Brand vs. Performance Marketing: Which Will Drive Your Next Big Retail Media Win?
No longer is retail media only for performance campaigns. Top marketers are leveraging this channel to achieve both immediate sales outcomes and long-term brand equity. Discover how in this post.
Defining Brand Marketing and Performance Marketing
First, let’s define exactly what we want to talk about when it comes to brand marketing vs. performance marketing.
Brand Marketing: Brand marketing focuses on growing overall awareness for a brand, from its mission and values to its personality. Advertisers pursuing this type of marketing want to strengthen the relationship between their brand and shoppers. This is a long-term strategy.
Performance Marketing: Performance marketing focuses on linking specific campaigns to specific measurable outcomes. These outcomes or actions may include clicks, conversions, sales, or leads. Performance marketing campaigns can help advertisers achieve their short-term revenue and growth goals.
Measuring Success: Brand Marketing vs. Performance Marketing Metrics
Here are a few key performance indicators (KPIs) for each approach:
Performance Marketing Metrics
Performance marketing metrics are the backbone of retail media, allowing brands to measure the direct impact of their ads on sales and optimize strategies to drive measurable results.
- Click-Through Rate (CTR): A CTR represents the percentage of people who “clicked” on an ad. In the fourth quarter of 2023, the average CTR for retail media was 0.39%.
- Conversion Rate: The conversion rate measures the percentage of consumers who took a desired action, whether that be a click, form completion, or purchase. There is an average 2% to 4% conversion rate in ecommerce.
- Return on Ad Spend (ROAS): ROAS tells a marketer how much money they’ve made for every dollar spent on advertising. It works by comparing the revenue generated from a specific campaign with the cost of the campaign.
- Share of Shelf (SOS): The SOS metric quantifies the amount of shelf space that a specific brand or product occupies. A higher SOS indicates better visibility and presence.
- Incremental Sales: This metric measures the number of extra sales generated by a promotional activity compared to the number of estimated sales expected without the promotion. It helps to evaluate the effectiveness of a marketing campaign.
Brand Marketing Metrics
Research shows that brand marketing metrics are becoming increasingly important in retail media as marketers explore off-site channels like connected TV (CTV) and online video.
These metrics include:
- Brand Awareness: Brand awareness is based on metrics such as branded search volume (how many times people search for your brand name specifically) and the percentage of times your brand appears in media coverage without you paying for it. Research shows that brands need around 6 to 7 impressions to produce brand awareness with consumers.
- Brand Sentiment: While brand awareness measures how familiar audiences are with a brand, brand sentiment measures how they feel about a brand. It is usually derived through reviews, social media analysis, and surveys such as the Net Promoter Score.
- Net Promoter Score (NPS): NPS is a customer loyalty metric that gauges customer satisfaction and enthusiasm. It is taken from a single survey question: how likely are you to recommend [company/product/service] to a friend or colleague?
- Brand Equity: Brand equity measures how loyal customers are to a brand, or how much they prefer it over others. It takes brand awareness, brand sentiment, and financial performance into account.
- New to Brand (NTB): NTB measures how many new customers a brand attracts during a given period of time. It looks at the percentage of total sales/orders that are net new. A high NTB% means that new customers are purchasing your products.
Retail Media Blends Both Objectives
Retail media refers to advertising space that brands can buy on retailer websites, mobile apps, and across other digital channels, including in-store digital displays.
It is well-suited to bring brand marketing and performance marketing together to simultaneously drive sales and build brand awareness and loyalty.
Here are a few retail media strategies for each objective:
Performance Marketing
- Sponsored product ads appear in search results or product listing pages, seamlessly integrating into the shopping experience. Appealing to shoppers with high purchase intent, these ads are designed to drive high engagement and conversion rates.
- Post-transaction ads appear after a customer completes a purchase. They are an excellent way to introduce complementary products or personalized promotions. They build brand loyalty and improve customer retention, all while driving measurable performance outcomes.
Brand Marketing
- Connected TV (CTV) advertising refers to ads shown on an internet-connected TV. As more consumers turn to streaming platforms, these ads are an important way for marketers to stay in front of audiences.
- In-Store Digital Displays allow retailers to showcase products, prices, and promotions. They can drive foot traffic – 76% of consumers have entered a store because a digital sign caught their eye – and also encourage purchases once shoppers are in-store.
Conclusion
Don’t view retail media as only a performance marketing strategy. Use it today to unlock powerful short—and long-term results for your brand.
We’re ready to help. At Fluent, our data-driven commerce media solutions help you reach exclusive audiences and accelerate your growth efforts. Contact us here to get started.
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