Brandformance: The Fusion of Branding and Performance Marketing

As digital marketers, we’re always on the quest for strategies that deliver tangible ROI. Recently, this has led to a revolutionary approach: brandformance. Brandformance - a blend of the terms 'branding' and 'performance' - embodies campaigns that not only carve out a unique brand identity but also exceed target ROIs. It’s a strategic hybrid, leveraging the strengths of both performance and brand marketing to maximize budget efficiency and engage audiences in brand-new ways. In fact, brandformance strategies have been shown to increase average watch time of branded digital content by 88% on average. Keep reading to get to know this strategy and how you can implement it in your own digital marketing strategy.

The Essence of Brandformance

Brandformance leverages data from both digital and traditional media to deliver precise, impactful campaigns. It hinges on the production of emotionally resonant creative content that fosters brand recognition and loyalty, while simultaneously employing performance marketing techniques designed to convert this recognition into sales. The essence of brandformance is a marketing harmony that aligns the emotive power of brand storytelling with the tactical rigor of growth marketing metrics.

In a brandformance strategy, performance benchmarks are key indicators of success (we’ll get into this further on in the article) and can include:

• Brand lift
• Customer acquisition cost
• Return on ad spend
• Conversion rates
• Customer lifetime value

These metrics gauge everything from the initial consumer awareness spike to the enduring brand value over time.

For example, a beverage brand can weave a compelling origin story into its marketing, then track the campaign's efficacy through increased social media engagement and sales, indicating a successful fusion of branding with performance. At its core, brandformance creates a cohesive marketing effort that resonates with consumers on a deeper level while driving measurable business outcomes.

Crucial Components of Brandformance

The effectiveness of a brandformance campaign is predicated on several key components that work in unison to strike the delicate balance between brand building and performance marketing.

Data-Driven Insights

At the foundation of any brandformance strategy lies robust data analytics. It's essential to harness insights from consumer behaviors, market trends, and engagement patterns to inform the strategic direction. For instance, using data to understand peak engagement times on social media can help in scheduling content for maximum impact.

Audience Segmentation and Targeting

Knowing your audience is critical. Segmenting the market based on demographics, psychographics, and user behavior allows marketers to tailor messages that resonate deeply with different groups. For example, a luxury car brand might target one campaign towards high-income professionals and another towards tech-savvy millennials, each with messaging that appeals to their specific aspirations and values.

Unified Messaging Across Channels

Consistency is key in brandformance. A unified message across multiple channels ensures that whether a customer sees a display ad, a social media post, or an email, they receive a cohesive brand experience. This does not mean every piece of content is identical, but rather that each contributes to a singular brand narrative.

Consistent Brand Identity and Experience

A well-defined brand identity - including logos, color schemes, and tone of voice - should be clearly expressed in every campaign. This consistency builds recognition and trust, which are essential for long-term brand loyalty.

Real-Time Campaign Optimization

The digital marketing landscape is dynamic, making real-time campaign optimization a necessity. This means constantly analyzing performance data and being ready to make adjustments on the fly, whether it's tweaking a call-to-action or refining ad spend.

Creative and Emotional Connection

While data and metrics are vital, they must work together with creatives that establish an emotional connection with the audience. It's the heart-tugging stories, the aspirational imagery, and the relatable characters that make a brand memorable.

Take Bentley's 'Inspirator' emotion recognition app as an example. Bentley took personalized marketing to a new level by using an app that reads potential buyers' facial expressions to suggest a custom car model. This use of technology to tap into emotional responses personalized the customer experience in a novel way and ensured customers felt a deeper conenction to the brand.

Performance Marketing Techniques

These refer to the tools and methodologies that drive action - pay-per-click advertising, search engine marketing, conversion rate optimization, and more. They are the mechanisms that turn brand awareness into leads and sales.

Holistic Strategy and Execution

The overarching brandformance strategy must integrate all these components in a way that each one amplifies the others. Then, executing it requires meticulous planning, coordination, and a deep understanding of how brand and performance metrics interact.

Brandformance on TikTok: A Case Study

Flip, a leading payment service provider in Indonesia, provides a compelling example of brandformance in action. They utilized TikTok to assess the effectiveness of brand ads in driving users through the conversion funnel, particularly aiming to increase checkout and registration rates. By conducting scientific testing and comparing different user groups through their TikTok marketing strategy, Flip demonstrated that TikTok brand ads significantly enhance full-funnel performance.

Let’s dive deeper into their success story to extract insights for using TikTok in your own brandformance campaigns:

Strategic Implementation on TikTok

Flip's approach on TikTok was multi-layered, involving scientific A/B testing to measure the effectiveness of brand ads against control groups. This methodical testing was designed to yield clear insights into user behavior and ad performance. By using TikTok's diverse content formats - from in-feed ads to hashtag challenges - Flip was able to create immersive and interactive experiences that resonated with users.

Creative Content and Messaging

Key to Flip's success was crafting content that was native to the TikTok environment - high-energy, authentic, and often user-generated. The messaging was tailored to highlight Flip's value proposition in a relatable and engaging manner, encouraging users to visualize the ease and benefits of using their payment services. By aligning with TikTok's creative and dynamic atmosphere, Flip's ads felt less like interruptions and more like a natural part of the user's content journey.

Data-Driven Decision Making

Flip didn't just rely on TikTok's inherent virality; they made data the cornerstone of their campaign. Through TikTok's analytics, Flip tracked a variety of metrics such as view rate, engagement rate, and click-through rate, which informed real-time optimizations. This data-driven approach ensured that they could adapt their tactics to maximize both brand exposure and user action.

Results and Actionable Insights

The results were impressive:

• The 9.9% increase in conversion rate indicated that not only were more users seeing Flip's brand, but they were also taking the desired actions at a higher rate.
• A 10.9% improvement in cost per action demonstrated increased cost efficiency.
• A 2% expansion in reach highlighted the growing brand awareness.

Lessons for Brandformance on TikTok

The actionable insights from Flip's case study reveal that TikTok can be a potent tool for brandformance campaigns when used strategically. For businesses looking to replicate Flip's success, the key takeaways include:

• Embrace TikTok's creative potential: Develop content that aligns with TikTok's unique, informal, and visually driven format to foster engagement and brand affinity.
• Focus on full-funnel metrics: Go beyond top-of-funnel metrics like views and engagements to also track bottom-of-funnel actions, ensuring a comprehensive understanding of campaign impact.
• Leverage scientific A/B testing: Employ rigorous testing to discern the true effect of your brand ads, allowing for informed decisions based on solid evidence.
• Optimize based on performance data: Use real-time data to refine your campaign continuously, improving both brand-centric and performance-centric outcomes.

Flip's story is a testament to the power of TikTok as a brandformance platform, capable of not just captivating an audience but also compelling them to act. This case demonstrates that with a creative, data-informed approach, TikTok can significantly bolster both brand building and performance marketing objectives. You can either pursue this in-house on your own like Flip did, or partner with a TikTok marketing agency that specializes in achieving these kinds of results for different brands.

Measuring Brandformance Success

The successful evaluation of brandformance campaigns hinges on a comprehensive variety of KPIs that bridge the gap between brand and performance marketing. Each metric provides insights into different aspects of the campaign's impact. The following are some of the top KPIs to monitor for your own brandformance campaigns:

• Brand Recall: This measures the ability of consumers to remember a brand after being exposed to a campaign. Brand recall is a crucial KPI for assessing the stickiness of creative content and the effectiveness of brand messaging. High brand recall indicates that the brandformance campaign has made a lasting impression on consumers, which is essential for long-term brand equity.
• Engagement Rates: This looks at the level of interaction users have with the content. Engagement rates encompass likes, shares, comments, and other forms of interaction on digital platforms. They are indicative of how compelling and relevant the content is to the target audience and often correlate with brand favorability and loyalty.
• Conversion Rates: The percentage of users who take the desired action after interacting with a campaign. This KPI is a direct indicator of a campaign’s effectiveness in motivating users to move down the funnel from awareness to action. Examples of conversions could include signing up for a newsletter, making a purchase, or downloading an app.
• Return on Investment (ROI): This KPI measures the return generated from the campaign compared to its cost. It’s critical for understanding the financial viability of a brandformance campaign by determining whether the campaign delivered value in line with the investment made.
• Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC): The cost associated with acquiring a new customer. CAC is a performance marketing staple that evaluates the efficiency of a campaign in terms of spending. A lower CAC in conjunction with high-quality customer acquisition is the hallmark of an efficient brandformance strategy.
• Customer Lifetime Value (CLV): The total revenue a business expects from a single customer account. CLV is a long-term performance measure that reflects the long-term value generated from a customer acquired through the campaign. It helps in understanding how brandformance efforts contribute to sustained growth.
• Click-Through Rate (CTR): The ratio of users who click on a specific link to the number of total users who view a page, email, or ad. CTR is a direct measure of the effectiveness of call-to-actions (CTAs) and ad creatives in driving immediate response. It’s a key metric for gauging user interest and initial engagement.
• Cost Per Action (CPA): The average cost for each action taken by a consumer that can be attributed to a campaign. This metric allows marketers to understand the cost-effectiveness of a campaign in achieving specific actions, like a download or a registration. It’s vital for optimizing ad spend and campaign targeting.
• Net Promoter Score (NPS): A metric that assesses the likelihood of customers to recommend a brand to others. NPS is a strong indicator of brand loyalty and customer satisfaction, which are important for long-term brand performance. It reflects the success of a campaign in creating brand advocates.
• Share of Voice (SOV): The brand's market share compared to competitors in terms of visibility and presence. It measures the brand's presence in the market, a direct reflection of brand awareness efforts. It’s a vital brand metric that helps determine the effectiveness of media spend relative to competitors.

Implementing a Brandformance Mindset

Integrating a brandformance mindset within your marketing strategy calls for a delicate balance between crafting a compelling brand narrative and driving precise, quantifiable results. To begin, establish a strong brand story that echoes across all channels and resonates with your target audience. At the same time, segment your audience to tailor personalized messages that drive engagement.

Then, align your creative content with defined performance goals to ensure that each marketing initiative is purposeful, with clear calls to action that lead to measurable outcomes. Employ data analytics not only to track and optimize campaign performance in real-time but also to inform decision-making, ensuring that your brand narrative and performance objectives complement each other.

The practical implementation of brandformance is a continuous cycle of testing, learning, and evolving. It involves educating your team on the synergy between branding and performance, fostering a culture where creative and analytical minds collaborate. Experiment with A/B testing to refine your messaging and use a holistic measurement approach that considers both brand health and conversion metrics. Keeping your strategy agile and responsive to data insights allows for iterative improvements, ensuring that your brand not only captures attention but also consistently drives growth. Investing in the latest marketing technologies can streamline this integration, enabling a more effective and efficient approach to achieving both branding and performance goals.

Now it’s your turn: Create and implement brandformance campaigns that resonate with your audience and deliver on key business objectives with precision and efficiency.