Why Brand Building and Performance Marketing Need Each Other
“True growth doesn’t come from choosing between brand and performance; it’s about uniting them to create both immediate impact and lasting value. When these strategies work together, brands don’t just compete - they lead.”
Imagine pouring resources into marketing campaigns that spike sales for a month, only to watch your brand slip back into obscurity by next quarter. Or spending big on brand-building efforts that drive awareness but leave sales targets barely touched. Too many brands are stuck in this loop, choosing either short-term performance or long-term brand awareness and losing out on the multiplier effect that a combined approach brings.
The truth is, you don’t have to pick a side. At our consultancy, we’ve seen how blending performance marketing with brand-building can create powerful, sustainable growth for businesses that are ready to think beyond the short term. Let’s explore why the real winners don’t just balance these strategies—they make them work together to drive lasting impact.
Performance Marketing vs Brand Building
Historically, marketing teams have split these approaches, viewing performance marketing and brand building as distinct—and often conflicting—strategies.
Performance Marketing: This approach is rooted in measurable metrics. Tactics like paid ads, email campaigns, and social media promotions focus on driving sales, clicks, and conversions. Performance marketing is enticing for its direct ROI: businesses can track which campaigns work, adjust strategies swiftly, and report clear-cut results.
Brand Building: This focuses on long-term positioning and consumer loyalty. Brand marketing encompasses memorable campaigns, influencer partnerships, and community engagement to create a resonant identity. It cultivates trust and recognition, although it often lacks immediate, quantifiable outcomes, leading some to under-prioritise it.
As brands strive to meet short-term goals, they often lean heavily into performance marketing at the expense of brand-building efforts. However, without a strong brand foundation, even the most sophisticated performance marketing tactics can struggle to achieve lasting results.
Why Brand Building and Performance Marketing Need Each Other
Merging brand building and performance marketing creates a balanced strategy, tapping into each one’s unique strengths. While performance marketing delivers immediate action, brand building ensures those actions are reinforced by trust and recognition, strengthening long-term growth.
Sustainable Growth
Both brand building and performance marketing share an underlying objective: to grow a sustainable, profitable business. Performance marketing aims to convert audiences quickly, but brand building ensures that those audiences recognise and trust your brand before they even click.
Consider a consumer’s journey to a purchase. When consumers already know and trust a brand, they’re more likely to engage with its marketing content. For instance, when Nike, with its massive brand equity, runs a targeted ad, the audience is more inclined to act, trusting the familiar brand and its products. Here’s where performance marketing benefits from a strong brand.
Awareness Boosts Conversions
Let’s break down the relationship between brand awareness and performance metrics:
Click-Through Rates (CTR): High CTRs are typical performance marketing metrics, showing engagement with ads. However, CTRs alone don’t indicate conversion potential.
Conversion Rates (CVR): This is where the synergy between brand and performance marketing becomes apparent. Studies consistently show that conversion rates increase with brand awareness. When consumers are already aware of and trust a brand, they are significantly more likely to convert upon exposure to ads.
A 2022 study by Nielsen revealed that brands with high consumer awareness can achieve nearly three times the conversion rates of those with low awareness. Another study found that a 10% increase in brand familiarity can yield a 20% boost in conversion rates for targeted ad campaigns.
In simpler terms: the more your audience knows and trusts your brand, the more likely they are to engage with and convert through your performance marketing efforts.
Integrating Brand and Performance Marketing
Some of today’s top brands have leveraged this strategy to build both visibility and consumer loyalty.
Apple: Apple seamlessly integrates brand building with performance marketing. Its ads consistently reinforce brand values of innovation, simplicity, and creativity, with Apple’s performance marketing benefiting from high brand recognition. As a result, targeted campaigns for products like the iPhone convert exceptionally well due to pre-existing trust in the Apple brand.
Nike: With its “Just Do It” campaigns, Nike built a brand around inspiration and empowerment. By combining these branding messages with performance campaigns during seasonal sales or new product launches, Nike consistently drives both engagement and conversions.
How Brand Awareness Enhances Performance Marketing Efficiency
Performance marketing tactics like retargeting ads, promotions, and email campaigns are enhanced when aimed at an audience already aware of the brand. Research shows that brands with established awareness gain measurable performance marketing efficiencies:
Higher Conversion Rates: With each increase in brand awareness, conversion rates improve significantly. Brands with over 40% prompted awareness, for example, show conversion efficiencies 43% higher than brands with less awareness.
Improved ROI: Performance marketing campaigns yield better returns when the brand is familiar. A well-recognised brand can expect lower customer acquisition costs, as it takes fewer ad impressions to generate conversions.
However, the advantages of brand awareness don’t plateau. Although growth rates may slow after surpassing around 37% brand awareness, they continue yielding cumulative benefits that support not only performance marketing but also long-term brand strength.
Balancing Short-Term and Long-Term Goals
For many brands, resource allocation is a balancing act. To maintain healthy brand growth while achieving immediate sales goals, consider these strategies:
Reallocate Budget Based on Brand Awareness Growth: When your brand awareness is strong, shift more budget into performance marketing to capitalise on increased conversion potential. If awareness is low, allocate more resources towards brand-building efforts to lay the groundwork for future conversions.
Adapt for Market Conditions: The right balance depends on market position and competitor activity. For instance, during high-intensity periods, such as the holiday season, it may make sense to emphasise performance marketing. But outside peak periods, sustained brand-building efforts can create lasting consumer impressions.
Experiment and Optimise: Balance is not static. Experiment with different ratios of brand-building and performance marketing, using data analytics to inform where adjustments should be made.
Building a Unified Strategy for Brand and Performance Marketing
Creating harmony between brand and performance marketing requires a unified strategy and consistent messaging across all channels. Here’s how to make it work:
Develop a Holistic Strategy: Align brand and performance goals within a unified marketing strategy. When launching a campaign, make sure brand-building and performance objectives support one another.
Use Consistent Messaging: Ensure that all marketing materials, from ads to emails to social media posts, reinforce brand values and identity. Consistency boosts recognition and builds trust.
Measure Holistically: Go beyond short-term performance metrics by tracking indicators like brand awareness, customer loyalty, and lifetime value. While click-through and conversion rates are critical, a broader set of metrics offers a fuller picture of campaign success.
Regularly Assess and Adapt: Just as in any strategic partnership, flexibility is key. Regularly reassess brand and performance alignment to make adjustments based on brand awareness growth, changing market conditions, or consumer behavior trends.
A Winning Partnership for Sustainable Growth
In the competitive arena of sports marketing, successful teams are those that balance short-term gains with long-term resilience. Brand and performance marketing are the same: together, they enable both instant impact and enduring loyalty, combining short-term conversions with lasting brand value.
Investing in both allows brands to leverage the best of both worlds, creating not only immediate results but also a brand that consumers trust and seek out over time. Just as in sport, marketing success hinges on teamwork. So, rather than viewing brand building and performance marketing as competing forces, view them as partners on the same team—both essential to win the game of sustainable growth.
Looking to experience Porter Wills for yourself? Let’s Talk
