For mid-market and enterprise-level ecommerce brands, achieving sustainable growth extends far beyond driving immediate sales. While performance marketing plays a crucial role, building strong brand awareness forms the foundation of long-term success. At QRY, we've consistently observed how a strategic approach to brand building through paid advertising transforms businesses, driving customer loyalty, expanding market share, and ultimately boosting profitability.
The Evolving Landscape of Ecommerce Advertising
As ecommerce businesses scale beyond their initial growth phase, they often hit a plateau. The strategies that once propelled them forward – typically heavily skewed towards bottom-of-funnel, direct response advertising – begin to yield diminishing returns. This is where the importance of brand awareness comes into sharp focus.
In the early stages, it's possible to capture low-hanging fruit through targeted performance marketing. You're essentially tapping into existing demand, reaching customers already searching for products like yours. But as you exhaust this initial audience, continued growth becomes increasingly challenging and expensive.
Brand awareness advertising steps in to address this challenge. By investing in top-of-funnel campaigns, you're no longer just capturing existing demand – you're creating new demand. You're reaching potential customers who might not be actively searching for your products but could benefit from them. This expansion of your potential customer base is crucial for sustained growth.
The Synergy Between Brand Awareness and Performance Marketing
Brand awareness and performance marketing aren't opposing forces, but complementary strategies that create powerful synergy when balanced correctly. Brand awareness campaigns lay the groundwork that amplifies your performance marketing effectiveness.
Here's how this synergy works:
1. Trust and Credibility:
For ecommerce brands, establishing trust is crucial. Brand awareness campaigns help cement your brand in consumers' minds. When a customer encounters a direct response ad from a brand they recognize, they're more likely to engage with it due to the established trust.
2. Reduced Acquisition Costs:
As brand recognition grows, you'll often see a decrease in customer acquisition costs. Potential customers familiar with your brand are more likely to click on your ads and convert, improving overall ad spend efficiency.
3. Higher Quality Traffic:
Brand awareness efforts frequently lead to increased direct and organic site traffic. These visitors typically have higher intent and are more likely to convert, having specifically sought out your brand.
4. Expanded Remarketing Pools:
By reaching a wider audience through brand awareness campaigns, you build larger pools for remarketing. This enables more sophisticated and effective retargeting campaigns, allowing you to re-engage potential customers who've shown interest in your brand.
The Full-Funnel Advertising Approach
At QRY, we specialize in creating comprehensive paid media strategies that address every stage of the customer journey:
Top of Funnel: Brand Awareness
Here, we focus on introducing your brand to a wide audience. This involves broad-reach social media campaigns. The goal isn't immediate conversion, but rather creating initial touchpoints and building brand recognition.
Middle of Funnel: Consideration
At this stage, we engage potential customers who have shown interest in your brand. This often involves retargeting display ads that showcase specific product features or highlight your brand's unique value proposition. The aim is to nurture interest and educate consumers about your offerings.
Bottom of Funnel: Conversion
Here, we employ more direct response tactics, targeting those who have shown high purchase intent. This includes dynamic product ads, search ads targeting specific product-related keywords, and retargeting ads with special offers. These tactics capitalize on the awareness and interest built in earlier stages.
The key is that each stage of the funnel supports the others. The brand awareness built at the top makes the middle and bottom-funnel ads more effective, while the performance of the bottom-funnel campaigns provides valuable data to refine our top-of-funnel strategy.
Balancing Brand and Performance
Finding the right balance between brand awareness and performance marketing is key to ecommerce success. This balance isn't static – it shifts based on factors like your growth stage, competitive landscape, and seasonal trends.
For instance, we might increase brand awareness spending in the months leading up to peak shopping seasons, knowing that this investment will pay off when customers are ready to make purchases. Our team continuously monitors campaign performance, making data-driven adjustments to ensure optimal results across both brand and performance initiatives.
Measuring Brand Awareness Impact
While brand awareness can be more challenging to measure than direct response campaigns, tracking its impact is crucial. At QRY, we use a multi-faceted approach to measurement:
Brand Lift Studies:
These surveys measure changes in brand recall, recognition, and perception over time. They provide valuable insights into how your brand awareness campaigns are shaping consumer opinions.
View-Through Conversions:
By tracking purchases from users who viewed your ads but didn't immediately click, we can get a more complete picture of how your brand awareness campaigns are influencing buying decisions.
Direct Traffic:
Increases in direct traffic to your website can be strong indicators of growing brand awareness. As more people become familiar with your brand, they're more likely to search for you directly.
Share of Voice:
This metric tracks your brand's visibility compared to competitors in your industry. An increasing share of voice often correlates with growing market share.
Cross-Channel Attribution:
Advanced attribution models help us understand how brand awareness efforts contribute to conversions across various channels and touchpoints in the customer journey.
Actionable Strategies for Building Brand Awareness
1. Develop a Consistent Brand Voice:
Ensure all your ad copy, visuals, and messaging align with your brand identity across all platforms. This consistency helps reinforce brand recognition and recall.
2. Leverage Video Content:
Create engaging video ads that tell your brand story and showcase your products in action. Video content can be particularly effective for building emotional connections with your audience.
3. Utilize Remarketing:
Build custom audiences based on website visitors and target them with brand-focused ads to stay top-of-mind. This helps nudge interested consumers further down the funnel.
4. Explore New Platforms:
Don't limit yourself to Facebook and Google. Consider platforms like Pinterest or TikTok where your target audience spends time. Each platform offers unique opportunities for brand building.
5. Test and Learn:
Continuously experiment with different ad formats, messages, and targeting strategies to find what resonates best with your audience. Use A/B testing to refine your approach over time.
6. Integrate User-Generated Content:
Incorporate customer reviews and photos into your ads to build trust and authenticity. This social proof can be particularly effective in brand awareness campaigns.
7. Focus on Value Proposition:
Clearly communicate what sets your brand apart in your awareness campaigns. This helps create a distinct brand identity in consumers' minds.
8. Create a Content Calendar:
Plan your brand awareness campaigns around key dates, product launches, and industry events. This ensures your brand remains relevant and timely.
9. Leverage Influencer Partnerships:
Collaborate with influencers who align with your brand values to reach new audiences authentically. Influencers can help introduce your brand to their engaged followers.
10. Monitor Competitor Activity:
Keep an eye on your competitors' brand-building efforts to identify opportunities and stay ahead. This competitive intelligence can inform your own brand awareness strategies.
The Long-Term Value of Brand Awareness
While performance marketing can drive quick wins, brand awareness is about playing the long game. It's about creating a lasting impression in the minds of consumers that positions your brand as the go-to solution when they're ready to make a purchase.
This long-term approach pays dividends in several ways:
Customer Loyalty:
Customers who have a strong awareness of your brand and what it stands for are more likely to become repeat purchasers and brand advocates.
Premium Pricing:
Strong brands often command premium prices. As your brand awareness grows, you may find that customers are willing to pay more for your products compared to lesser-known competitors.
Resilience:
In times of market turbulence or increased competition, strong brands are more resilient. They have a loyal customer base to fall back on and are less susceptible to market fluctuations.
New Product Launches:
When you have strong brand awareness, launching new products becomes easier. You already have an audience that trusts your brand and is interested in what you have to offer.
Conclusion:
Brand awareness isn't a luxury – it's a necessity for sustainable growth. By investing in your brand through strategic paid media, you're creating a foundation for customer loyalty, market expansion, and long-term profitability.
At QRY, we specialize in helping ecommerce brands develop and execute comprehensive advertising strategies that balance brand building with performance marketing. Our approach ensures that every ad dollar contributes to both immediate sales and long-term growth.
By leveraging the synergies between brand awareness and performance marketing, we help ecommerce brands create a robust marketing strategy that drives both immediate sales and long-term growth. Our approach ensures that brand awareness efforts support and enhance performance marketing, creating a comprehensive strategy that maximizes return on ad spend while building lasting brand value.
Ready to elevate your brand and drive sustainable ecommerce growth? Contact QRY today to discuss how we can help you build a powerful brand while maximizing performance across channels.
