Marketers Must Move Beyond Campaign Metrics to Truly Grow Brands

Experts including THE ICONIC’s director of brand have argued that improving brand metrics is essential.

Traditional metrics like click-through rates or app downloads are insufficient for driving growth, they said, as they do not provide a useful measure of campaign outcomes for a brand.

Georgia Thomas, director of brand at THE ICONIC, explained at SXSW Sydney the “brand is the business." Her stance is that brands need to be evaluated as a whole, not just through the lens of individual campaigns.

Georgia emphasised the importance of "re-energising the brand from the inside out," suggesting that a brand’s journey must be central to its marketing strategy.

No matter how successful, a single campaign won’t define a brand; instead, it's the culmination of ongoing efforts that steadily build a brand's identity, recognition, and market position.

"It’s important to have a CMO who understands that the brand journey is more than just one campaign,” she added.

Love Media managing director, Rob Wall, who has worked with THE ICONIC on a recent brand campaign, agreed that marketers over-rely on traditional metrics of campaign success.

"Most of the industry works on an attribution model, and the world is taught these metrics are perfect," Rob said.

“Metrics like these are optimised on attention, but lasting impressions are far more important than the last impression.

"You have to know upfront how you’re measuring success. Metrics can have nothing to do with what you want."

The focus, Rob insisted, should be on creating campaigns that leave a lasting impact, even if they don’t result in immediate sales or clicks.

Alistair Hill, CEO and co-founder of On Device, firmly believes relying on click-through rates is futile.

"Research shows that brand metrics are crucial, and an outcome-focused approach, rather than an obsession with superficial metrics like click-through rates, is the only true path to growth,” he said.

Alistair advocated for brand strategies that shift the focus to "incrementality" – the ability to demonstrate growth over time.

Proving the worth of a brand’s long-term investment can be achieved by demonstrating the effect of not running with a proposed campaign.

As Georgia said, “With the right metrics, you can see what would have happened if the campaign hadn’t taken place at all.”

"Incrementality proves the worth of your project," Alistair reiterated.

This shift in focus, according to Rob, is critical for brands to ensure they’re not just making noise, but creating a lasting impact in the minds of consumers.

"We want attention, Rob said. “We’re focused on making a lasting impression, not just the last impression."