How Do I Measure the ROI on Brand Advertising When There's No Coupon Code or Tracking Link?

People have said that if you can't track it, you can't trust it — but the best advertising you'll ever run likely can’t be captured with something as simple as a click-through rate. There are other ways to measure whether it's working.

Our Tracking Obsession Leads Us Astray

Many business owners don't realize that coupon codes, tracking links, and cost-per-lead reports only count the people who were already about to buy.

So all they really do is measure your harvest, and tell you nothing about the planting and fertilizing.

Brand advertising is the planting. It's the work of becoming the name people think of first and feel best about when their need finally arrives. Only a tiny fraction of your market needs what you sell today. But a huge portion will need it someday. Brand advertising wins them before they start shopping.

Direct response metrics can't see any of that. They can only see the moment someone clicks, calls, or redeems. So you stare at the click report and conclude the brand campaign "isn't working" — while ignoring the fact that it's building an engine of future demand you have no coupon code for.

You cannot hold every ad immediately accountable and expect to build a relationship with your customer. (Relatedly, here’s an article on short-term pressure in advertising.) The moment you demand that every dollar prove itself this week, you kill the thing that would have made next year twice as easy.

The Numbers Tell the Story

So if you're not counting coupon codes, what do you count?

You watch to see if more people know your name, search for your name, and say your name without being prompted.

Start with this: how many people type your company name into Google each month? That number — your branded search volume — is one of the clearest footprints brand advertising leaves behind. When your ads are working, more people Google you by name. Not "plumber near me." Your name.

Then look at your top-line revenue over twelve and twenty-four months. Not week to week. Not compared to last Tuesday. The big picture. Is the line going up? Are you closing a higher percentage of the calls you get? Are customers less likely to haggle on price? These are the signs that people trust you before they ever pick up the phone. (And you want trust. Trust multiplies results.)

None of these show up in a click report. All of them show up in your bank account.

The Time Horizon Most Owners Get Wrong

Brand advertising compounds like interest. And most owners pull the plug right before it starts paying.

Here's the pattern. At ninety days you look at the numbers and think, "This isn't doing anything." At six months you wonder if you're wasting money. At eighteen months your competitors are staring at you wondering what happened — because now you're the name everyone calls first, your close rate is climbing, and your cost to win each new customer is dropping.

The data backs this up. Purely promotional advertising outperforms brand-building for the first five to six months. After that, the brand approach overtakes it and never looks back. By the end of the second year, the brand has built so much momentum that the competitors running nothing but coupons and Google Ads can't keep up.

This is why it’s really most important to stay patient. You’re just measuring too early if you do so at the 90-day mark. It’s a little like planting a fruit tree. Apples aren’t going to appear after three months, and brand advertising follows a similar timeline to, what’s the phrase? Bear fruit.

Check Your Campaign

It's necessary to check your advertising to see if it's working. Before you get started, you’ll need a baseline, so write down the following: your monthly branded search volume, your average revenue, your close rate, and your cost to acquire a new customer. These will be your numbers that show where you were when your campaign started.

Then, every month, check your leading indicators. Is branded search volume trending up? Is your website getting more direct traffic — people typing your address straight into the browser instead of clicking an ad?

Every quarter, check your lagging indicators. Revenue trend. Average ticket size. Close rate. The cost of acquiring a new customer. Though these all move rather slowly, they’ll be the ones that pay most of your bills.

The hardest part is to resist the urge to gut the campaign once you enter the trough between spending and harvesting. We’ve seen more than a few business owners start to panic around this moment. You’ve got money going out and you don’t have any results yet; worrying is a reasonable response. But you have to ignore it! 

That valley is the exact place where your competitors quit. Staying in it is what makes the payoff unfair.

Read the Right Instruments

It’s not a good idea to require your brand advertising to prove itself the way a coupon proves itself. A coupon measures one transaction, but a brand measures a thousand future ones.

It's best to read signs like these: whether more people know your name, trust your name, and whether they go for your name first when the need finally arrives. Numbers like these separate businesses that grow year after year from businesses that spend more every quarter just to stay in the same place. (Article: Brand Building Versus Sales Activation)

The company people think of first and feel best about when the need arises will always spend less to win the customer. That's not a theory. That's math. And now you know how to measure it.