Mindshare versus market share
In today’s increasingly fragmented media landscape, it’s vital to understand how upper-funnel marketing activities directly like brand lift studies connect to lower-funnel results.
Historically, teams have had to choose between tracking brand health or short term conversions, leaving a strategic gap between awareness and intent. Outcomes measurement solves this challenge by tracking exactly how media investments drive specific business objectives.
By connecting attitudinal brand lift and behavioral sales lift into a single framework, this approach charts the direct causality between consumer perception and real world purchase action. Instead of relying on delayed post mortem reports, it provides actionable, in flight insights to optimize campaigns in real time.
However, the relationship between consumer sentiment and commercial outcomes is rarely a straight line. It raises a vital question for every media planner and brand strategist: when KPIs diverge, where should the priority lie?
To get to the heart of the matter, we asked three Cint experts a big question: Would you rather have flat brand lift with high sales lift, or high brand lift with flat sales lift?
Building a foundation for growth beyond the short-term sales lift
For Marija Gaspar, Data Science Manager at Cint, there’s no one-size-fits-all answer to the question, as it depends on the brand in question and the specific objectives of any given campaign.
“Flat brand lift with high sales lift suggests strong short-term performance, which is fine for established brands like Coca-Cola where awareness is already saturated and the goal is simply incremental purchases,” she says. “On the other hand, high brand lift with flat sales lift can often be understood as a positive for newer, emerging brands.”
Gaspar’s reasoning for this is as follows. “Those kinds of results demonstrate that the campaign is building the awareness and consideration that will eventually lead to sales. For a mature brand, incremental sales matter more, but for newer brands, brand growth is a sign that sales will follow.”
Exploring the link between brand maturity and long-term growth, Gaspar cautions that focusing exclusively on sales lift can be shortsighted. She argues that to build a sustainable brand rather than a “fad,” awareness is essential for expanding the audience that will think of the brand later.
Ultimately, Gaspar notes, the strategy depends on whether the primary goal is “immediate profit or building something sustainable.”
Connecting attitudes to action
Olivia Arty — Senior Manager, Measurement — takes a similar stance to her Cint colleague when it comes to siding with one lift metric over another.
“Large brands are used to seeing low brand lift because there is such high market penetration. In an instance like that, I’d probably prefer to see higher sales lift because that signifies a halo effect. If I’m a newer brand attempting to compete with an established ‘Goliath,’ I’d love to see my brand awareness and consideration moving up and to the right. From there, I could use that to retarget someone with a coupon code and drive sales.”
Principal Product Manager Kate Crandall rounds things off with a hot take. “I’d rather have the latter: high brand lift with flat sales lift.”
Her rationale is simple. “Winning mindshare and awareness is the hardest victory to achieve. Iconic brands like Coke and Pepsi fight for 1% of market share because the long-term effects of doing so are worth millions upon millions.”
In Crandall’s estimation, filling the top of the funnel is both the hardest and most important job in advertising. “If you over-focus on the bottom without regard for the top, eventually there won’t be anything refilling the funnel,” she says. “It is easy to forget the top in today’s tech-equipped environment, but broadening the top is the only way to move a business forward long-term.”
“If you over-focus on the bottom without regard for the top, eventually there won’t be anything refilling the funnel,” she says. “It is easy to forget the top in today’s tech-equipped environment, but broadening the top is the only way to move a business forward long-term.”
Kate Crandall
Principal Product Manager Measurement, Cint
Ultimately, the choice between brand and sales lift isn’t about finding a “right” answer, but about finding the relevant answer for a brand’s specific lifecycle. By closing the loop between attitudinal shifts and real-world action, advertisers gain the clarity needed to navigate these strategic crossroads with confidence.
Balancing immediate results with long-term impact
Thinking about the benefits of an outcomes-led approach to measurement also means thinking about the viability of brand and sales lift both acting as optimization levers within campaigns.
How viable of an option is that, really, though?
For Crandall, it is possible for some brands, but those with higher market penetration may find it challenging to move both needles simultaneously.
To achieve this, brands may need to launch longer duration campaigns; you won’t see it in a one-month window. You also have to look at targeting. If you are only retargeting existing loyalists, you won’t drive new conversion rates.
You have to match the creative and media tactics to the desired indicator. Expecting “rocket ships to the moon” across the board is unrealistic, but with the right strategy, you can see positive impacts on both.
“It’s about being agile and understanding what the main KPI is for your brand,” says Arty. “Our customers want to be able to see exactly which media variables are driving brand lift, which are driving sales lift, and which are driving both.
Working with Cint means having access to deterministic data in real-time, that allows brands to optimize campaigns accordingly in order to maximize their media dollars.
While Gaspar acknowledges that brand and sales lift can act as optimization levers within campaigns, she is keen to stress that they operate on different parts of campaigns.
“Sales lift helps you optimize toward immediate outcomes like revenue, while brand lift helps optimize toward earlier signals like awareness and consideration that drive long-term performance,” she says.
The most effective approach, then, is to use them together.
“Brands can test different creatives or audiences and evaluate them on both metrics to see where positive perception and sales are coming from. It’s about balancing short-term results with long-term brand impact—not sacrificing future demand for immediate sales.”
Marija Gaspar
Data Science Manager, Cint
“Brands can test different creatives or audiences and evaluate them on both metrics to see where positive perception and sales are coming from,” notes Gaspar. “It’s about balancing short-term results with long-term brand impact—not sacrificing future demand for immediate sales.”
Read our latest outcomes measurement white paper
Want to know more about how to effectively implement outcomes measurement? Our latest white paper — Understanding the real-world impact of campaign outcomes data — is a comprehensive overview of the science of sales lift.
