If brand communications and performance marketing had a baby, it would deliver both emotional resonance and measurable impact.

I began my career in Boston at the tail end of the Mad Men era—when creative reviews were still fueled by martinis, ashtrays still overflowed onto conference tables and the power of an idea was measured mostly by instinct and a gut feeling. But over the decades, I built agencies that were on the forefront of digital transformation, from launching some of the first websites in the 1990s, adopting programmatic advertising, embracing social media campaigns, and today, integrating AI-driven personalization engines that predict what customers want before they do. 

Along the way, I watched the industry split into two camps, each convinced they held the keys to growth.

For years, marketers have treated brand and performance as separate species. One was about telling big, emotional stories nobody could quite measure—the kind that inspired John Wanamaker’s famous lament: “Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted; the trouble is I don’t know which half.” The other was about clicking, converting, and optimizing the soul out of every message. 

But today, when cookie banners block half your tracking pixels and consumers are tired of being stalked by discount codes, it’s time to consider what happens when these disciplines stop glaring at each other across the budget table—and start working together.

The Two-Track Mind of Modern Marketing

Performance marketing rose on the promise of clear attribution—how credit for sales gets assigned to specific campaigns. Early Google Ads relied almost exclusively on last-click attribution, where the final click before a purchase received 100% of the credit.

That model worked for companies like Wayfair, the U.S. e-commerce giant, which poured budgets into SKU-level search ads and dynamic retargeting. But it also led to over-investment in bottom-funnel tactics while neglecting the brand awareness that inspired people to search in the first place.

Allbirds, the sustainable footwear company, quickly adapted. Instead of just shrinking retargeting audiences, they invested in top-funnel video storytelling and then retargeted video viewers. Conversion lift studies—controlled experiments comparing exposed groups to holdouts—proved these ads were driving incremental conversions, not just cannibalizing existing demand.

Etsy faced the same need to validate brand campaigns. The marketplace ran geo-experiments, launching ads in specific regions and comparing them to untreated markets. The results showed emotional gifting videos boosted conversion rates by over 20% in retargeting audiences.

And Airbnb offered perhaps the most telling example. Even after halving their search budget, they used econometric models to show storytelling campaigns preserved 95% of pre-pandemic traffic. In other words, brand awareness picked up the slack when performance data dried up.

What Brandformance Actually Means

At its core, Brandformance means accepting that attribution will always be complex. Rather than hoping every sale comes from a neat click path, it combines four principles:

Consistency ensures your brand looks and feels the same wherever people find you. Glossier, for instance, shows up with a unified pink aesthetic and approachable voice across Instagram Stories, Google Shopping and checkout flows. They track view-through conversions—sales influenced by ad impressions—and ask buyers, “How did you first hear about us?”

Emotion plays a central role. Etsy’s 15-second gifting videos, measured with lift studies and pixel-based tracking, showed viewers were significantly more likely to convert later—even if they never clicked.

Utility makes performance creative work harder. Chewy, the pet supplies retailer, uses Google’s data-driven attribution to assign partial credit to every touch, recognizing that helpful messages about free shipping and 24/7 service drive sales alongside caring brand stories.

Optimization brings it all together. Brands like Allbirds and Gymshark use Facebook Conversion Lift and Google Brand Lift to measure incremental conversions and sentiment shifts, layering in media mix modeling (MMM) to understand long-term revenue impact.

How to Build a Brandformance Strategy

A smart Brandformance plan starts with mapping your funnel and clarifying how you’ll measure credit across touchpoints.

Sephora excels at this. They run YouTube TrueView campaigns to drive awareness, then survey exposed audiences with Google Brand Lift to measure recall. When a shopper later converts on Google Shopping ads, Sephora’s data-driven attribution splits credit between the upper- and lower-funnel interactions.

Warby Parker shows how creative can-do double duty. The eyewear company produces testimonial videos with real customers, builds credibility on YouTube, then retargets shoppers on Facebook with a “Try 5 for Free” offer. They track YouTube view-through conversions, Facebook Conversion Lift and journey paths in Google Campaign Manager.

Allbirds drives traffic to product pages that blend commerce with purpose-led stories. These content-rich landing pages convert 86% higher, according to Unbounce benchmarks. Allbirds validates success through assisted conversions, scroll depth and surveys about what influenced a purchase.

Gymshark re-edits influencer content into Instagram Stories ads with UTM codes (unique tracking parameters added to URLs to capture campaign source data) to capture clicks, while also tracking view-through conversions and branded search increases.

ASOS goes further, running multi-cell split tests comparing brand-focused and discount-focused creative. They reconcile results with Conversion Lift, data-driven attribution and path analysis to see which sequences work best.

If you want to create this rigor in your organization, consider using a framework that includes:

• Data-driven attribution models (Google and Meta)
• Lift studies to measure incremental impact
• Brand Lift surveys for sentiment and recall
• Media mix modeling to estimate long-term contributions
• Post-purchase surveys to validate attribution
• Visual journey mapping to see how touchpoints interact

Metrics Without Mayhem

Short-term KPIs—like click-through rate, CPA, and ROAS—are still necessary. But they only tell part of the story. Meta’s own research shows that branded creative can lift conversions by as much as 3X over direct-response ads.

Mid-term measurement adds nuance. Etsy’s Brand Lift surveys revealed a 12-point increase in favorability during integrated campaigns. Chewy relies on Google’s path analysis to track how upper-funnel ads help close sales.

Over the long term, attribution models reveal brand’s real power. Kantar BrandZ has shown brands that combine emotional storytelling with performance marketing grow twice as fast over a decade. Airbnb’s econometric models confirmed that storytelling videos, not search alone, drove consistent booking volume.

Brandformance Done Well

Some companies have already proven how effective this integration can be.

Monzo, the UK digital bank, blended education and conversion in Facebook Carousel Ads that explained its mission to make banking fairer while inviting customers to “Open an Account in Minutes.” They measured impact with Conversion Lift, multi-touch attribution in Google Analytics and brand surveys showing a 20% increase in trust.

Airbnb reallocated search budgets into storytelling about host-guest connections and saw traffic hold steady thanks to econometric validation and holdout testing.

Sephora combined branded content and time-limited offers inside loyalty campaigns, using CRM-linked purchase data and Brand Lift to prove customers spent 15 times more.

Allbirds invested in sustainability messaging across social and retargeting, tracking view-through conversions, blended CPA, and brand sentiment surveys to prove results.

Common Pitfalls

Even the best strategies can stumble. One of the most common missteps is over-relying on last-click attribution. Gartner reports that 58% of CMOs still default to this model, ignoring all the unseen impressions and assisted conversions that drive sales. Another mistake is dumping long-form video into banners without accounting for frequency or deduplicating impressions—leading to wasted spend and shallow engagement. And when teams work in silos, fighting over credit rather than sharing dashboards, the benefits of Brandformance disappear.

The Future of Brandformance

Fortunately, technology is making attribution smarter and less manual. Platforms like Smartly.io automate creative production and tagging so campaigns are trackable across channels. VidMob uses AI to analyze which visuals drive results. Shopify’s predictive attribution now helps e-commerce brands forecast how today’s campaigns will convert weeks from now. And cultural relevance is no longer optional. Edelman’s Trust Barometer found that 63% of consumers buy or boycott based on a brand’s values, making sentiment as important to track as revenue.

Conclusion

Brandformance isn’t a compromise—it’s a competitive edge. In a world where attention is fragmented and attribution is fuzzy, the brands that master this art will outlast the ones still shouting “Buy Now” into the void.

Sources: Kantar BrandZ, Meta Marketing Science, Google Marketing Platform, Gartner, AdExchanger, Think with Google, Meta Business, Edelman Trust Barometer