The home services industry became addicted to trackable digital marketing, leading to inflated acquisition costs. Building a strong brand makes you the default choice, driving cheaper, high-intent branded searches and lowering overall customer acquisition costs over the long term.

By measuring success on 'last lead source,' the company was incentivized to pour money into paid search for product trials—a clear final touchpoint. This model blinded them to the higher value of other lead types and actively discouraged investment in demand creation activities that build brand and generate higher-quality leads.

Focusing on a low Cost Per Lead is a common mistake; cheap leads often fail to convert. The more meaningful metric is Customer Acquisition Cost—total marketing spend divided by actual new customers. This shifts focus from lead volume to profitable growth and true campaign effectiveness.

Brand campaigns reach the 95% of buyers not currently in-market. Instead of relying on vanity metrics, Square ties this investment to business outcomes by tracking the subsequent lift in organic traffic, which they've found converts better than paid channels.

Stop viewing brand as a top-of-funnel activity. For elite companies, brand isn't a precursor to selling; it is the selling. It creates inbound demand that bypasses traditional conversion tactics like search ads or affiliate marketing, making it the most powerful and sustainable growth engine.

While views and followers are useful signals, the key business indicator of a successful personal brand is its effect on core financial metrics. Specifically, a strong personal brand should lower the company's customer acquisition cost (CAC). This provides a tangible, high-level metric to gauge the brand's real-world business value.

To get buy-in from financial stakeholders, translate the 'soft' concept of brand love into hard metrics. Loved brands can command higher prices, maximize customer lifetime value, and reduce customer acquisition costs through organic advocacy, proving brand is a tangible asset.

Before investing in expensive brand tracking tools, marketers can get a directional sense of brand health by monitoring branded search volume. An increase in people searching for your brand name on Google or Amazon, especially after a top-of-funnel campaign, is a strong, low-cost indicator of growing awareness.

Data reveals a 'doom loop' of diminishing returns for companies over-relying on performance marketing. Brand investment acts as a multiplier, improving conversion and efficiency. Campaigns that combine brand and performance see a 90% higher ROI, while performance marketing for a weak brand yields a negative 40% ROI.