Two jobs marketing does. Brand building creates lasting memories and preference among many people, and pays back slowly. Sales activation prompts people who are ready now to buy, and pays back quickly.
Example
Meera's ₹1,00,000 a month all goes on offers and retargeting, which is pure sales activation. Moving part of it into broad, consistent Reels that show her office-wear expertise to women who do not follow her yet would be brand building.
How you'll hear it
“The retargeting numbers look great, but we've stopped all brand building, so who will we retarget next year?”
What it helps you decide
How to split the budget between reaching future buyers and converting current ones, how long to wait before judging each, and which metrics to use for each. An all-activation budget can look efficient while the pool of future buyers shrinks. Binet and Field's work for the IPA found the best long-term results usually came from spending around 60% on brand and 40% on activation, with the right split varying by category.
Where people misread it
People judge brand spend by short-term ROAS, where it always loses, and cut it. Others read 60:40 as a fixed law; it was an average across many IPA cases, and the right split depends on the category and the business.
The story
Meera's all-activation month (illustrative)
Meera spends all ₹1,00,000 on offer ads and retargeting her followers. Clothes cost 30%, so every ₹1 of sales leaves ₹0.70 of gross profit.
| Sales from ads | ₹4,00,000 |
| Gross profit (70%) | ₹2,80,000 |
| Ad spend | −₹1,00,000 |
| Contribution after ads | ₹1,80,000 |
|---|
That looks efficient, and it is, this month. What it hides: almost all of these buyers already followed her. Her follower count has been flat for six months, so the pool she retargets is not growing, and the same people are seeing the same offers.
Meera moves ₹30,000 to brand building: broad Reels on office styling, same sound and mustard tag, shown to women in Pune who do not follow her. In the first month, those ads will show a lower ROAS than her retargeting. That is expected.
What to look at instead: for the brand budget, reach among new people, new followers and how many survey respondents think of her store; for the activation budget, ROAS and gross profit. Judge brand spend over quarters, not weeks.
All figures are illustrative. The 60:40 split is an average from the IPA's cases, not a rule for every business.
Don't confuse it with
- Brand awareness campaign: an objective setting in an ad platform; brand building is the longer-term job, whatever the setting.
- 95: 5 rule: explains why brand building matters, the share of buyers not in the market now.