Beyond the Divide: How Modern Marketers Can Finally Unite Brand and Demand
In today's fractured marketing world, one truth is becoming harder to ignore: Separating brand and demand efforts is no longer a viable strategy. If you're still treating these as silos, you're already falling behind.
The old model — brand teams focused on awareness, and demand teams on clicks and conversions — is collapsing under the weight of more connected customer journeys. The solution? Uniting brand and demand marketing under one strategy, one vision and one team. Here's how the savviest brands are doing it and how you can too.
Organizational Alignment
For years, brands have operated with separate teams, KPIs and budgets for brand and demand. That fracture naturally leads to conflict: One side fights for emotional resonance, the other for immediate sales results.
Leading marketers are tearing down those walls. Instead of running disconnected campaigns, they're building fully integrated teams. Alignment on goals — engagement, loyalty, customer lifetime value — ensures that brand storytelling and performance marketing amplify each other instead of being at odds.
Where to start? Set shared KPIs across brand and demand. Merge reporting dashboards to showcase how brand awareness lifts demand generation and vice versa. Treat every marketing touchpoint as an opportunity to build emotional connections and drive action.
The Brand-Demand Split
Allocate 60% of your budget toward brand-building (upper funnel) and 40% toward performance marketing (lower funnel). This blend helps brands stay top of mind while also hitting short-term revenue targets.
That said, the exact ratio should flex based on your business model, category, growth stage and market dynamics. For instance, retailers launching in new regions might need a heavier brand awareness push to break through. A mature brand with strong recognition might shift demand higher seasonally. Refine your split using real-world performance data, marketing mix modeling and continual testing.
The Critical Role of Upper-Funnel Investment
It's tempting to pull back on branding efforts in tight economic times to chase short-term sales. But research shows that brands that continue to invest in awareness during downturns emerge stronger when the economy rebounds. Awareness fuels long-term growth. Without it, your lower-funnel campaigns become more expensive and less effective.
Protect your "always on" upper funnel presence. Build a flight plan that maintains activity in upper-funnel channels — including connected TV, YouTube and Spotify — even if budgets tighten. Flexible budgeting that prioritizes both top- and bottom-funnel efforts allows you to optimize without sacrificing brand equity.
Cross-channel strategies such as combining top-funnel awareness campaigns with lower-funnel search and retargeting naturally build the customer journey and drive performance lift.
Measurement Beyond Clicks
Marketers still overly rely on last-click attribution models that undervalue the impact of brand-building work. Savvier teams are going deeper: Using media mix modeling (MMM), incrementality testing and scenario planning to paint a fuller picture of brand contributions.
Real business outcomes such as aided brand awareness, relative search lift and customer acquisition costs over time tell a much richer story than click-through rates and cost-per-clicks ever could.
- Use MMM and incrementality testing to measure true impact across the funnel.
- Develop dashboards that track full-funnel KPIs — not just media metrics — and integrate business results.
- Communicate results to leadership using business language: Revenue lift, acquisition efficiency and lifetime value.
When you measure what matters, you earn internal buy-in to fund brand-building alongside demand-driving efforts.
A Strategic Testing Framework
Brands leading in this space don't guess. They test relentlessly. But smart testing isn't about throwing tactics against the wall. It’s about structured, strategic learning.
Whether it's piloting creative on Netflix ads, adjusting mid-funnel retargeting based on behavior signals or reallocating budget dynamically, agility is key.
A Testing Culture
- Set aside 10% of your monthly media budget for testing new channels, creative approaches or audience strategies.
- Start with a clear hypothesis for every test.
- Run small pilots first. Measure rigorously and scale the winners.
- Tie every test back to business outcomes, not vanity metrics.
Continuous testing fuels smarter optimization and long-term growth.
The Future Belongs to the Integrated
In an environment where every dollar must pull double duty, integrating brand and demand is no longer optional. It’s the growth formula for modern marketing organizations. When they move in sync, your marketing becomes exponentially more powerful.
Brands that unite emotional storytelling with performance rigor will not only survive periods of economic uncertainty but also they'll thrive when others falter.
About the Author
Meg Winters, Senior Account Manager, Client Experience, at Goodway Group combines her creative marketing ingenuity with strategic account management to deliver standout client results. With a knack for streamlining projects and an eye for detail, she focuses on maximizing the effectiveness of campaigns across digital media, advertising, and brand strategy. Known for her collaborative approach and passion for impactful work, Winters excels in fostering strong client relationships and driving holistic marketing success, making her a trusted partner for every project.
