Brandformance: how to combine reach and sales

For a long time marketing was split into two camps: brand advertising (awareness, image) and performance (leads, sales here and now). Brandformance combines them — and often works better than each separately. Let's break it down.

The two approaches and their weaknesses

• Brand advertising builds awareness and trust, but it's hard to measure "in sales" — it seems like "spending."
• Performance gives measurable leads, but without awareness it burns out: selling to a cold audience gets ever pricier.

Separately, each hits a ceiling: brand without sales and performance without brand.

What brandformance is

An approach where reach and selling tasks are solved together: content simultaneously builds awareness AND leads to action. The top of the funnel (seeding, reach, image) makes the audience "warm," and performance captures the already-prepared demand more cheaply.

Why it's more effective

• Awareness lowers the cost of a lead for performance: a familiar brand is trusted.
• Performance monetizes the reach that otherwise "just was."
• Both brand metrics (awareness, searches) and money (CPA, ROMI) grow.

How to apply it

1. The top of the funnel — seeding, creators, content for reach and trust.
2. The bottom — paid ads, retargeting, offers for conversion.
3. Count both groups of metrics: the growth of branded searches AND the cost of a lead.

Takeaway

Brandformance removes the false choice "brand or sales": reach makes performance cheaper, performance monetizes reach. We build campaigns where both awareness and leads work.