Return on Advertising Spend (ROAS) tells you what happened today. Brand lift, equity and trust tell you if you’ll still matter tomorrow.

Back in June I wrote about Brandformance—the not-so-ugly lovechild of brand and performance marketing. That piece argued for integration: emotional resonance plus measurable impact. But integration is only half the battle. The other half is recognizing that one of the most celebrated metrics in performance land—ROAS—might be the least interesting number you track.

I’ve sat in too many meetings where ROAS was toasted like gospel, champagne corks flying because a campaign “paid for itself” in six weeks while brand awareness, trust and repeat purchase scores quietly slid into oblivion. Despite the ubiquity of promotion and discounting that props up most performance marketing, I’ve never wavered on one principle: discounts erode brands. It’s a race to the bottom. Depending on your brand, sector and market, that race may be a marathon or a sprint.  But you are definitely headed to the same finish line.

In the old bricks-and-mortar world, “location, location, location” could save you. You could sell the same thing as the shop five blocks away, but if you were closer to a bus stop or sitting on the corner where the crowd passed, you won—sometimes even charging a bit more. In the online world there is no corner. If you’re a retailer without a unique proposition, you’re competing with everyone in your market. Price comparisons are instantaneous. You end up spending more to chase fewer sales. And soon, when AI shopping agents go mainstream, performance ads will matter even less. Those agents will leapfrog your offers and simply hunt down the cheapest, fastest, most trustworthy option. And trust in that scenario comes from brand equity. Legacy brands will have the edge—and they’re already exploiting it.

Why ROAS Is Seductive—and Misleading

On the surface, ROAS looks like the neatest metric ever invented. Spend a dollar, make five back—what could be clearer? It explains why marketers over-index on it and why finance teams love it. But ROAS measures only efficiency at a point in time; it ignores momentum.

Samsung Electronics, a company we worked with for over 20 years, proves the danger of myopia. In Interbrand’s 2024 Best Global Brands ranking Samsung’s brand value hit US $100.8 billion, up 10% year on year. That growth didn’t come from performance coupons—it came from positioning itself as a leader in AI and connected experiences which build trust and long-term preference. A short-term ROAS chart could never explain that kind of billion-dollar lift.

The Trace “72% Growth Advantage” study backs this up: brands that balance long-term building with short-term performance saw about 72% growth in brand value over five years while brands chasing only efficiency eked out 20%. It’s the difference between compounding returns and eking out margin.

The Real Risks of Chasing ROAS Alone

Marketers addicted to ROAS often find themselves discounting into oblivion. Coca-Cola is a case study in avoiding that trap. In Interbrand’s 2024 report Coca-Cola still sat in the Top 10 with a brand value of US $61.2 billion. Its secret isn’t efficiency metrics—it’s cultural saturation and trust which allow it to maintain pricing power while competitors rely on coupons.

There’s also the false comfort of attribution. Just because a conversion shows up after an ad impression doesn’t mean the ad caused it. Interbrand estimates that Best Global Brands have collectively left US $3.5 trillion in potential value unrealized by leaning too hard on short-term tactics. In just the past year alone that figure was US $200 billion. That’s what misplaced attribution bias costs.

And then there’s diminishing returns. Retarget audiences until their eyes glaze over and you’ll get declining ROAS and rising irritation. Ferrari illustrates the opposite path. In 2024 its brand value grew 21%—the steepest gain among global brands. That wasn’t the result of squeezing more retargeting out of lookalike audiences; it was Ferrari expanding its brand arena into fashion, lifestyle and experiences, deepening emotional equity so customers lean in willingly.

What Matters More Than ROAS

If ROAS is the sugar rush, brand equity is the long-term nutrition. Consider e.l.f. Beauty. From 2020 to 2024 its unaided awareness in the U.S. climbed from 13% to 3%, a twenty-point leap that translated into market share gains and revenue growth. They didn’t get there by hacking last-click ROAS—they invested roughly 22–24% of sales back into marketing and storytelling that people remembered.

Toyota is another example. In 2024 its brand value reached US $72.8 billion, up 13% year on year. Not bad for a 90-year-old automaker. Toyota’s consistency in quality and innovation means customers trust it which keeps margins healthy even when the competition discounts heavily. That resilience isn’t captured in a ROAS dashboard—it lives in brand perception.

And trust itself is quantifiable. Edelman’s Trust Barometer shows 81% of consumers say they must trust a brand to buy from it. That’s not a metric you’ll see in a performance report but it’s one of the most predictive numbers in marketing.

Winning the Budget Battle in the C-Suite

Of course, the pushback is always: “We need sales now.” But the right counter is: “We’ll need them later too—and at a lower cost per acquisition.” The Trace report is a powerful slide in that debate. A balanced 60/40 split between brand and performance doesn’t just protect long-term equity—it delivers higher total growth.

Legacy brands can point to compounding effects. Microsoft and Google each posted double-digit brand value growth in Interbrand’s 2024 table (+11% and +12% respectively) despite already being giants. That’s what happens when brand strength amplifies performance instead of leaving it to do all the work alone.

Challenger brands can point to cases like e.l.f., where spending aggressively on brand drove measurable equity gains and repeat purchase. The lesson is the same: ROAS can’t be your north star. At best it’s a mile marker.

So, What Should You Do?

Audit what you’re measuring. If your reports begin and end with ROAS you’re starving yourself of context. Add unaided awareness, repeat purchase, retention and trust.

Rebalance budgets. Not everyone will shift to 60/40 overnight but even moving 10 points away from performance-only will give you more compounding returns.

And tell better stories. Ferrari isn’t just selling cars; Samsung isn’t just selling screens. They’re embedding themselves in culture, technology and aspiration. That’s why they can grow brand value at double-digit rates while competitors chase click-through rates.

The Final Word

ROAS is too neat to ignore but too narrow to revere. AI shopping agents will soon strip the emotion out of buying decisions and prioritize trust, convenience and price the only brands that thrive will be the ones people already believe in.

The brands that survive aren’t the ones with the cheapest clicks—they’re the ones people would miss if the clicks disappeared.

Sources: Trace Brand Building, Interbrand Best Global Brands 2024б, Samsung Electronics press release, e.l.f. Beauty (WARC), Edelman Trust Barometer, Ferrari Interbrand 2024 report, Toyota Interbrand 2024 report