Brand-Building Channels

The Business Challenge

Marketers are held against strict revenue goals by their CFOs. Such expectations create tension between the marketer’s desire to expand their audience through top-funnel branding and the pressure to drive lower-funnel conversions. Often, performance initiatives are given priority with branding taking the back seat.

Lack of proper “full funnel measurement” that connects the dots between media invested in brand-building vs. performance is hurting brands that only focus on RoAS.

Yet the CEO, CFO, or the Board—paradoxically—care much less about advertising RoAS and much more about top-line revenue growth. There are many reasons, one of which is stock price: the Street doesn’t probe the details of how advertising is managed. All the Street cares about is slope of revenue growth.

Some marketers are stuck between a rock and a hard place, asked to accomplish the impossible: a) generate hard RoAS in branding channels, and b) grow top-line revenue in performance channels.

The Benefits of Solving It

Brands that invest their media in both brand and performance channels end up with a more effective marketing mix that increases RoAS and also top-line revenue.

When combined with a strong intent data strategy across the top and bottom of the funnel, brands also benefit from:

• A better ICP definition applied consistently across all media types, for example intent signals CTV; social intent from Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat, or TikTok; consideration intent from Google or Microsoft; or purchase intent from Amazon
• A clear buyer journey to identify early-stage behaviors in key awareness channels where the brand presence is a must
• Development of a media strategy and supporting media plan focused on predictable revenue growth
• A media plan that includes message testing, dynamic creative at scale, and ongoing campaign optimization
• Reporting on meaningful KPIs through full-funnel reporting and storytelling

Our Process

• DELVE’s Consulting and Media teams will share our approach to media planning.
• If brand-building channels have a role in your media mix, the DELVE Media team will share options for executing a top-of-funnel program with a strong measurement backbone. The ability to measure the impact of branding on performance is at the heart of the work that DELVE performs in this context.
• Your branded Media Plan will include four key elements to help de-risk your top-of-funnel media investments:
  • Brand-building measurement (with a marketing data lake)
  • A unified set of KPIs
  • Media mix model across the full funnel
  • Full-funnel advertising operating model
• Given our deep understanding of media buying and measurement for branding, DELVE can execute against your media plan as an extension of your team—or we can partner with your agency to provide full-funnel measurement services.

Your Outcomes

• Maintain RoAS while growing your marketing budget and top-line revenue
• Shift the internal conversation away from pure performance—and augment your media mix with branding—while keeping RoAS flat
• Expand media capabilities to deeper conversations about target customer segments and creative that communicates the value behind your brand
• Establish a future-proof competitive advantage based on a more complex go-to-market advertising strategy than your competition