Introduction to Brand Attribution

Understand what are the learning outcomes you can expect from the guide & who it is built for.

“We’re not budgeting for brand spend right now.” 

“Good products sell themselves, we don’t need brand.”

The truth is, from the moment your company or product exists, you have a brand. 

But the catch is, everything mentioned above are just things that are happening. 

This is what we are going to solve for in this Foundation.

🤔 So, what outcomes can you expect from this Foundation?

 First, we will understand what are the 2 main OKRs of brand.

 Next, we will learn how to measure brand through short term, mid-term and long-term metrics.

 Lastly, we will learn the 3 golden rules to conduct a brand lift study.

This Foundation is for brand marketers, growth marketers and operators who have an OKR in branding.

Prioritizing learning while also managing a full time job is tough. It takes a lot of effort. Learning always tends to take a back seat when you have a million other things going on in your life.

But now that you're here, let's do it right. 

Don't think of this Foundation as a blog article or a YouTube video that you can consume passively. Sit with a pen and note pad. Read through every line & take notes. Lot of them. Pause to reflect how you would apply a particular concept to YOUR product.

Set up your work desk and sit there (We know, the temptation to be on your bed is real)

Put your phone on silent, switch it off for the next hour if possible. 

Grab your favourite cup of tea or coffee and settle in. 

Outcomes from the Foundation of Brand Attribution

Get an in-depth understanding of everything you'll learn in this Foundation & the outcomes you can expect.

Understanding the OKRs of Brand

Understand what are the 2 major OKRs of Brand

Any brand under the sun, no matter the industry or category, solve for 2 specific objectives:

This is the degree to which your brand is 

 and remembered by your target audience. It involves creating a 

 that makes the brand synonymous with certain products or services. High brand awareness fosters trust, creates associations, and builds brand equity. For instance, brands like Apple and Nike have achieved such high awareness that consumers often refer to themselves as "Apple people" or "Nike people," indicating a deep integration of the brand into their lifestyles and purchase habits

Say you want to order dinner for you and your friends. It is obvious that the first thing you will do is either open the Swiggy or Zomato app on your phone. Infact, the TOMA for these two apps is so high that it is even integrated in our vocabulary. "Let's Swiggy something", you must have used or heard someone else use this phrase. 

When I say cola, you'll automatically think of coca-cola.

If I say toothpaste, you'll think of Colgate.

The first brand that comes to mind when consumers think of a certain niche product or industry has achieved top of mind awareness. 

Not all consumers will think of the same brand but the results offer a clear indication of which companies are most popular within an industry.

 You can design a survey to ask a micro-cosm of your target audience to see if you are among their top 3 choices. A few examples:

Then you calculate what percentage of respondents mentioned your brand name in the top 3 (top of mind) or what percentage said the brand name in the top 5 (reaching the top of mind).

Finally, divide the number of people who mentioned your brand by the total number of people surveyed and multiply by 100 to express it as a percentage.

Then, you can compare it with competitors.

A direct and simple way to measure TOMA is to also 

Has your brand created consideration in your category or for the problem statement you are solving for your ICP? Do people keep coming back to you? To measure consideration you can track 

The simplest way to measure Monthly Active Users (MAU), is by counting the number of unique users who have interacted with your product within a month. But before you do that, there are a couple of things you should do to maintain a hygiene check:

An active user of a product like Uber may be someone who has taken over 8 rides in the last 30 days. Have a clear definition of MAU and how it will contribute to retention over a long period of time.

2. Calculate MAU exactly after every 30 days.

Set a day and time from which you will pull MAU data on a monthly basis and stick to that timeframe. It will help you accurately understand how small changes in the product are affecting your MAU.

3. Find a unique identifier for each user:

A unique identifier is something that allows you to identify every unique user in your product. Usually, growth folks use unique identifiers such as a user's email or username as their unique ID.

Monthly transactional user (MTU) refers to the number of users who have completed at least one transaction within a given month. This metric is used to measure the success of a product or service, as it indicates how many people are actively engaging with the product or service.

E.g. A customer who pays for their monthly subscription services with a debit card is an example of a Monthly Transactional User (MTU).

To measure preference we will track MTU as mentioned above and 

Average order frequency is a metric that indicates how often customers place orders from a particular business within a specified time period. 

In the next section, we will learn how 'brand perception' is measured!

What is 'brand awareness' & how do we measure it?

Understand the 3 ways 'brand awareness' is measured.

If I asked you to think about a brand that inspires you to do better, what is the first brand that comes into your mind? It will most likely be Nike. Nike wants to be perceived as a brand that inspires and motivates.

A major OKR of branding is to get your target audience to perceive you in a certain way. Now this largely depends on what your brand narrative is. 

But again, how do you 'measure' brand perception? Brand perception can be broken into two parts: Imagery statement (which is how the brand makes you 'feel') & the functional attribute (this could be price, quality, variety). For e.g. a brand like Zudio wants to be known for its price.

Create surveys to gather feedback from customers about their impressions of your brand. These surveys can include questions such as:

→ What comes to mind when you think of our brand?

→ How would you describe your recent experiences with our brand?

→ What feelings do you experience when you think of our brand?

→ How likely are you to recommend our brand to friends and family?

Use tools like Google Forms or SurveyMonkey to distribute these surveys to your email list or social media followers.

→ Track reviews on platforms like Google, Yelp, and other directories to understand customer feedback. Analyze the quantity of positive and negative reviews and respond promptly to feedback to manage and enhance brand perception

. This helps in identifying areas of strength and weakness and in making necessary improvements.

→ Use social listening tools such as Hootsuite or Brandwatch to monitor mentions of your brand on social media. Track comments, posts, and relevant hashtags to understand the sentiment around your brand

→ Respond to both positive and negative mentions to engage with your audience and address any concerns.

→ Monitor website traffic, bounce rates, and engagement metrics to gauge how customers interact with your brand online. Tools like Google Analytics can provide valuable insights into user behavior and site functionality

. Use this data to make informed decisions about improving your website and overall user experience.

→ Measure customer loyalty by asking customers how likely they are to recommend your brand to others on a scale of 0-10. This metric helps in understanding customer satisfaction and loyalty

→ A high NPS score indicates positive brand perception, while a low score may indicate areas for improvement.

With that we've completed this section. Consider this a V1 and if you have any recommendations, resources, or information you’d like to contribute, 

, and we’ll be happy to add. Alternatively, you could also email us on learn@growthx.club

In the next section of this Foundation, we will learn how to measure short-term, mid-term and long-term brand metrics at an organization.

What is 'brand perception' & how do we measure it?

Understand how 'brand perception' is measured.

Short term, mid term & long term metrics to measure brand

Brand Lift Study

To understand how to measure the impact your 'brand' has, the best way to look at it is through short term, mid-term and long term metrics:

When you launch a brand campaign, the immediate results you will observe is the baseline shift in your TOFU, i.e. you will see a significant movement in organic, e.g. organic app installs and app opens. 

There is a significant shift from the media side of things. Now this shift varies differently for companies at various stages. For a mature scaling company, organic may increase by only 4-7% post a brand campaign, but for an early scaling company it might increase even up till 400%.

These are some short term metrics that can be tracked to measure brand impact:

Understanding short-term metrics

Imagine you come across a Swiggy brand campaign mentioning how Swiggy is delivering electronic items such as PS5 in 10 minutes. It gets you excited, but you are not willing to buy it at the moment. Maybe it is because your salary is not credited yet.

When the right time comes, you'll remember this particular brand campaign. You will then go back to Swiggy and order the PS5. This is called the 

Focusing too much on short-term metrics can lead to "

" where employees or teams focus on optimizing short-term numbers rather than long-term goals. Measuring mid-term metrics on a quarterly basis helps avoid this pitfall by encouraging a more balanced approach to performance evaluation.

No performance marketing ad played a role in your decision, you just happened to remember that ad campaign. 

. This cannot be measured on a weekly level. 

Mid-term metrics that you should track when it comes to preference and consideration:

 imagery statement is something that should be tracked on a yearly basis.

 It takes a brand over a year to completely change its perception.

 was initially known as a women's brand. It took the brand a year to change its perception from that to an ecommerce brand for both men and women.

Summary of what we have covered so far ❤️

Alternatively, you could also email us on learn@growthx.club

In our final section, we will learn how to conduct a brand lift study the right way.

Understanding mid-term & long-term metrics

When you conduct a brand lift study on Meta, it is bound to show you positive results. This is simply because they want to sell their platform. To conduct a good BLS, you have to follow 3 simple rules.

1. Tightly define your test and control group

Before defining the test and control groups, it is crucial to identify the target audience for your brand lift study. This involves understanding the demographics, behaviors, and other relevant characteristics of the individuals you want to study.

: Age, gender, income level, education, occupation, etc.

: Purchase history, browsing behavior, engagement with similar brands, etc.

Once you have identified your target audience, you need to segment them into two distinct groups: the 

It consists of individuals who will be exposed to the brand campaign you are testing.

: Ensure the test group is representative of your target audience in terms of demographics.

: Ensure the test group exhibits similar behavioral characteristics to your target audience.

: Ideally, use randomization techniques to assign individuals to the test group to minimize bias.

: The test group should be large enough to provide statistically significant results but not so large that it becomes impractical or costly.

 consists of individuals who are not exposed to the advertising campaign but are otherwise similar to the test group.

To ensure the validity of your study, it is important that the test and control groups are as similar as possible in all aspects except for the exposure to the brand campaign.

: Use matching criteria such as age, gender, income level, and behavioral characteristics to ensure that both groups are comparable.

: If possible, use an RCT design where participants are randomly assigned to either the test or control group. This helps in minimizing selection bias and ensures that both groups are similar in all respects except for the treatment (ad exposure).

To maintain the integrity of your study, it is essential to

: Ensure that the test and control groups are in separate environments where there is minimal chance of cross-exposure to the advertising campaign.

: If surveys are used, ensure that the participants do not know whether they are part of the test or control group to avoid any bias in their responses.

2. Clearly define your metrics on TOFU, MOFU & BOFU.

Let's understand this with the example of Flipkart.

Once you have your metrics defined across the funnel, you need to decide what is your north star metric for the campaign. Are you solving for awareness? Or are you solving for conversions?

If your campaign is solving for brand conversion, measuring TOFU metrics would be the way to go and not number of impressions on your social media posts. 

We hope this guide has been full of value for you. Consider this a V1 and if you have any recommendations, resources, or information you’d like to contribute,