Major Differences: Brand Marketing vs Performance Marketing

The relationship between the seller and the buyer has changed a lot. The product may still be at the core, but buyers now also prioritize the company or the brand they are buying from. Furthermore, if you look closely, the brand itself is taking personality in the social media sphere. Whether it is Wendy’s or Netflix, brands now leave their corporate shell behind to directly with you on the internet.

Apple is the best example of how a technology company can make itself look like a lifestyle brand that everyone must have. Therefore, by employing various marketing strategies, one brand can create a narrative around itself, thus creating brand loyalty.

On the other hand, Performance-driven marketing activities look strictly into the return on investments of each action that it takes. This marketing is purely data-driven and constructs its next plan of action following the probable data. Thus, performance or results-driven marketing makes proceedings fairly risk-free as it looks into the market rise or downfall carefully. Therefore, in the marketing world, which one is more beneficial? Or are both of them more intertwined than we know? Let us find out together!

What is Brand Marketing?

Branding is a strategy that solely focuses on making a brand look organic, reachable and empowering. This marketing is all about building relationships with the customers where they can relate to the brand’s values. Thus, this type of brand building gives the concerned business the opportunity to solidify its own identity, thereby creating a reputation for itself.

For example, Apple, the first trillion-dollar tech company, used its charismatic branding strategy to make people associate quality with Apple products. Apple marketed itself to look like a lifestyle brand that makes tech products never seen before. Even though in terms of innovation, other companies have been a few steps earlier than Apple, their next level of brand building made the general public view the company as the brand they wanted to invest in.

Here’s a closer look at some of the key functions of brand marketing:

Awareness: Bringing awareness to the brand and creating loyal customers is the main goal. Making your brand well-known and unique from the competition is something that can be achieved through strong brand-building activities.

Brand Loyalty: Any company will desire customer retention. This can happen when the said company employs the right branding strategy.

Real-Time Feedback: Branding works as a great method to gain insights into what the customers are thinking, by observing their feedback on the brand directly or indirectly. Receiving positive word of mouth is one of the many facets of brand activities.

Emotional Connection: The narratives that surround a brand’s value drive often create a bond. Many companies with years of legacy create marketing campaigns that heavily lean on nostalgia. This creates an emotional impact on the customers who might come back to that brand for that reason. Doing environment-friendly activities is also very effective. These kinds of brand-building activities make the brand look good and thus many want to associate as a result.

What is Performance Marketing?

This is a form of marketing that focuses on data from various marketing campaigns. It is a results-driven digital marketing technique through which clicks, leads, sales, downloads, and collection of data show the result of the marketing. These activities are all about achieving measurable results and increasing the return on investment (ROI).

Measurable Strategy: Through various marketing campaigns, the central goal is to collect measurable data as much as possible. Meeting certain targets, or achieving measurable goals through website traffic, lead generation, or sales conversions is a part of a performance-driven marketing strategy.

Data-Driven Approach: This kind of marketing is all about data. The data generated are used to convert them into sales or future research for designing the set of marketing campaigns. This method is also used for tracking campaign performance, identify areas for improvement, and optimize strategies for better results.

Pay-for-Performance Model: Brands pay for strategies that only charge a fee upon the completion of a desired action, such as affiliate marketing or pay-per-click (PPC) advertising. We can see such instances in Google advertisements or Amazon-sponsored listings. This method saves the companies a lot of money.

Targeted Audience Reach: Targeting certain demography is more successfully possible due to this marketing method. It typically involves using their demographics, interests, and online activity as a guide.

Difference Between Brand Marketing & Performance Marketing

Unlike brand building, which builds awareness over time, performance or results-driven marketing emphasizes achieving a specific goal. Thus in branding strategies, the main focus is on the spread of good word of mouth and creating a good picture in the people’s mind. Whereas performance-focused marketing looks into the returns from specific marketing activities. Let us break down the differences even further;

Brand Marketing:

The goal is to build brand awareness for the long term. Creating a good picture of the company or the brand or constructing a good brand identity. Connecting with the consumers which will bring brand royalty is how the success of the brand campaign is measured. Furthermore, the matrices of success measurement are seen through (impressions, and reach), brand sentiment analysis (customer reviews, social media mentions), and brand equity (perceived value of the brand). It also uses a broader range of platforms, including social media content marketing, public relations, influencer marketing, sponsorship, and experiential events. Lastly, to reach the end goal, this type of brand management takes time. Creating a perfect image of the brand is dependent on time and consistency.

Performance Marketing:

As mentioned before, this is all about the return on investments. Through various matrices, the success of a marketing endeavor can be measured. How much per click from an advertisement was the invested sum made back? Tracking clicks, conversions, cost per acquisition (CPA), and return on ad spend (ROAS) are used to determine the returns. Unlike brand marketing, this marketing focuses on short-term achievements. How quickly profits are made by investing as little as possible. Paid campaigns on Facebook ads or Google ads are good examples where each click guarantees lead generation or conversion. This type of brand management involves using data-driven channels such as search engine marketing (SEM), social media advertising, affiliate marketing, and email marketing to create focused campaigns.

PromotEdge Brings the Best Out of Both Types of Marketing

PromotEdge brings the best of both worlds together.  A digital marketing agency based in Kolkata, we are stocked up with the necessary expertise to devise and execute all-encompassing marketing campaigns across all digital channels to ensure that your particular needs are uniquely met. That is to say, creating stories that align with your brand value, is our priority. We believe in quality and delivering quality at a consistent pace. As an online branding agency, we focus on the campaign that brings maximum feedback from the target audience which can be later converted to sales.

Therefore, what makes us the best Branding Agency is that we do not treat these two types of marketing as exclusively different from each other. We design the advertisements in such a way that creates a good image for your brand as well as maximizing your ROI!

So, if you are trying to find the best performance marketing agency in Kolkata, PromotEdge is the way to go. We bring creativity and profitability in the same fold that you may not find elsewhere.