UX metrics that matter
Many organisations have dashboards full of figures on visits, clicks, conversions, time spent or…
In many organisations, brand and performance have existed as though they belonged to separate worlds. On one side were activities aimed at building awareness, reputation, trust and preference. On the other were campaigns designed to generate clicks, leads, sales or measurable short-term conversions.
That division seemed convenient. It made it possible to separate budgets, teams, objectives and metrics. Branding spoke of emotions, positioning and the long term. Performance spoke of efficiency, attribution, cost per acquisition and immediate return. But people’s actual behaviour has never been as orderly as dashboards.
Someone may discover a brand through inspiring content, remember it weeks later when searching for a solution, compare it with other options, see it again in a remarketing campaign and end up buying through a different channel from the one where they first encountered it. Along that journey, which part belongs to the brand and which part belongs to performance? The answer is not always obvious.
That is why separating branding and performance as though they were opposing disciplines makes less and less sense. The question is no longer whether a company should invest in brand or conversion, but how it can make both work together. A strong brand can make conversion more efficient. And a well-designed performance strategy can provide highly valuable signals for understanding which messages, audiences and propositions are connecting best.
Brandformance arises precisely from that need: to stop choosing between building a brand and generating results, and start designing strategies capable of creating demand, activating trust and converting more effectively within the same journey.
Why separating branding and performance no longer makes sense
The main problem with separating branding and performance is that consumers do not think or act according to that division. People do not move through the buying journey in a linear way, first passing through a purely emotional stage and then a purely rational one. They discover, compare, forget, remember, ask, return, hesitate and decide through multiple touchpoints.
A brand may first appear in a video, a recommendation, an article, a search, a paid social campaign or a conversation. Later, that same person may compare options on Google, visit the website, read reviews, receive a remarketing ad and end up purchasing days later through another channel. From the user’s perspective, it is all part of the same experience. From the perspective of many companies, however, each impression is analysed as though it belonged to a separate compartment.
That separation creates several problems. The first is that many performance campaigns end up relying on demand that nobody is building. They may capture searches, clicks or conversions from people who were already close to buying, but if there has been no prior work on brand, trust and differentiation, performance eventually runs out of steam. Capture is optimised, but future interest is not sufficiently nurtured.
The second problem arises when brand campaigns are designed without any continuation towards action. They may achieve visibility, recognition or a positive perception, but if there is no clear journey afterwards to explore further, compare, register, request information or buy, some of that value is lost. The brand sparks interest, but does not always help the user take the next step.
The third problem lies in measurement. When branding and performance are analysed separately, it is easy to give too much credit to the last click or the last impression before conversion. The channel that closes the sale appears to be the most important, even though that conversion has often been prepared by earlier impressions that do not show up as clearly on the dashboard.
That is why the rigid separation between brand and conversion falls short. It does not reflect how people make decisions, it does not help build more coherent strategies, and it can lead to misguided investment decisions. A more mature understanding of marketing recognises that the brand creates the conditions that make performance possible, and that performance can provide valuable information to strengthen the brand.
What brandformance really means
Brandformance does not simply mean creating a brand campaign and adding a buy button. Nor does it mean taking a performance campaign and making it slightly more visually appealing. Understood this way, the concept becomes a superficial mix of formats, messages and metrics that does not solve the underlying problem.
Properly understood, brandformance is a way of designing strategies in which brand-building and generating results are not treated as opposing goals, but as connected parts of the same experience. Every touchpoint should help the person better understand what the brand stands for, why it should matter to them and what they can do after receiving that impression.
This means thinking beyond the isolated creative asset. An advert, a landing page, a piece of content, a search campaign, a social media activity or a commercial communication should not operate as disconnected elements. All of them should build the same brand idea while, at the same time, making it easier for the user to progress through their journey.
That is why a good brandformance strategy should answer two questions at once. The first is: what do we want the person to remember about the brand after this contact? The second is: what do we want them to be able to do next? If we answer only the first, we may generate awareness without movement. If we answer only the second, we may achieve isolated actions without building preference.
The balance lies in bringing together meaning and direction. The brand provides context, trust, differentiation and perceived value. Performance provides clarity, activation, learning and behavioural signals. When both dimensions work together, communication stops being limited to making an impression or pursuing isolated conversions, and begins to build more coherent relationships between what the brand promises and what the user can do.
How to generate demand and results at the same time
Generating demand and achieving results are not incompatible goals. The problem arises when they are designed as though they belonged to completely separate moments. A brandformance strategy needs to build interest before asking for action, but it must also make it possible for that interest to become a genuine business opportunity.
To achieve this, the brand must offer more than presence. It must provide a clear value proposition, recognisable messages, consistent visual assets and sufficient reasons for the person to remember who is behind that impression. It is not merely about appearing, but about building a specific perception: what problem the brand helps solve, what makes it different and why it deserves to be considered.
At the same time, the results-oriented element must be integrated from the outset. A campaign may spark interest, but it needs a coherent continuation: a landing page aligned with the message, a clear call to action, content that helps people compare, testimonials that reinforce trust, forms proportionate to the user’s level of intent and an experience that does not break the initial promise.
At this point, creativity plays a decisive role. It is not enough to adapt the same message to every audience, nor to reduce communication to discounts, urgency or sales messages. Someone who has just discovered the brand does not need the same stimulus as someone who has already compared options or is close to making a decision. That is why brandformance requires adapting the message to the user’s moment without losing brand coherence.
It is also important to understand that measurement should not stop at the click. A click may indicate interest, but it does not always explain the quality of that interest or the role each impression has played in the final decision. A more complete strategy can observe signals such as branded searches, qualified traffic, engagement with key content, repeat visits, progression through the funnel, higher-quality leads, incremental sales or new customer acquisition.
When it works well, the brand prepares the ground for performance to become more efficient. It reduces friction, increases trust, improves readiness and means conversion does not depend solely on promotional pressure. At the same time, performance returns useful signals about which audiences respond best, which messages generate more interest, which propositions activate more intent and which points in the journey need improving.
In this way, brandformance stops being a label and becomes a learning dynamic. The brand is not limited to inspiring from afar, and performance is not limited to pursuing immediate conversions. Both work together to create demand, activate it and convert it in a more coherent, measurable and sustainable way.
Examples of approaches where brand and performance reinforce one another
A simple way to understand brandformance is to look at situations in which brand and performance do not compete for prominence, but support one another. It is not about choosing between creating an emotional connection and converting, but about designing journeys in which every impression has a clear role within the relationship with the user.
A first example could be a video campaign. If the objective is limited to gaining views, the activity may remain at the level of superficial awareness. But if the video presents a clear value proposition, uses recognisable brand elements and builds an easy-to-remember idea, that first impression can feed later stages. Afterwards, audiences who have shown interest can receive more specific messages, comparative content, social proof or conversion-oriented calls to action. The initial asset builds meaning; subsequent actions turn that interest into movement.
Another example can be found in content strategies. An article, guide, webinar or series of posts can help educate the market, resolve questions and position the brand as a reference point within its category. But that content can also be designed to guide the user towards a demo, subscription, download, information request or purchase. In this case, the brand gains authority and trust, while performance benefits from a better-informed and more receptive audience.
We also see this in commerce media environments. In many cases, the temptation is to reduce communication to price, discount or immediate promotion. However, a campaign placed close to the point of purchase can also reinforce differentiating attributes: sustainability, quality, innovation, experience, origin, specialisation or reliability. When the message does not merely push the sale but also reminds people why that brand deserves to be chosen, conversion no longer depends solely on the financial incentive.
In B2B, the relationship between brand and performance is even more evident. Many decisions are not made with a single click, nor do they depend on a single advertising impression. Before there is a qualified lead, there may have been months of exposure to content, recommendations, searches, events, case studies or interactions with the sales team. A brand that communicates authority, knowledge and trust makes subsequent performance more robust. The form, demo or sales meeting works better when the perception of value has already been built beforehand.
These examples show that brandformance is not about forcing every activity to sell immediately. It is about understanding the role each contact plays within the journey. Some assets will spark interest, others will help people compare, others will reduce uncertainty and others will make conversion easier. What matters is that they all respond to the same strategic logic: building a stronger brand while, at the same time, creating better conditions for generating results.
The risk of misunderstanding brandformance
Brandformance can be a highly useful response to the artificial separation between brand and performance, but it can also become a confusing label if it is misunderstood. Not everything that combines a creative asset with a call to action is brandformance. And not every brand campaign should be judged as though its only function were to generate an immediate conversion.
One of the main risks is using the concept to place even greater pressure on the brand through short-term metrics. If every activity has to demonstrate direct results in sales, leads or clicks immediately, brand-building becomes impoverished. Communication ends up becoming more tactical, more repetitive and more reliant on promotions, urgency or quick-response messaging. It may work for a while, but it will hardly build long-term preference, trust or differentiation.
There is also the opposite risk: using the language of the brand to justify actions disconnected from the business. A campaign may be creative, aspirational or highly visible, but if it has no clear function within the customer journey, its strategic value remains limited. Building a brand does not mean communicating without direction, nor investing in awareness without asking what role that awareness plays in the future relationship with the user.
The balance lies in accepting that not every valuable impression converts immediately. Some messages are used to open up a category, reinforce a perception, create familiarity, reduce distrust or bring a brand into the set of options being considered. That value does not always appear in the last click, but it can be decisive in enabling a conversion to happen later.
However, the fact that not everything can be measured immediately does not mean that any action is valid. Every investment should have a clear function: create demand, increase trust, make comparison easier, activate intent, reduce friction, generate repeat engagement or contribute to a future sale. The key is not to demand the same type of result from every impression, but to understand what result it makes sense to expect from each point in the journey.
That is why properly understood brandformance does not eliminate the difference between brand objectives and conversion objectives. What it does is connect them better. It allows for more informed measurement, more intentional investment and the avoidance of two common mistakes: asking the brand to always behave like performance, or allowing branding to exist too far from business results.
What to measure in a brandformance strategy
Measuring a brandformance strategy does not mean filling the dashboard with indicators. In fact, one of the most common mistakes is accumulating metrics without asking what function each one serves within the strategy. The objective should not be to measure everything, but to measure better.
A campaign focused on building a brand cannot be assessed solely using the same criteria as a campaign designed to close an immediate conversion. Similarly, a performance activity should not be interpreted only by its volume of clicks if those clicks do not provide quality, intent or genuine value for the business. Every touchpoint needs metrics that are coherent with the role it plays in the customer journey.
In stages more closely linked to the brand, it may make sense to observe indicators such as awareness, recall, consideration, perception, branded searches, direct traffic or growth in qualified audiences. These signals help us understand whether the brand is gaining mental availability, whether it is beginning to be recognised and whether it is managing to enter the set of options a person considers when a need arises.
In stages closer to activation, it is worth looking at signals of interest and quality: repeat visits, time spent engaging with key content, depth of navigation, downloads, registrations, information requests, qualified leads or progression through the funnel. Here, the question is not only how many people have clicked, but what kind of interest they are showing and whether that interest has a genuine chance of progressing.
When the strategy moves closer to conversion, metrics such as sales, cost per acquisition, conversion rate, attributed revenue, incremental sales, new customers, repeat business or long-term value come into play. But even at this stage, it is important not to settle solely for the most immediate reading. A sale may be relevant, but not all sales have the same value if some come from customers who were already convinced and others represent new demand for the brand.
That is why good brandformance measurement should connect brand indicators, intent signals and business results. Branded searches can show whether communication is generating interest. Qualified traffic can indicate whether that interest is becoming exploration. Leads or sales can show whether the proposition is activating a response. And incrementality or new-to-brand metrics can help us understand whether additional growth is truly being generated.
The key is to measure according to the function of each activity. Not every asset needs to close a sale, but all should contribute to something identifiable. Some will create familiarity, others will generate trust, others will help people compare and others will make conversion easier. A mature brandformance strategy does not seek to make every metric say the same thing, but for them together to better explain how the brand creates demand and how that demand becomes results.
Conclusion
The debate between branding and performance has taken up too much space in many marketing conversations. For a long time, it has been framed as a choice between building long-term value and generating immediate results. But that opposition does not reflect how people discover, remember, compare and choose a brand.
A brand without results can remain as presence without impact. It may generate visibility, recognition or a positive perception, but if it is not connected to concrete actions, commercial opportunities or business decisions, it risks losing strategic relevance. Being present does not always mean being influential.
Performance without brand, meanwhile, can end up exhausting existing demand. It can capture intent, optimise conversions and improve the efficiency of certain campaigns, but if there is no solid work on differentiation, trust and preference, every result will depend more heavily on price, promotional pressure or proximity to the point of purchase.
That is why properly understood brandformance is not about forcing an artificial merger between two disciplines, but about recognising that both form part of the same customer experience. Someone who sees content, searches for information, compares options, encounters the brand again and ultimately makes a decision does not split that journey into branding and performance columns. They experience a continuous relationship with signals, stimuli and decisions that accumulate over time.
The strongest marketing will be that which knows how to build trust while, at the same time, making action easier. The kind that generates preference without losing sight of the business. The kind that measures results without impoverishing the brand. And the kind that understands that converting better does not depend only on optimising the last click, but on first building the conditions that make that conversion meaningful.
In an environment where every investment must be explained more clearly, the answer is not to choose between brand and results. It is to design strategies in which the brand helps sell more effectively and results help build a more relevant, consistent brand that is ready to grow.
Is your marketing building a brand that converts better, or is it simply pursuing conversions without building demand for the future?
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