Marketing teams often view brand advertising and performance marketing as opposites–one building long-term reputation, the other driving immediate sales. In reality, these two strategies are most powerful when working hand in hand. Learn how brand and performance marketing complement each other, the measurable benefits of integrating them, and the best practices to maximize ROI. Plus, see how precision brand advertising with Agility is changing how brand marketing can be done and how results can be measured. 

Brand Advertising vs. Performance Marketing: Different Goals, Common Purpose

Brand advertising focuses on building long-term brand equity, raising awareness, driving recall, and building trust and loyalty. It’s all about creating an emotional connection and positive associations over time. Success might be measured in metrics like brand awareness, brand lift, recall, and customer loyalty–metrics that don’t always translate to an immediate sale but drive value over the long haul. Unfortunately, these metrics often do not clearly demonstrate brand advertising’s ROI.

Performance advertising, by contrast, is all about measurable, short-term results. Often executed in digital channels (paid search ads, paid social media ads, email marketing, affiliate marketing, etc.), its goal is to trigger a specific action–a click, signup, or purchase–and track it. Performance campaigns are data-backed and optimized in real time using metrics such as cost-per-click (CPC), click-through rate (CTR), cost-per-acquisition (CPA), and return on ad spend (ROAS). Every dollar is scrutinized for maximized return. For example, if a Google Ads campaign spends $1,000 and generates $5,000 in sales, that 5:1 revenue-to-spend ratio (500% ROAS) signals a successful performance campaign. Performance marketing is cutthroat–whatever creates the most immediate returns continues, while anything long-term is cut.

Historically, organizations treated these approaches separately – brand marketing was “soft,” handled by creative teams or large agencies, and performance marketing was “hard” sales activation, often led by a growth or acquisition team. While experts recommend a nearly even split between performance and brand advertising, many companies in recent years have cut brand budget in favor of short-term results from performance channels. Luckily, that siloed view is fading. Modern marketers recognize that brand and performance tactics serve the same overall purpose: driving sustainable, marketing-led growth. Brand advertising fills the top of the funnel with interested, brand- and category-aware customers; performance ads convert that interest into action. In the following sections, we’ll see why neglecting either side leaves growth on the table and why a balanced strategy is best.

The Long-Term Power of Brand Advertising

Investing in brand advertising builds an intangible asset–brand equity–that delivers tangible business results. Strong brand equity helps consumers recognize and trust your company, recall positive experiences, and take action when the time is right. Over time, this translates into higher customer lifetime value and insulation from competitors.

Data supports the vital importance of brand-building. According to a Nielsen study, ongoing marketing efforts (particularly upper-funnel, brand-focused campaigns) account for 10-35% of a brand’s total equity. If you cut those efforts back, a brand can lose 2% of future revenue for every quarter it goes dark. Even more consequential, it can take 3-5 years of consistent marketing to recover the equity lost during an extended period without regular marketing. This illustrates a key point: brand advertising is not a switch you turn on for instant results; it’s a long-term investment.

Brand marketing also bolsters consumer trust, directly influencing purchase decisions. According to Edelman’s global survey, 81% of consumers say they need to trust a brand to buy from it–making brand trust a deal breaker or deciding factor. Consistent, high-quality brand advertising helps establish that trust. People are more inclined to try a product from a familiar brand than an unknown one. Edelman’s data also suggests that consumers who trust a brand are significantly more likely to pay attention to its advertising and recommend it to others.

Beyond trust, strong brands foster loyalty and drive repeat business. A Kantar analysis found that from 2019 to 2021, companies with growing brand equity saw their brand value increase by 72% compared to just 20% for brands with declining equity. That loyalty advantage is crucial in competitive markets. Over time, brand advertising creates a buffer that improves the effectiveness of all your other marketing tactics. 

These metrics and outcomes are difficult to measure and, for many marketers, carry a high level of uncertainty. Precision brand advertising is the natural evolution of brand advertising, bringing certainty and measurable outcomes to brand advertising that hasn’t been previously available. But more on that later…

For now, let’s examine the equally important role of performance marketing.

The Immediate Impact of Performance Marketing

If brand advertising is a marathon, performance marketing is a series of sprints. Performance campaigns drive immediate, measurable outcomes that keep businesses thriving in the short term. Their beauty lies in accountability; you spend X dollars today and see Y in return (clicks, leads, conversions, revenue) almost in real time. This tight feedback loop allows marketers to optimize and justify spend precisely.

Companies have heavily embraced performance marketing in recent years, primarily via digital channels. A Think with Google report showed that many brands significantly ramped up their performance ad budgets due to the clarity of real-time results. Meanwhile, HubSpot notes that more than 75% of marketers now report on how their campaigns directly influence revenue–a shift driven by the accessibility and instantaneous feedback of performance metrics.

Performance marketing is optimization-driven. Tactics like A/B testing, algorithmic bidding, and hyper-specific audience targeting allow continuous improvement of ads. If something isn’t getting clicks, you change it; if a keyword isn’t converting, you pause it. Over time, this leads to very cost-effective customer acquisition. 

Key metrics define success in performance marketing: CPC, CTR, CPA, and ROAS. These metrics give a snapshot of what is happening right now. Too many marketers become obsessed with marketing efficiency metrics, so they forgo brand marketing efforts that take time to drive recall and create demand. Performance marketing typically dominates the marketing dashboard because it’s seen as the “sure bet” to drive immediate revenue. However, performance marketing alone can’t create demand out of thin air. Many marketers find this the hard way: demand dries up, costs rise, and efficiency metrics fall. Performance advertising works best when people are already aware of your brand (often thanks to brand advertising). That’s where the synergy comes into play.

Better Together: How Brand and Performance Amplify Each Other

The relationship between brand and performance marketing is complementary. Research consistently shows that blending brand-building with short-term activation is the ideal strategy for sustainable growth.

One of the clearest pieces of evidence comes from Les Binet and Peter Field’s analysis of hundreds of advertising campaigns. They concluded that the ideal split for long-term growth is 60% spend on brand marketing and 40% on direct response. Too much focus on short-term sales activation can juice immediate numbers but fizzles out. On the other hand, too much brand can lift awareness and drive new demand but could lack the engine to convert it all.

A cautionary example is Adidas, which realized it had over-invested in digital performance marketing in recent years. At one point, the company spent about 77% of its marketing budget on performance ads. The result? Immediate e-commerce sales were strong, but brand awareness and desirability began to slip. A senior director at Adidas admitted they had neglected the brand's long-term health, focusing too heavily on the quick wins of digital ads. It was only after balancing their spend again that the brand metrics began to recover.

On the other hand, integrating brand efforts can turbo-charge direct response results. Consider Airbnb: In 2021, the company launched a major brand campaign called “Made Possible by Hosts,” its first major brand push in five years. Following the campaign, Airbnb saw a 20% increase in website traffic, which is prime territory for performance ads to convert. That was reflected in a 24% growth in revenue year-over-year. This shows how brand messaging can create an immediate halo effect for acquisition channels.

Across industries, organizations that unify brand advertising with performance efforts see better results than those running either in isolation. A Kantar study noted that baseline sales steadily weaken when a company's marketing mix skews too heavily toward performance. Put simply: Performance marketing gets more expensive and less effective when brand investment stops.

Two More Real-World Case Studies and Examples

• NordVPN – Adding YouTube ads (typically brand-focused) to its search-focused approach, NordVPN achieved 13,000 conversions in 30 days at a significantly lower CPA than search alone. This approach was documented in a Google Ads Case Study.

• Local School Campaign – A bilingual school that struggled to drive admissions with search ads alone tripled conversions after running a local brand-awareness campaign. When people heard of the school beforehand, they were much more likely to click and convert on performance ads.

Best Practices for Combining Brand and Performance

1. Plan a Unified Funnel Strategy

Map out a full-funnel approach. Use brand tactics and channels at the top to generate interest, then retarget engaged users with performance ads (search, social). Ensure consistent creative messaging across these stages. Identify gaps in your funnel where category- and brand-aware prospects could fall off.

2. Maintain Consistent Messaging and High-Quality Creative

Your brand identity (logo, tone, color scheme) should also be present in performance ads, even if they are more sales-driven. Brand consistency reinforces recall and trust. Build high-quality ads that emotionally resonate with your target personas and drive brand recall. Test new ads frequently to land on the best messaging and creative.

3. Align Teams and Objectives

Encourage brand marketers and performance marketers to collaborate frequently on campaigns. One idea is to host joint planning sessions where both teams define shared KPIs so they don’t work at cross purposes. Discuss how the demand created with brand advertising can be captured with performance marketing channels. Appropriately set timeframes and expectations for brand-related demand creation.

4. Balance Budget Allocation

Find the right brand vs. performance mix. While exact ratios vary, experts recommend dedicating 60% of resources to brand building and 40% to performance. 

5. Leverage “Brand-formance” Content

Look for crossover ways to serve both brand-building and direct response goals. These “hybrid” approaches can generate awareness for new customers and drive conversions simultaneously.

6. Use Sequential Messaging and Retargeting

Design your campaigns so that consumers first see a brand ad, then a follow-up performance ad. Agility’s best-in-class pixel management and tracking capabilities will help you visualize and target across the customer journey.

7. Monitor a Mix of Metrics

Track immediate KPIs like CPA and ROAS and observe brand lift, search volume, direct traffic, and social sentiment. Most importantly, incrementality must be measured to understand the change between a world with and without brand advertising. Agility’s team of marketing scientists can help develop a comprehensive measurement plan for your business.

Embrace the Hybrid Approach for Long-Term Growth

In today’s marketing landscape, the debate of “brand vs. performance” should be replaced by “brand and performance.” The evidence overwhelmingly shows that integrating both strategies leads to superior outcomes. Brand advertising creates awareness, trust, and preference, while performance marketing converts that interest into tangible results. Short-term sales and long-term brand equity are mutually reinforcing, not mutually exclusive.

As you plan future campaigns, ensure you’re allocating budgets, aligning teams, and measuring success in ways that capture the synergy of both approaches. Instead of fighting over limited resources, let performance marketing thrive on the awareness and affinity generated by brand advertising, and let your brand team justify its budget through better conversion metrics downstream. By embracing this hybrid strategy, you can improve marketing efficiency, grow your brand’s reputation, and drive consistent revenue. It’s not about choosing one path but merging them and witnessing awareness and revenue climb in unison.

Use Precision Brand Advertising for Growth Certainty

Marketers have been weary of brand advertising for a while because of the difficulty in measurement, wasted ad spend from broad targeting, and uninspiring creative. Agility has developed precision brand advertising to provide confident, consistent, long-term growth to enterprise advertisers. Precision brand advertising uses multiple layers of first- and third-party data to build comprehensive buyer personas and target them across open internet channels, including display, native, CTV, audio, video, and more. The highest-quality, resonant ads are developed using continuous creative development and testing to increase brand recall and drive brand equity. 

Precision brand advertising solves the problems associated with traditional brand advertising. Advertisers can drive long-term growth and efficiently fill the top of their funnel with new prospects. Only Agility has the technology to make every part of precision brand advertising possible. Learn how to get started and get a complimentary website diagnostic today.

FAQ

How do brand advertising and performance advertising impact ROI differently?

Performance advertising (PPC, email marketing, paid social, paid media) delivers immediate results by optimizing ad spend for immediate conversions, measured through ROAS, CPA, and other performance metrics. On the other hand, brand advertising builds brand identity, loyalty, and long-term growth by increasing brand value and consumer trust. While performance marketing yields cost-effective, trackable ROI, brand advertising drives higher lifetime value, making future marketing campaigns more efficient. As a long-term strategy that might not result in many direct conversions, brand advertising needs to be measured using incrementality to understand the ROI impact best. The biggest brands in the world, like Nike and Apple, blend both–using storytelling for brand equity and paid search and social media platforms for direct response ads.

How can I balance brand awareness and performance advertising in my marketing strategy?

To balance both:

• Allocate ad spend wisely
  A mix of brand-building initiatives and performance marketing strategies (e.g., retargeting, LinkedIn PPC, SEO, and email marketing) ensures long-term success and short-term results.

• Maintain consistent brand messaging
  Ensure that brand identity aligns across all marketing channels, including landing pages, social media, and marketing agency efforts.

• Use a full-funnel approach
  Start with content marketing, podcasts, and influencer partnerships to boost awareness, then leverage direct-response tactics to drive conversions.

• Monitor and optimize
  Track KPIs for brand recognition and performance marketing effectiveness, adjusting marketing budget allocation based on measurable insights.

By integrating brand strategy with data-driven performance marketing, enterprise marketers can drive business growth while maintaining a strong brand and customer loyalty.