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    Home » Content Marketing
    Content Marketing

    Brand vs. Performance Marketing: The Side-by-Side Comparison of Channels and Metrics

    YGLukBy YGLukOctober 7, 2025No Comments14 Mins Read
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    By Andy Crestodina

    There are largely simply two varieties of advertising and marketing.

    Model advertising and marketing and efficiency advertising and marketing are very completely different. They’ve completely different targets, methods, timescales and metrics. Model advertising and marketing seeks to achieve as many in-target folks as potential as usually as potential. Efficiency advertising and marketing seeks to set off measurable impression within the second. Very completely different targets, targets, methods and metrics.

    However all advertising and marketing efforts, branding and efficiency, contain some mixture of paid media, earned media and owned media.

    From TV advertisements to webinars, weblog posts to Instagram advertisements, all the pieces is both branding or efficiency; all the pieces is paid, earned or owned.

    Let’s make a chart with branding and efficiency as columns and all the channels as rows. We’ll additionally add sections for targets, focusing on and metrics.

    A comparison chart outlining differences between brand marketing and performance marketing, covering goals, approach, psychology, media channels, metrics, and time horizon.

    Observe: In company circles, “efficiency advertising and marketing” additionally refers to a pricing mannequin the place the company is paid a share of income. On this article, we’re utilizing the time period to explain the advertising and marketing method, not the compensation construction.

    Nobody “wins” on this comparability. This isn’t a contest. It’s a strategy to see the larger image. One of the best manufacturers mix model advertising and marketing with efficiency advertising and marketing. In a balanced framework, every makes the opposite extra environment friendly and efficient.

    Model constructing is a long-term job that requires repeat publicity, whereas efficiency advertising and marketing focuses on people who find themselves contemplating choices. It exploits model fairness to set off motion within the second. Robust manufacturers get larger response charges in efficiency channels.

    • An excessive amount of model advertising and marketing and also you’ll have excessive basic consciousness, however it’s possible you’ll miss the prospect in the important thing second. They searched and didn’t discover you within the combine. Or they considered you, however they will’t fairly inform if you happen to’re a match. Natural visitors and conversion charges are low.
    • An excessive amount of efficiency advertising and marketing and also you drive leads, however you could be ceaselessly hooked on excessive acquisition prices. There isn’t any baseline of consciousness and belief. You’re at all times competing for (even paying for) the following click on. Direct visitors is low and CPA is excessive.

    A man with a beard and a shaved head is smiling in an outdoor setting. He is wearing a dark jacket and there are people and tents visible in the blurred background.
    Joe Chernov, Battery

    “Present me an organization with runaway demand gen prices and I’ll present you an organization with restricted model consciousness.”


    Manufacturers want each. Model advertising and marketing and efficiency advertising and marketing help one another. One builds consciousness and belief, which makes all efficiency channels extra environment friendly.

    In 2017, Les Binet and Peter Discipline analyzed an enormous quantity of selling information, and published a report evaluating the impression of brand name advertising and marketing and efficiency advertising and marketing, which they name “gross sales activation.” They present that model advertising and marketing is sluggish, however has long run advantages. Efficiency advertising and marketing could get fast outcomes, however they’re usually quick lived.

    Line graph illustrating how short-term sales activation causes brief sales spikes, while brand-building leads to sustained, long-term sales growth over time.

    The primary conclusion of their report is that probably the most profitable manufacturers mix each model and efficiency advertising and marketing.

    “Companies that spend too little on model constructing fail to construct up model fairness, and so get poor responses from their activation. Companies that spend too little on activation can construct sturdy manufacturers but fail to use them to the total.”

    However what’s the right combination? Biney and Discipline’s information recommend that the right combination is 60% model advertising and marketing and 40% efficiency advertising and marketing, with model results kicking in after six months. Nonetheless, the info contains massive shopper manufacturers with large budgets for TV advertisements. However TV isn’t for everybody.


    A man with short brown hair wearing a black shirt smiles at the camera against a dark green background.
    Paul Boruta, Slingwave

    “Model and efficiency are two gears in the identical machine – one builds fairness, the opposite extracts it. Progress comes from orchestrating each.”


    Let’s take a look at the model/efficiency cut up throughout advertising and marketing channels: paid, earned and owned.

    Paid media channels for branding and efficiency

    Any promoting that creates consciousness with out motion is model advertising and marketing. Broadcast, out of house (OOH) and print media are the traditional examples. Advertisements that search to seize demand within the second are efficiency advertising and marketing. Google Advertisements are the traditional instance.

    • Model entrepreneurs don’t anticipate attribution for promoting. The purpose is attain and market penetration. They don’t even attempt to measure direct ROI.
    • Efficiency entrepreneurs anticipate attribution for paid spend. They use dashboards that present funnel metrics, however these don’t present the worth of the model.

    The branding good thing about digital advertisements

    If impressions are model visibility, then PPC can be a model advertising and marketing channel. In case your advert is seen on the prime of search outcomes, your model is seen, even when they didn’t click on. After all, paid search is taken into account a efficiency channel, so branding advantages are by no means measured. Impressions aren’t thought-about precious.

    Paid social advertisements have the identical profit. The advert was supposed to be clicked and a low clickthrough fee is dangerous. But when the model is within the advert, then the impression builds consciousness, even when the consumer scrolled previous.

    Earned media channels for branding and efficiency

    Some consideration, cash can’t purchase. This contains press mentions, phrase of mouth advertising and marketing and getting really useful by AI.

    These channels are among the strongest for constructing belief, not simply consciousness. They do that by way of the “halo impact.” When your model seems throughout the content material of others (media publication, influencer content material, opinions, AI responses) the viewers trusts it. Earned media lends their credibility to your model.

    AI is a branding channel

    The strategies for getting AI to say a model are nonetheless unclear (however we recommend starting with these three steps). Many entrepreneurs aren’t even monitoring visitors and leads from AI sources (however this video shows you how). Some website positioning instruments are reporting on visibility and sentiment. However these are model advertising and marketing metrics, not efficiency metrics.

    AI is rising as a model advertising and marketing earned media channel. It’s phrase of (a man-made) mouth, with share of (a man-made) voice. The purpose is to be prime of (a man-made) thoughts. Appears like model advertising and marketing, doesn’t it?

    Model entrepreneurs aren’t effectively suited to advertising and marketing on this new channel. They don’t usually take into consideration language precision, structured content material and clear class signaling. However that is precisely what influences language fashions. Tag traces aren’t good AI coaching information.


    A man wearing sunglasses and a blue suit jacket smiles broadly against a light blue background.
    Mike King, iPullRank

    “Search has shifted from being a pure efficiency channel to being a branding channel. AI isn’t simply surfacing hyperlinks, it’s making suggestions and which means your model fairness decides whether or not you present up. Most entrepreneurs aren’t prepared for that actuality, but it surely’s an unlimited alternative.”


    Owned media channels for branding and efficiency

    It’s the advertising and marketing you personal. Your web site, your content material, your e mail record, your present. Binet and Discipline confirmed the facility of owned media of their dataset and included this in their report.

    “Owned and earned media are actually considered far more necessary components within the advertising and marketing combine, with some suggesting that they could sooner or later displace paid channels totally.”

    Let’s look nearer at two features of owned media: content material advertising and marketing and the web site itself:

    Content material advertising and marketing is model advertising and marketing

    Regardless that content material entrepreneurs assume so much about efficiency, content material is absolutely about model constructing. It builds consciousness and belief with an viewers that’s not but in-marketing.

    Take into account the methods by which content material aligns extra with model advertising and marketing than efficiency advertising and marketing:

    • It’s broad focusing on. Like different model advertising and marketing channels, it reaches plenty of people who find themselves exterior your goal.
    • Creativity issues. Content material that’s extremely differentiated (authentic analysis, thought management) reaches farther and is extra memorable. 10x content material will get 100x outcomes.
    • It requires persistence. Solely differentiated content material, printed persistently over time makes the model memorable.
    • It’s low price. Content material advertising and marketing is the bottom price model advertising and marketing play of all time. No large media shopping for budgets are required. High quality content material, promoted effectively can drive tons of consciousness over time.

    Our content material at Orbit (and on our LinkedIn newsletter) is a branding play. It reaches 50k readers on common per version. These articles take 10-15 hours to create, together with modifying and design (thanks Amanda and Jantzen!) which is a giant time funding however prices no incremental {dollars}. After all, readers aren’t searching for our providers. However most of our leads inform us “I’ve been studying your articles for years.”

    Broad attain, persistent visibility that maintain you top-of-mind with low out-of-pocket prices. Content material checks all the model advertising and marketing bins. However as a result of content material metrics overlap with many efficiency metrics (shares, downloads, natural visitors) many content material entrepreneurs don’t consider their efforts as model advertising and marketing.

    Sure, some content material is all about efficiency. Backside-of-funnel content material helps gross sales instantly by defeating objections, constructing confidence and displaying excessive ranges of experience. Listed here are a couple of examples of content material and the way it’s used for lead gen and gross sales:

    • Case research that present the impression of the work (larger conversion charges)
    • Business studies that gas e mail nurture sequences (conserving leads heat)
    • Purchaser guides which might be shared with prospects instantly (larger gross sales closing charges)

    Smiling woman with shoulder-length wavy hair, wearing a sleeveless black top, posed in front of a light blue background.
    Jessica Greatest, Better Ave

    “I’m fairly biased in the direction of measurable advertising and marketing, however if you happen to take a look at the entire combine, the info tells us it nearly takes each to get the perfect outcomes. 

    Some channels are higher suited to model advertising and marketing vs efficiency advertising and marketing (or vice versa) however many can be utilized to do each, relying on the content material or focusing on ways. E mail advertising and marketing is a very highly effective efficiency advertising and marketing channel… However it’s additionally nice for educating audiences that aren’t prepared to purchase or those that have already purchased (👋 newsletters!) for each acquisition and retention…”


    The web site… The place model and efficiency meet

    Each web site is each branding and efficiency advertising and marketing. Each web site balances the stress between the 2.

    Ever written the header for a homepage? Did you utilize a intelligent model message? Or a keyphrase that merely names your class? You feel the model vs. efficiency rigidity.

    At Orbit Media, we strike this steadiness on 30+ web site tasks per 12 months. We’re 100% targeted on web development and website optimization. So strolling that wire is our complete world. Listed here are a couple of observations from 1000+ tasks:

    For some web site tasks, the web site is primarily a house for the model.
    Emotion is extra necessary than readability. There are low expectations for lead era. A lot of the visitors is direct (word-of-mouth, gross sales help, PR, offline campaigns) They could achieve success branding instruments, however these websites underperform in search and lead era.

    For different web site tasks, the shopper expects to drive leads.
    Readability is extra necessary than emotion. Expectations for lead era are excessive. Keyphrase relevance attracts certified guests. Conversion copywriting guides them to decide within the second. These websites drive measurable impression. However the model marketer could not see the emotion they anticipate from a model piece.

    We’ll present the stress side-by-side in a single chart:

    A comparison chart outlines brand marketing requirements and performance marketing requirements for website branding versus performance.

    Efficiency-focused web sites have a bonus within the AI responses. A performance-focused web site has extra pages and extra detailed content material. They provide the fashions much more coaching information and higher possibilities of getting really useful in responses.

    We usually advocate prioritizing efficiency. Each pixel must align with the model, however don’t sacrifice natural lead era for magnificence and emotion. Brief pages with little textual content could really feel extra model aligned, however for the high-consideration customer, they may not discover what they’re searching for. They may not discover you in any respect.

    A clearly written, well-structured and well-designed web site makes any model extra credible, even when the positioning is search optimized and the copy is conversion targeted.

    Maybe I’m biased. Which brings me to our last perspective…

    Watch out for your individual advertising and marketing biases

    All of us have our favourite channels. All of us belief the ways that give us our most dependable wins. However advertising and marketing technique comes first. It comes earlier than website positioning and PPC. It comes earlier than content material technique and media budgets. The primary query needs to be, do we have now the right combination of brand name advertising and marketing and efficiency advertising and marketing?

    To reply this query, we have to see our personal biases so we will set them apart.

    • Efficiency entrepreneurs have funnel imaginative and prescient. They know how one can drive motion and measure it. They maintain attempting to optimize even when the model lacks fundamental ranges of belief or consciousness. They could be underinvesting in branding efforts. It’s unsatisfying to do advertising and marketing that may’t simply be measured.
    • Model entrepreneurs have efficiency blind spots. They use their budgets to be extra seen, figuring out it’s what wholesome manufacturers do. Eat your greens, go to the health club and promote. However they danger placing imprecise, overly branded messages into efficiency channels, lacking website positioning alternatives and hurting conversion charges.

    A middle-aged man with short gray hair and glasses is smiling slightly, wearing a black shirt, against a plain dark background.
    Danny Schuman, Twist Your Thinking

    “Branding and content material advertising and marketing are extra alike than you may assume. Each are investments the place you don’t essentially see backside line outcomes immediately. You’ll be able to measure affinity and consciousness however one of the vital necessary functions is to get somebody to note you, take into consideration you, discuss you.“


    One of the best entrepreneurs know their supply, their viewers and themselves.

    Once you meet a marketer, you possibly can rapidly inform if they’re a model or efficiency marketer with only a few fast questions. What channels do you deal with? What do you measure?

    We as soon as did a little bit breakdown of those two varieties of entrepreneurs in our Tortoise vs. Hare Comparison article. This little infographic reveals how the skillsets and mindsets of entrepreneurs differ wildly.

    Infographic compares two digital marketer types: the 10% Tortoise (optimizer, data-driven, risk-averse) and the 10x Hare (game changer, inspired, risk-taking).

    Model will get you remembered. Efficiency will get you chosen. One of the best entrepreneurs don’t choose a facet. They know that branding earns consideration and efficiency converts that spotlight into demand.

    Andy Crestodina

    Andy Crestodina is the Co-Founder and CMO of Orbit Media. He’s a world top-rated keynote speaker and the writer of Content Chemistry: The Illustrated Guide to Content Marketing. Yow will discover Andy on LinkedIn.

    Wait, extra sensible insights? Sure, please!

    A bar chart shows the main uses of generative AI, with practical guidance and creative tasks most common, and searching for information less frequent. A box notes AI isn’t mostly used for information search.

    Traditional Search vs. AI Search: The Side-by-Side Comparison (diagram)

    Andy Crestodina

    [New Research] The 12th Annual Blogger Survey: What Content Works in 2025?

    Andy Crestodina

    Bar chart showing percentages by year: 35% in 2023, 20% in 2024, and 5% in 2025.

    The Most Effective AI Uses for Content Marketing in 2025 [New Research]

    Andy Crestodina

    There may be extra the place this got here from…

    One of the best content material from this weblog can be found multi function place – our ebook. Now on its seventh version.

    Content material Chemistry, The Illustrated Handbook for Content material Advertising, is full of sensible ideas, real-world examples, and knowledgeable insights. A must-read for anybody trying to construct a content material technique that drives actual enterprise impression. Try the reviews on Amazon.

    Buy now direct $29.95

    Book cover of "Content Chemistry" alongside a quote praising it as highly practical for modern digital marketing, attributed to Jay Baer, NYT best-selling author.

    The submit Brand vs. Performance Marketing: The Side-by-Side Comparison of Channels and Metrics appeared first on Orbit Media Studios.



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