion but rather to generate impressions and visibility. In fact, on Facebook, the most-used campaign objective among advertisers is brand awareness—more than half of advertisers use it to drive widespread impressions at cost-efficient rates. Consistent online ad presence keeps your brand visible and reinforces recognition over time.

Harness Social Media Marketing

Social media platforms are powerful for brand awareness, enabling broad reach and direct engagement. By posting regularly on platforms like Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, or TikTok, brands can build a personality and community that people come to recognize. The key is to share content that reflects your brand values and speaks to your target audience’s interests, not just constant product pitches. Encourage sharing and interaction to extend your reach to friends-of-friends. Social media is also an ideal channel for visually establishing your brand identity (through logos, color schemes, tone of voice, etc.) so that followers instantly recognize content coming from your company. Importantly, most marketers prioritize brand awareness as a goal for social media: 70% of brand marketers say building brand awareness is their number-one objective on social channels. To maximize awareness on social media, consider tactics like using popular hashtags, joining trending conversations, running contests or challenges, and engaging with followers in comments. Over time, a strong social media presence can significantly boost public familiarity with your brand. 

Using social channels alone without engaging other online brand awareness channels like display, retargeting, CTV, or audio is like making a sandwich without bread. A comprehensive strategy, using brand advertising channels on the open internet alongside social channels, is the best way to create and find new buyers and grow your business.

Partner with Influencers and Creators

Collaborating with influencers is a proven way to expand your brand’s reach and credibility rapidly. Influencer partnerships involve having popular personalities (bloggers, YouTubers, Instagram/TikTok creators, etc.) promote or mention your brand to their followers. This strategy works well because the audience already trusts the influencer, so their endorsement or exposure of your brand carries social proof. Influencer marketing has been shown to yield high brand recall. One study found that influencer campaigns achieved an aided brand recall rate of 79%, significantly higher than the unaided recall of 62%. In other words, people are much more likely to remember your brand after seeing it in an influencer’s content. To use this channel effectively, choose influencers whose audience aligns with your target market and whose values fit your brand image. Influencers can introduce your company to communities you might not reach otherwise, boosting awareness and interest, whether it's a paid sponsorship or a product review.

Create Valuable Content Marketing

Content marketing is a longer-term strategy for building brand awareness by establishing your expertise. This includes creating blog posts, infographics, videos, podcasts, and ebooks–any content that provides value to your target audience. By offering informative or entertaining content, you attract people to your brand and give them a reason to remember you. For instance, a software company might publish a helpful “how-to” guide that ranks well on Google; consumers who read it become aware of the brand and trust its authority. Over time, consistently publishing high-quality content can position your brand as a thought leader in your industry. It also improves your search engine visibility (SEO), which means more people will discover your brand when searching topics related to your business. Content marketing works hand-in-hand with social media and email marketing – you can distribute your content across channels to reach a wider audience. While it requires patience, this strategy builds a strong foundation of awareness because consumers learn to associate your brand with valuable information and solutions to their problems.

Utilize Cross-Promotions and Partnerships

Another way to grow brand awareness is through strategic partnerships. Co-marketing with complementary brands or participating in sponsorships can expose your name to a new audience. Large companies co-branded campaigns, such as a fitness apparel brand teaming up with a popular fitness app on a challenge or a giveaway. When brands collaborate, they effectively introduce each other to their respective followings, often with a halo effect of mutual credibility. Sponsoring events, charities, or community initiatives can similarly boost recognition; attendees and media will note your brand’s involvement. The key is to choose partnership opportunities that align with your target audience and brand values for maximum impact on awareness.

(Remember: there’s no one “magic” channel – the strongest brand awareness campaigns often integrate multiple channels. A recent example is the 2023 Barbie Movie marketing campaign, which was impossible to ignore. Mattel and Warner Bros. deployed an all-out multimedia blitz: over 165 brand partnerships (from a Barbie-branded Xbox console to a real-life Malibu DreamHouse on Airbnb), social media content, influencer collaborations, outdoor ads, themed merchandise, and interactive online experiences. This coordinated approach made Barbie unavoidable in summer 2023, dominating cultural conversations and demonstrating how creative, multi-channel marketing can massively amplify brand awareness.

Whatever strategies you use, maintain consistent branding across all channels. Consistency in your visuals and messaging reinforces recognition. Studies show uniformly presented brands are 3.5x more visible to customers, and consistency can increase revenue by 33% by building trust and familiarity. Use the same logos, colors, and tone of voice everywhere so that each impression compounds to strengthen your brand identity in people’s minds.

How to Measure Brand Awareness

Raising brand awareness is important, but how do you know if your efforts are working? Unlike direct sales, awareness can be tricky to quantify. Luckily, marketers have developed several metrics and methods to gauge brand awareness. Here are some actionable tips for measuring how well your brand is known:

Conduct Brand Awareness Surveys

Surveys are one of the most direct and reliable ways to measure brand awareness. You can poll a sample of your target audience with questions like “Which brands come to mind for [your product category]?” (unaided recall) or ask if they’ve heard of your specific brand (aided awareness). Survey results reveal the percentage of people who recognize or recall your brand and how you compare to competitors. For meaningful insights, consider running surveys regularly or after major campaigns to see if awareness is improving. Some businesses use in-house polls (via email or social media), while others partner with market research firms to get robust data.

Monitor Website Traffic (Especially Direct Traffic)

Your website analytics can provide clues about brand awareness. Increasing site traffic over time indicates that more people are discovering you. Direct traffic is particularly telling–these are visitors who typed your URL directly or came via a bookmark (as opposed to clicking an ad or search result). When direct traffic rises, it suggests more people know your brand by name and actively seek it out. You can track this using tools like Google Analytics. Similarly, looking at referral traffic from other sites, getting more visitors from blog mentions or media coverage indicates growing brand visibility.

Track Branded Search Volume

Another useful metric is how often people search for your brand name or related terms on Google and other search engines. Tools like Google Trends or keyword planners can show the search volume for your brand over time. If you observe an upward trend in searches for “YourBrand” or your product names, that’s strong evidence that awareness is rising (people are hearing about you and actively looking you up). You can also monitor the volume of branded pay-per-click ad impressions by running search ads. An uptick in branded searches often correlates with offline campaigns – for example, a spike in searches during a TV ad campaign reflects the ad driving awareness.

Use Social Listening and Mentions

Social media is like a real-time barometer of brand awareness. Social listening tools (or even manual tracking) can measure how often your brand is mentioned across platforms. Look at metrics such as direct mentions, hashtag mentions of your brand, shares of your content, and comments or discussions involving your brand. Over time, increasing organic mentions means your brand is entering more conversations. You can also track your share of voice, i.e., the proportion of mentions your brand gets compared to competitors in your industry. If your share of voice is growing, so is your relative brand awareness. Additionally, monitor engagement metrics like followers or fans gained, as they reflect growth in an aware audience base.

Measure Earned Media and PR

Earned media refers to publicity you haven’t paid for – like news articles, press mentions, customer reviews, or word-of-mouth referrals. Monitoring earned media coverage is another way to gauge brand awareness. For instance, set up Google Alerts for your brand name to see how often it appears in media or blogs. If a journalist writes about your company or a flurry of online reviews pops up, those indicate higher public awareness. You might also consider brand lift studies or awareness tracking services that measure brand health in the broader market. The more frequently your brand name surfaces in the wild, the more awareness has taken hold.

Measure Incrementality

The most effective way to know if brand awareness advertising is creating real revenue results is by measuring incrementality through randomized controlled trials and PSA studies, comparing the world with your brand advertising to one without it. Agility has pioneered incrementality measurement for brand advertising efforts using best-in-class pixel and tag management and RCT/PSA studies. 

By combining these measurement approaches, you can get a well-rounded picture of your brand awareness level and track its improvement over time.

Conclusion: Elevate Your Brand Awareness with the Right Strategies

Brand awareness is about ensuring your target audience knows and remembers your business. By understanding its importance and leveraging various tactics (from digital ads and social media to influencer partnerships and content marketing), you can steadily grow your brand’s presence in the market. Strong brand awareness leads to higher customer trust, loyalty, and a competitive edge that drives long-term success.

Ready to boost your brand awareness efforts to the next level? Contact Agility today to discover how our precision brand advertising solution can help you create and find new buyers and grow your business with certainty. Turn your brand into the one everyone is talking about with Agility.

Frequently Asked Questions 

How long does it take to build strong brand awareness?

Building strong brand awareness is a long-term process. Depending on your industry, target market, and marketing investment, it can take months or even years to become widely recognized. Consistency in branding and messaging and a sustained marketing effort are key to accelerating this process.

Does brand awareness guarantee increased sales?

Nothing guarantees increased sales, but brand awareness is a crucial first step in the customer journey. Higher brand awareness increases the likelihood that consumers will consider your products or services when purchasing. However, converting awareness into sales depends on product quality, pricing, and customer experience.

How much should I invest in brand awareness campaigns?

There’s no one-size-fits-all answer, but many experts suggest that 60% of marketing budgets should be centered around brand advertising while 40% should be focused on performance efforts. That ratio may vary depending on your ICP, vertical, solution, market, etc.

How does brand awareness relate to brand equity?

Brand awareness is a foundational component of brand equity—the overall value and strength of your brand in the marketplace. High brand awareness contributes to positive brand associations, perceived quality, and customer loyalty, all of which increase your brand’s equity over time.