Has Your Marketing Plateaued?

Working with clients I often observe a familiar situation: your dependable performance marketing isn't quite delivering the results it once did. A key element that might be missing? A solid brand foundation.

You likely started your business with effective performance marketing tactics. Those clicks and conversions provided measurable results, validating your product and fueling early growth. You tracked ROI, refined campaigns, and saw your business expand.

However, you might now find that those same tactics aren't yielding the same level of return.

This is a common point – the performance marketing plateau. Throughout my career, I've worked with many clients who've reached this stage. It's not necessarily that your performance marketing strategy is flawed, but rather that it requires a strong complement: strategic brand building. While performance marketing excels at capturing existing demand and driving immediate results, sustained success relies on the foundation that a strong brand provides.

Oil Well

Think of performance marketing like drilling an oil well. In the beginning, you hit a rich vein and traffic flows easily, conversions see a significant spike, and things look promising. But eventually, that initial well starts to dry up. You find yourself spending more effort and resources to achieve diminishing returns.

So, what do many businesses instinctively do? They double down on what they know and try to drill deeper into that same well. They increase ad spend. They rewrite ad copy. They conduct A/B tests, often seeing their Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC) rise.

But here's the fundamental challenge. You can't extract new, sustainable growth from a depleting source.

The real solution isn't just about drilling deeper. It's about identifying and building entirely new wells. This is where brand building comes in. It provides people with more compelling reasons to care about your offering, choose you over competitors, and become repeat customers.

Building your brand effectively is how you:

• Introduce new value propositions that resonate with a broader (or perhaps a different) audience.

  • For example, your software is useful for experienced professionals and novices, but your current marketing only speaks to one group. Brand building can help you articulate the value for both.

• Own a distinct position in the market that goes beyond generic claims.

  • Instead of the played-out 'premium, seamless, and effective' (what everyone promises)...you aim for a unique and memorable positioning. Think of a concept like "Spotify for wellness," "Banking without the traditional banker," or "The CRM your sales reps actually find intuitive to use."

• Tell a bigger story about your brand that goes beyond what you do, and explores why it truly matters.

  • People are less likely to share a landing page focused solely on features, but they are more inclined to share a compelling point of view or a brand narrative they connect with.

• Create a genuine emotional connection with your audience.

  • Great brands often do more than solve a problem; they stand for something, evoke feelings, and build relationships with their customers.

It's through this kind of brand building that you can unlock entirely new customer segments. You shift from constantly chasing existing demand to actively creating new demand and desire for your brand.

Consider the difference between:

• A generic performance marketing message like "Get 20% off your first order today" and a brand-driven message like "Join the community built for those who value authentic craftsmanship over fleeting trends."

• A standard call-to-action in a performance ad like "Schedule a demo now" and a brand-infused message like "Simplify your workflow now."

Ultimately, brand building cultivates trust, establishes differentiation, and paves the way for more sustainable, long-term growth. That's the power of building a new well.

Brand Differentiation

Performance marketing offers significant value through its measurability, precise targeting, and immediate impact. These qualities make it essential for business growth, particularly in the early stages when establishing market fit and generating initial revenue.

However, even the most effective performance marketing strategies eventually encounter limitations. As initial customer segments become saturated, acquisition costs rise while conversion rates may decline. Competition for keywords and ad placements can intensify, impacting margins. Without brand recognition to differentiate you, customers might make decisions primarily based on price or convenience rather than loyalty.

One of the challenges I've faced as a strategist is working with clients who've become very focused on performance marketing's immediate metrics. They can be hesitant to invest in brand building because the direct attribution of sales isn't always as clear-cut. I've had many discussions with executives who find it difficult to look beyond short-term results, even when they sense their marketing efforts are losing effectiveness.

Amplify

Brand building isn't an alternative to performance marketing; it's the amplifier that makes your performance marketing more effective by generating value beyond immediate transactions.

A strong brand builds recognition and trust that enhances every customer interaction. It communicates your unique value proposition beyond just features and price, helping you stand out in crowded markets. While performance marketing captures existing demand, brand building can cultivate new demand and preference for your specific offering(s).

Throughout my career in developing brand strategies, I've seen firsthand how a solid brand foundation significantly improves performance marketing results. When potential customers already recognize your brand in search results or on social media, click-through rates tend to improve. When visitors arrive at your site with established trust, conversion rates increase. This symbiotic relationship means you're not choosing between approaches, you're creating a marketing ecosystem where each element strengthens the other.

Consider a brand that consistently uses performance marketing while investing in community events and sustainability initiatives. They don't just drive immediate sales; they build preference and loyalty that can make every marketing dollar work harder. Their performance campaigns may convert better because they have built a foundation of trust and recognition.

The Integration Strategy: Combining Performance and Brand

A successful approach often involves combining tactical performance marketing with strategic brand building:

• Utilize performance marketing data to understand your most responsive audiences and refine your brand messaging accordingly.

• Create valuable content, such as informative blog posts, helpful guides, or engaging videos, that serves immediate SEO goals and contributes to building long-term authority in your space.

• Design landing pages that aim for conversions and communicate your unique brand personality and values through visuals, tone, and messaging.

• Maintain your performance campaigns while gradually allocating resources to brand-building activities like developing thought leadership content (e.g., white papers, webinars), engaging with your community (e.g., sponsoring local events, participating in relevant online forums), and ensuring a consistent visual identity across all your marketing materials.

• Use retargeting campaigns to drive conversions share brand stories and highlight your unique values with prospects who have already shown interest.

When initiating brand initiatives for my clients, I typically focus on ensuring we don't disrupt what's currently working in their performance marketing. Instead, we look for opportunities to enhance those efforts with strategic brand elements, creating a cohesive experience that supports immediate conversion goals and long-term brand development.

One of my clients, a direct-to-consumer, online clothing retailer offers a good illustration: Their performance campaigns drive immediate sales, while their content marketing efforts showcase their sustainable production practices and ethical standards through blog posts, social media stories, events, and website information. This integrated approach led to a 32% increase in conversion rates on their performance campaigns after six months of consistent brand investment.

Measuring Success: Looking at the Bigger Picture

Performance marketing's immediate metrics (CPC, ROAS, conversion rates) remain important, but a balanced approach requires tracking additional indicators:

• Monitor increases in direct website traffic and branded search volume as indicators of growing brand recognition.

• Track improvements in the performance of your ads as brand awareness increases.

• Calculate customer lifetime value (CLTV), as strong brands often cultivate customers who spend more and remain loyal for a longer period.

• Measure Net Promoter Score (NPS) to gauge growing brand advocacy and customer satisfaction.

In my brand strategy practice, I've developed frameworks that help organizations understand the connection between brand investments and performance outcomes. This has been crucial in helping clients who might be skeptical to see that brand building isn't just a creative endeavor; it's a business imperative with measurable results.

First Steps: Finding the Right Balance

Begin by maintaining effective performance campaigns while allocating some of your marketing resources (~15-20%) to brand-building activities. Develop clear brand messaging that articulates your unique value proposition. Ensure a consistent visual style across all your marketing touchpoints. Create valuable content that demonstrates your expertise and builds trust with your audience.

Through numerous brand-building initiatives, I've learned that successful integration happens incrementally. Clients who attempt to overhaul everything at once can sometimes create confusion or disconnects with their existing customer base. Instead, I recommend gradually incorporating brand elements into your performance campaigns, carefully measuring how this influences your results. As you observe improved performance metrics, you can justify increasing your brand investment while maintaining the performance marketing that drives immediate results.

The Path Forward

The most successful businesses often don't see performance marketing and brand building as mutually exclusive choices. They maximize the strengths of both. Performance marketing drives immediate results and provides valuable data, while brand building fosters preference, loyalty, and enhances the overall effectiveness of your marketing efforts.

Returning to our oil well metaphor, the most forward-thinking companies are simultaneously extracting value from their existing efforts through efficient performance marketing, while their brand-building initiatives are exploring and developing new growth opportunities. This diversified approach helps ensure they are more resilient and less vulnerable when a single tactic becomes less effective.

I've observed that organizations that achieve sustainable growth move beyond the either/or mentality. They recognize that performance marketing and brand building aren't competing strategies; they are complementary forces that work more powerfully together than individually.

This balanced approach can transform the performance marketing plateau from a frustrating obstacle into a strategic turning point. By sustaining what works in performance marketing while building a distinctive brand, you create a sustainable growth engine that delivers both immediate results and long-term value.

The key question isn't whether to choose performance or brand, but how to integrate both for maximum impact.