Good morning, Marketer, we hope you were able to take a break this weekend.
Should you be investing in upper-funnel awareness and branding campaigns or performance advertising right now? That question is being hotly debated in a lot of places, including major earnings reports, as we noted last week.
Performance seems to be winning. By nature, it’s more immediate. Often, it’s more measurable. But what are companies overlooking when they pull back on top-of-funnel brand campaigns?
New consumer data from Survata makes a strong case for brand marketing and argues that trusted brands are winning during the pandemic. That survey and other evidence point to brand visibility being more important than ever — and that brands that continue to build awareness will emerge stronger.
This was the heart of a discussion on Friday’s Live with Search Engine Land, led by our own Greg Sterling.
Panelist Amy Bishop, owner of digital marketing agency Cultivative, said she’s been seeing lower CPMs for many of her clients’ higher funnel campaigns. “If you’re not running upper funnel, this might be the time to try because there is less competition and it’s cheaper [right now],” said Bishop. Watch the full episode on demand here.
Keep reading for a Soapbox on the current attention glut and more.
Ginny Marvin
Editor-In-Chief
