vector research partners ( aka V4RP )
A Founder’s Framework for Brand vs. Performance Marketing
If you’ve hit product-market fit, the next big question is: where do you put your marketing dollars? Brand? Performance? Both? Sarah Emmott and Holly Chen break down a practical framework for balancing brand and performance marketing for startups, including goal-setting, budgeting, and measuring success.
Brand vs. Performance: The Core Differences
Brand Marketing isn’t just logos or colors—it’s perception, emotion, and trust. Think Airbnb or Apple: it’s what people feel about your product, not just what it does. Brand marketing builds awareness, affinity, and credibility. Channels range from TV, audio, and print to digital channels like social video, podcasts, and connected TV. The goal? Make your brand memorable, recognizable, and trusted.
Performance Marketing is all about action: clicks, sign-ups, demo requests, and conversions. Digital ads, paid social, search, affiliate programs—anything that drives measurable, immediate results. Performance marketing is tactical, data-driven, and conversion-focused.
The mistake too many startups make is thinking one trumps the other. In reality, they’re strongest together: brand builds trust, performance drives action.
When to Lean Into Brand or Performance
Here’s the mental model we use:
1. Product:
- High-ticket or high-touch products need brand credibility early.
- Low-barrier apps or low-cost products can start with performance marketing and layer in brand later.
2. Market:
- Competitive markets require both: brand for differentiation, performance for discovery.
- Emerging categories need brand first to educate the market, then performance to scale adoption.
3. Company:
- Early-stage: performance ads are easier, cheaper, and flexible.
- Growth-stage: brand campaigns make sense when you have the budget and need to create long-term equity.
- Mature: optimize the mix, shifting spend to brand for top-of-mind awareness and to refresh engagement.
Spending Patterns to Watch
Brand Ads:
- Seasonal spikes: Align campaigns with product lifecycle and key market moments (e.g., launches, holidays, events).
- “Oops…OK” cycle: Stop-start campaigns are common for first-time brand advertisers. Expect to invest enough to move the needle and be patient—the payoff is long-term.
Performance Ads:
- Gradual climb: Start small, optimize, scale. Avoid blowing the budget before PMF.
- Exponential growth: Once PMF is clear or funding is in place, spend can ramp quickly, but always keep CAC:LTV ratios and efficiency in check.
Combined Approach:
- B2B: seasonal brand spikes + steady performance spend.
- B2C: seasonal bursts for holidays, launches, and events.
Measuring Success
Brand KPIs:
- Reach, awareness, and affinity.
- Track via surveys, branded search traffic, video and ad impressions.
- Don’t expect immediate conversions; the impact compounds over time.
Performance KPIs:
- Conversions, CAC:LTV, payback periods.
- Measure top and bottom funnel. Example: more demo requests don’t equal more revenue if leads aren’t qualified.
Execution Tips
- Brand marketing should reflect your company values and leadership vision.
- Product and brand are inseparable: your product experience reinforces your brand more than ads ever will.
- Think of brand and performance not as separate line items but as instruments in the same orchestra: together, they create the symphony of growth.
If you play this right, your brand builds trust, your performance ads drive action, and the combination is a self-reinforcing flywheel.
