How do you measure brand?

Evaluating the Success of a Brand Project: A Deep Dive into Lasting Impact

The success of a brand project goes far beyond immediate metrics like clicks, shares, or conversions. While these are essential indicators, they only scratch the surface of what makes a brand project truly impactful. Success, as envisioned by leading agencies like Dixon Baxi, is about creating intelligent, adaptable brand systems that resonate on a global scale while maintaining local relevance. It’s about building a brand that not only connects with people today but evolves and thrives for years to come.

At its core, success in branding lies in answering a simple yet profound question: How well does the brand build a relevant, purpose-led, and connected experience? The most successful brands are those that stand for something larger than themselves, aligning with shared values that resonate deeply with their audience.

Products are not enough, you need a brand

The Key to Long-Term Brand Success: Building Relationships, Not Just Transactions

Brands are no longer just products or services—they’re experiences that people engage with emotionally. Evaluating the success of a brand project requires looking at how well it fosters lasting relationships, empowers teams, and streamlines processes. These elements come together to create a seamless, friction-free experience that not only drives sales but builds loyalty.

Brand success is about moving beyond transactional interactions to create emotional connections that endure. Iconic brands like Apple, Nike, and Coca-Cola have mastered the art of simplifying their approach, shedding excess and aligning their actions with core values that ensure long-term impact. It’s not enough for a brand to be recognized; it must be loved.

Metrics That Matter: Beyond the Numbers

While traditional success metrics—engagement, conversions, shares—are important, they aren’t the whole picture. A brand’s true success lies in its ability to cut through the noise consistently and build momentum over time. The real challenge isn’t just creating a spike in engagement; it’s sustaining that growth. Brands that focus on creating meaningful, authentic connections and align marketing, product, and strategy into a cohesive journey are the ones that last.

The strongest brands are adaptive, future-ready, and built for sustainable growth. They don’t merely react to trends—they lead them. These brands build lasting recognition and fan loyalty by tapping into shared values and creating experiences people believe in, desire, and, most importantly, want to share. Brand systems must be flexible, able to evolve as markets change while maintaining a strong core identity.

The Pranav Piyush Perspective: How Do You Measure Brand?

A recent LinkedIn discussion by Pranav Piyush highlighted the challenge of measuring brand success. Piyush argues that the question of "how to measure brand" is often misunderstood. Brand, branding, and brand marketing are frequently conflated, making it difficult to define what’s being measured. He explains that brand is the perception of a product or business, branding is the process of shaping that perception, and brand marketing is the effort to improve that perception.

Piyush emphasizes that brand marketing’s success should be tied to tangible financial metrics like sales, revenue, or retention. However, it’s not enough to focus solely on awareness or other abstract metrics. Piyush suggests running experiments at a geo-level to correlate brand marketing efforts with sales growth, debunking the idea that brand impact is immeasurable.

This perspective aligns with Dixon Baxi’s approach—creating adaptive, flexible brand systems that are not just built for today, but for tomorrow.

The comments under Pranav Piyush's LinkedIn post provide valuable insights into measuring brand marketing:

1. Kaushik Bose emphasizes that brand metrics are complex, affected by seasonality and external factors, and shouldn't be treated like direct performance metrics.
2. Saurabh Parmar highlights the difficulty of correlating brand efforts with tangible business results due to numerous variables.
3. Charlie de Thibault argues that brand investments improve inbound traffic, conversions, and retention, all measurable against business metrics.
4. Patrick Stal stresses the need for intelligent, data-driven brand marketers who link brand marketing to long-term business outcomes.

These discussions underline the challenges and potential strategies for measuring brand marketing's effectiveness.

Here are additional notable insights from the comments under Pranav Piyush's LinkedIn post:

1. Ari Yablok stresses that brand marketing's impact is often long-term and may not immediately affect short-term metrics like clicks or conversions. Awareness-building today could convert into sales later.
2. Joshua Ingram discusses key metrics for measuring brand impact, including Lifetime Value (LTV), price sensitivity, and brand equity, but highlights the challenges in calculating these accurately.
3. Ayse Guvencer explains that enterprise software’s long buying cycles make immediate brand marketing results unrealistic, advocating for long-term strategies and hypotheses for impact measurement.
4. Patrick Stal calls for data-savvy brand marketers who connect brand marketing to critical business outcomes like customer acquisition cost (CAC), sales cycles, and employee retention.

These comments emphasize the complexity of measuring brand marketing, the importance of long-term thinking, and the need for intelligent data integration.

Breaking the "Sea of Sameness"

A key takeaway from both Dixon Baxi and Piyush’s insights is the importance of standing out in a crowded marketplace. Brands that break free from the "sea of sameness" are the ones that create lasting connections. It takes confidence and creativity to break away from conventional branding strategies and forge a unique identity that resonates deeply with people.

The strongest brands are those that dare to be different. They simplify their message, focus on shared values, and build meaningful relationships that transcend the product itself. Brands that focus on building fans—not just customers—are the ones that thrive in the long term.

The Dixon Baxi Approach: Building for Growth That Lasts

Dixon Baxi’s philosophy on branding revolves around building systems that are adaptable and future-ready. A brand should never be static—it must evolve and grow as its audience and market change. Successful brands, according to Dixon Baxi, are those that continually innovate, adapt, and challenge the status quo. Without innovation, a brand risks becoming stagnant and losing relevance.

This approach highlights the importance of aligning marketing, product development, and strategy into a cohesive brand journey. The danger of siloed thinking is real—brands that operate in silos miss the opportunity to create a seamless experience for their audience. The key is to build a brand system that empowers teams, streamlines processes, and fosters a friction-free, connected experience.

Growth as the Ultimate Measure of Success

In the end, the ultimate measure of a brand’s success is growth. This means growing audiences, deepening connections, and driving meaningful engagement. A brand that can evolve, adapt, and build momentum over time is one that will last.

But growth isn’t just about expanding customer numbers or increasing sales. It’s about creating an intelligent identity that is built for tomorrow. Brands that foster love, create fans, and build lasting recognition are the ones that will thrive in a rapidly changing world.

The article from MarTech explores strategies to measure the impact of brand marketing, such as media mix models (MMM), brand lift studies, and emerging metrics like share of search. It emphasizes combining traditional performance metrics with advanced methods, including geo-matched markets and audience holdouts, to assess the effectiveness of brand campaigns. Brand lift studies are essential for understanding shifts in awareness, perception, and purchase intent. The article also highlights early indicators like share of search and site traffic as predictive of long-term success.

Why Marketing and Sales Teams Should Invest in Unmeasurable Efforts

Marketing and sales teams often find themselves stuck in the endless loop of tracking, measuring, and proving ROI. Every dollar spent must be accounted for, and every campaign has to have a clear, measurable outcome. However, the pursuit of perfect attribution may be holding teams back from some of the most impactful—and memorable—marketing initiatives.

The truth is, not everything in marketing can be tracked or measured. And that’s okay.

At INBOUND this week, someone approached me and asked about last year’s purple hoodies: “Were they worth it?” And more importantly, “How did you measure their success?”

I smiled and told them that they had just given me all the proof I needed.

This person recognized Mac Reddin and Commsor 🦕 because of their purple hoodies and went to start a conversation about them. That’s the validation you need. The impact wasn’t in a number on a spreadsheet—it was in the personal connection sparked by something as simple as a hoodie.

Sometimes, you just know something is working. You can feel it in the way people engage with you, talk about your brand, or remember you from a previous event. These are the moments that matter, the ones that can’t always be measured but can have a lasting impact on your brand.

The ROI of the Unexpected

Take a moment to think about the ROI of Ben running around Boston in a dinosaur suit. How do you calculate the value of that?

Or what about the impact of creating incredible swag like the purple hoodies?

What’s the return on having fun as a team and making a memorable impression on your audience?

Yes, we could have tracked some aspects of our hoodie campaign—how many impressions our team’s posts about them got, how many mentions they received online, and so on. But that’s just a small piece of the puzzle.

The real, long-term value of initiatives like this is intangible. You can’t fully measure the ripple effects that a well-executed, fun campaign will have on your brand’s awareness and reputation. And that’s kind of the point.

The Trap of “Checkbox Marketing”

Far too many go-to-market (GTM) strategies never see the light of day because teams can’t figure out how they’re going to measure success. Without a clear ROI, they struggle to get budget or approval for bold, creative campaigns.

This relentless pursuit of perfect attribution kills countless innovative ideas before they even get off the ground.

It pushes marketing teams into what Brendan Hufford calls "Checkbox Marketing"—doing the same predictable, measurable things that every other team is doing just to check off boxes.

But is that really what great marketing is about? Is it just about following the same steps as everyone else, hoping for incremental results?

Bring Creativity and Fun Back to Your GTM

Marketing should be about more than just numbers—it should be about human connection, creativity, and building relationships with your audience in ways that aren’t always easy to quantify.

Think about the last time you saw a marketing campaign that really resonated with you. Was it because of the numbers behind it, or was it because it made you laugh, think, or feel something?

As marketers and sales teams, we need to bring some of that creativity and fun back into our GTM strategies. Not every idea will have a measurable ROI, but that doesn’t make it any less valuable.

So, what’s the takeaway here?

Spend 20% of your time and budget on activities that you know will have an impact, even if you can’t fully track or measure them. Trust that sometimes, the most important results are the ones you can’t quantify.

The ROI of Ben running around Boston in a dino suit? It’s priceless.

And it’s worth every penny.

Organic content is a prime example of sustained value over time—a single piece, carefully crafted and initially invested in, can deliver ongoing traffic and lead generation for years with minimal maintenance. This enduring impact mirrors the slow-burn benefits of branding, where the results aren’t immediately apparent but accumulate as a lasting resource.

Evaluating ROI on such content and branding efforts involves shifting away from a strictly transactional view. For content, predicting lifetime value after one month or even a quarter can be difficult; similarly, the influence of brand isn’t fully realized in short cycles. In both cases, the value often grows beyond initial projections as it continues to yield benefits over the long term.

To truly measure brand ROI, it’s useful to consider these elements:

1. Initial Investment vs. Long-term Lift: The value of a strong brand—like an evergreen content piece—may initially require high investment but should yield benefits over time that far surpass this upfront cost. Like SEO-driven content that requires periodic updates to stay relevant, brand strategies may need small, strategic inputs rather than complete overhauls.
2. Cumulative and Compounding Value: Brand (and high-performing content) build trust and recognition that compound, deepening customer relationships and attracting new audiences without the need for constant reinvestment. Thus, the ROI measurement for brand is best understood as cumulative rather than linear.
3. Maintenance vs. Replication: Refreshing a popular piece of content is akin to brand maintenance—it’s about keeping an asset relevant, not creating new versions. Similarly, nurturing a brand involves reinforcing its established position and adapting it to evolving audience expectations, rather than constantly reinventing it.
4. Lifetime Impact: Deciding when to stop counting impact is more philosophical than mathematical. In the context of brand and evergreen content, it’s fair to count value as long as the asset remains relevant and is actively contributing to business goals.

By viewing brand as an asset rather than a tactic, it becomes clear that the real measure of success lies not in immediate returns but in sustained impact. The ROI of a well-established brand or a well-crafted piece of content is that they are investments that continuously “pay dividends,” expanding reach, fostering loyalty, and driving growth in ways that are hard to replicate with short-term tactics.

Rethinking Brand Metrics in SaaS: Why Brand Health Deserves More Than 'Vanity' Status

In the fast-paced world of SaaS, metrics are king. But have we, perhaps, crowned the wrong ones? Many SaaS companies tightly define success by metrics that are quantifiable, trackable, and, most importantly, digitally measurable. However, this narrow approach may obscure a holistic understanding of brand health—creating a framework where crucial signs of success are overlooked, much like a doctor relying solely on vitals without understanding the patient's complete health story.

Imagine this: a doctor gauges a patient's health only through digital, "trackable" metrics—heart rate, blood pressure, and weight—but never asks how they feel or performs a physical exam. Many of us have experienced this disconnect: we feel unwell, but our vitals say otherwise, leading to frustration and even distrust. This analogy is surprisingly relevant to brand marketing, where fixation on specific metrics can yield misleading results.

The Problem with a Constrained Measurement Mindset

The prevailing measurement mindset in SaaS tends to restrict what qualifies as a "successful" marketing outcome, prioritizing short-term digital metrics over the broader view. While leads, MQLs, and impressive ROI figures are essential, they might not reveal the whole picture. Brand health issues can lurk beneath the surface, silently eroding long-term growth potential.

When we depend on tools like multi-touch attribution (MTA) to assess brand performance, we risk overlooking intangible elements—both positive and negative—that influence customer perceptions and loyalty. This selective focus on what’s measurable is akin to watching a movie on mute; we’re seeing part of the story, but key dimensions are missing.

Leadership's Challenge with "Vanity" Metrics

The root issue often lies in leadership's view of "vanity metrics." Too frequently, brand-driven metrics—such as social mentions, brand search, or incrementality studies—are dismissed as non-essential. Yet, in other industries, these measures are not only accepted but highly valued. By clinging exclusively to short-term metrics, we end up with a framework ill-suited for capturing the full impact of marketing.

It’s essential to expand beyond MTA tools, lead pipelines, and immediate ROI. This approach, while comfortable in its precision, limits our understanding of where marketing truly contributes. The reality is that long-term brand health plays out over time, not in quarterly reports.

Expanding the Brand Metrics That Matter

So, if MTA and pipeline reports don’t tell the full story, what does? A diverse suite of measurement approaches can yield a richer picture of brand health and marketing success:

1. Brand Tracking Studies
   Regular brand health tracking can reveal how your audience perceives your company, whether your brand promises resonate, and where gaps may exist in trust or credibility. Unlike immediate pipeline reports, brand tracking accumulates insights over time, showing shifts in perception.
2. Incrementality Studies
   Incrementality studies focus on determining what your marketing efforts bring to the table versus what might have happened organically. This nuanced view can isolate the true impact of campaigns and brand-building efforts, especially those focused on awareness.
3. Marketing Mix Modeling (MMM)
   An established approach in traditional industries, MMM helps quantify the effectiveness of different channels by analyzing the relationship between marketing spend and revenue over time. It’s particularly valuable in brand-building, where attribution can be complex.
4. Social Mentions and Brand Search Volume
   Observing brand search volume and social mentions can serve as a proxy for audience interest and brand awareness. These are often some of the first indicators of brand resonance and visibility.
5. Revenue and Sales Metrics
   Sales metrics might feel outside the realm of traditional brand marketing, but they reveal whether brand perceptions contribute to final purchase decisions. Monitoring sales metrics downstream can highlight whether the brand-building work successfully drives conversions and customer loyalty.
6. Simple Observational Studies
   Finally, don’t underestimate the power of observing customer interactions, online feedback, and testimonials. While these may seem anecdotal, they offer genuine insights into customer experiences and highlight recurring themes that quantitative data might miss.

A Long-Term View of Success

By combining these diverse metrics with short-term tools, SaaS marketers can start developing a more balanced picture of success. Business metrics (like ROI) and campaign metrics (like leads) are essential, but they are only part of the story. Real brand-building is long-term, manifesting in customer loyalty, organic growth, and a reputation that withstands competition over time. These aren’t trends we can measure quarterly; they emerge from consistent, intentional effort.

In the end, limiting ourselves to narrowly defined measurements restricts not just our understanding of brand health, but also our strategic approach. By embracing a broader spectrum of metrics, SaaS companies can capture both the immediate and the lasting impact of their marketing efforts—ensuring that their brands thrive not just in today's metrics but in tomorrow's market landscape.

The Risk of Missing the Long-Term Picture

Without a broader perspective, we risk neglecting actions that contribute to long-term success. Brand-building may lack the instant gratification of other marketing strategies, but it's the foundation of a sustainable, competitive edge. Embracing a wider range of metrics empowers SaaS companies to innovate and connect more deeply with customers—no longer at the mercy of metrics that only tell part of the story.

In summary, real success in SaaS marketing emerges from understanding brand health as a complex, multifaceted construct. Only then can we craft marketing strategies that balance the demands of today with the promise of tomorrow.

The following perspective is vital for businesses that want to leverage their brand as a strategic asset. While the focus on direct revenue-generating metrics is understandable, overlooking brand health is like driving without a dashboard—short-term wins may keep the engine running, but you miss the warning lights and long-term trajectory.

Why Measure Brand Health Now?

Many companies wait to think about brand health until they're actively investing in branding initiatives. But waiting until "brand work" begins is a missed opportunity. Brand metrics should be tracked consistently, regardless of whether a rebranding campaign or new strategy is in play. Here’s why:

1. Baseline Understanding: Measuring brand health before making major moves establishes a baseline. This helps track the effectiveness of future initiatives.
2. Market Positioning: Knowing where your brand stands today ensures that any efforts to grow market share or shift perception are rooted in reality.
3. Early Problem Detection: Without metrics, it's difficult to identify negative trends like declining awareness or unfavorable sentiment before they impact revenue.
4. Proactive Adaptation: Metrics provide early indicators of market shifts, customer preferences, or competitor moves, allowing you to adjust strategies in real time.

The Multifaceted Nature of Brand Health Metrics

Brand health is complex. It’s not a single score but a combination of metrics that provide insight into different aspects of brand performance. Here are the categories outlined, with examples of how they can be applied:

1. Mental Availability

• What It Measures: How top-of-mind your brand is when buyers think of a solution in your category.
• Metrics:
  • Brand-aware search volume.
  • Unaided and aided recall from surveys.
  • Category entry points (when and why people think of your brand).
• Why It Matters: Mental availability increases the likelihood of being considered at the moment of need, especially in competitive markets.

2. Consideration & Preference

• What It Measures: Your position among alternatives in the decision-making process.
• Metrics:
  • Brand consideration scores.
  • Ranking in vendor preference studies.
  • Purchase intent rates.
• Why It Matters: Even with high awareness, if your brand isn’t preferred, it will struggle to convert interest into action.

3. Digital Ecosystem Health

• What It Measures: The brand’s online visibility, engagement, and sentiment in digital channels.
• Metrics:
  • Share of voice (social media, PR).
  • Sentiment analysis from reviews and social platforms.
  • Content engagement rates.
• Why It Matters: Online activity often mirrors real-world reputation. Growing positive visibility helps sustain long-term brand equity.

4. Early Brand Response Indicators

• What It Measures: Subtle, early signs of brand shifts that indicate potential future buying.
• Metrics:
  • Changes in website traffic from brand search terms.
  • Increases in branded content interactions.
  • Trends in brand-aligned audience growth (e.g., LinkedIn followers).
• Why It Matters: These indicators may not directly translate to immediate sales but can show momentum in brand perception.

The 95:5 Rule in B2B

The 95:5 rule suggests that 95% of potential buyers are not actively in-market for your product at any given time. This makes brand health even more crucial in B2B because it determines how your brand is perceived by the 95% who might buy in the future. Long-term brand equity ensures you're on their radar when the time comes.

Overcoming Subjectivity

Brand metrics often feel subjective because they are not directly tied to revenue. But subjectivity doesn’t mean irrelevance. By combining qualitative data (e.g., surveys) with quantitative indicators (e.g., search volume, sentiment trends), you can create a more robust and actionable understanding of brand health.

Building a Brand Health Program

To embed brand health into your business processes:

1. Start Small: Choose a few high-priority metrics that align with your business goals.
2. Regular Tracking: Track these metrics quarterly or semi-annually to identify trends.
3. Collaborate Across Teams: Align marketing, sales, and leadership on the value of these metrics.
4. Invest in Research: Tools like customer surveys and third-party brand studies can add depth to your understanding.
5. Link to Business Outcomes: Tie brand health to performance metrics like pipeline growth, customer retention, and employee engagement to demonstrate its business value.

The Future of Brand Health

As B2B businesses grow more sophisticated, brand health measurement will become less optional and more foundational. A well-measured brand is not just a reflection of today’s market position—it’s a predictive tool that helps you shape tomorrow’s strategy.

Conclusion: Building Intelligent, Adaptive Brands for Tomorrow

To truly evaluate the success of a brand project, it’s essential to look beyond short-term metrics and focus on long-term impact. Successful brands are those that build meaningful relationships, stand out in a crowded market, and create systems that are adaptable and future-ready. They don’t just react to trends—they lead them. Brands that focus on empowering teams, streamlining processes, and aligning strategy with purpose are the ones that build loyalty, drive growth, and stand the test of time.

As both Dixon Baxi and Pranav Piyush emphasize, the challenge isn’t just building a brand—it’s creating one that lasts. The strongest brands don’t just create fans; they build lasting, emotional connections that transcend transactions and drive long-term success. In the end, growth—real, sustainable growth—is the truest measure of a brand’s success.