Growth & Strategy
Personas
SaaS & Startup
Time to ROI
Medium-term (3-6 months)
Last month, I had a conversation with a SaaS founder who was celebrating a 200% increase in branded traffic. "We're finally building a brand!" he said, showing me his Google Analytics dashboard. The problem? His total revenue hadn't moved in three months.
This is the branded traffic trap that catches most founders. We get excited about people searching for our company name while ignoring the fundamental question: are we actually solving the distribution problem?
After working with dozens of SaaS and ecommerce clients, I've learned that the branded vs non-branded traffic debate misses the point entirely. It's like debating whether your front door or windows are more important while your store sits in an empty mall.
Here's what this playbook will teach you:
Why branded traffic growth can actually signal distribution failure
The hidden costs of optimizing for the wrong traffic metrics
How to build distribution that creates both branded and valuable non-branded traffic
My framework for measuring traffic quality over traffic labels
When branded traffic actually matters (hint: it's not when you think)
This isn't about choosing sides in the branded vs non-branded debate. It's about understanding what traffic actually moves your business forward. Let's dive into why most companies are measuring the wrong thing.
Industry Reality
What every marketer believes about traffic types
Walk into any marketing meeting and you'll hear the same conversation. "We need more branded traffic - it shows we're building brand awareness." "Non-branded traffic is expensive but it's how we get new customers." The industry has created this false dichotomy that keeps everyone focused on the wrong metrics.
Here's what conventional marketing wisdom tells you:
Branded traffic is gold - People searching for your company name means brand recognition is working
Non-branded traffic is acquisition - These are new potential customers finding you through product searches
You need both for growth - Balance brand building with performance marketing
Branded traffic converts better - Higher intent leads to better conversion rates
Track the ratio over time - Healthy businesses show increasing branded traffic percentage
This framework exists because it's easy to measure and makes intuitive sense. Marketing teams love clean categories, and executives love simple metrics they can track month-over-month.
But here's where this conventional wisdom falls apart: it assumes traffic type determines business value. In reality, I've seen companies with 80% branded traffic struggle to grow, while others with mostly "non-branded" traffic scale rapidly.
The problem isn't the traffic labels - it's that we're optimizing for categories instead of outcomes. When you focus on branded vs non-branded, you miss the real question: does this traffic represent people who have a problem your product solves?
This obsession with traffic types leads teams to make decisions that look good in reports but don't move the business forward. It's time to think differently about what traffic actually matters.
Consider me as your business complice.
7 years of freelance experience working with SaaS and Ecommerce brands.
The wake-up call came during a project with a B2B SaaS client who was convinced they had a "brand awareness problem." Their analytics showed 70% non-branded traffic, and they wanted to fix the "imbalance." The CEO kept asking: "Why aren't more people searching for us directly?"
Here's what their traffic actually looked like: Thousands of visitors from Google searching for their product category, spending 3+ minutes on site, downloading resources, but barely any conversions. Meanwhile, their "branded" traffic was mostly existing customers and employees checking the site.
I started digging into their actual distribution channels, and that's when I discovered the real problem. Most of their quality leads were coming from the founder's personal branding on LinkedIn. People would see his content, trust his expertise, then search for the company name when they were ready to evaluate solutions.
What Google Analytics labeled as "direct" or "branded" traffic was actually the final step in a much longer journey that started with content consumption. The founder's LinkedIn posts were doing the heavy lifting, but it was invisible in traditional traffic reporting.
This revelation made me question everything about how we measure traffic quality. Here was a company with strong "non-branded" traffic that wasn't converting, and "branded" traffic that was really just the end result of a completely different distribution strategy.
The breakthrough came when I stopped looking at traffic labels and started tracking the actual customer journey. I mapped where paying customers first discovered the company, what content they consumed, and how long the evaluation process took. The results were eye-opening.
Most valuable customers had multiple touchpoints over weeks or months before converting. They might find the company through a LinkedIn post, read three blog articles, join a webinar, and then finally search for the company name. Traditional analytics would label that final search as "branded" traffic, completely missing the real distribution engine.
This experience taught me that the branded vs non-branded debate is a distraction from building actual distribution. The question isn't what to call your traffic - it's whether you have systems that consistently put your solution in front of people with the problem you solve.
Here's my playbook
What I ended up doing and the results.
Once I understood that traffic labels were masking the real distribution story, I developed a completely different approach for this client and others. Instead of optimizing for branded vs non-branded traffic, I focused on building what I call "distribution attribution" - tracking the full journey from first contact to customer.
Here's the framework I implemented:
Step 1: Map Real Customer Journeys
I interviewed the client's best customers to understand their actual discovery process. Not what analytics showed, but what they remembered about finding the company. The pattern was clear: valuable customers had multiple touchpoints across different channels before converting.
Step 2: Build Content-First Distribution
Based on the customer interviews, I shifted the strategy from chasing traffic types to creating content that solved real problems. The founder's LinkedIn personal branding was already working, so we systematized it. Instead of hoping for branded searches, we focused on being helpful where potential customers were already looking for solutions.
Step 3: Track Distribution, Not Traffic Types
I set up tracking that followed the customer journey across channels. Using UTM parameters, customer surveys, and attribution modeling, we could see which content pieces and channels actually contributed to revenue, regardless of how they appeared in Google Analytics.
Step 4: Optimize for Quality, Not Labels
Instead of trying to increase branded traffic percentage, we optimized for leading indicators: email signups from valuable content, demo requests from qualified prospects, and actual trial-to-paid conversions. The traffic labels became irrelevant.
The most important insight was that great distribution creates both valuable non-branded and branded traffic naturally. When you solve real problems publicly, people find you through search and then seek you out directly. You don't choose between branded and non-branded - you build systems that generate both.
For the ecommerce clients, the approach was similar but focused on product discovery. Instead of optimizing for "brand awareness," we built distribution around helping customers solve problems with their purchase decisions. This created organic traffic, social shares, and eventually, people searching for the brand directly.
The key was understanding that traffic type is an output, not an input. You can't directly create branded traffic by running brand campaigns. You create it by being consistently helpful, valuable, and visible to people with problems you can solve.
Customer Journey
Real customers have 7-12 touchpoints before converting. Track the full journey, not just the last click that brought them to your site.
Attribution Setup
Use UTM parameters, customer surveys, and first-party data to understand which channels actually drive revenue, not just traffic.
Content Distribution
Build helpful content where your customers already look for solutions. Great distribution creates both branded and non-branded traffic naturally.
Quality Metrics
Focus on trial signups, demo requests, and revenue attribution instead of traffic type percentages or brand search volume.
The results of shifting from traffic-type optimization to distribution building were dramatic across multiple client projects. For the B2B SaaS client, we saw a 40% increase in qualified trial signups within three months, even though total branded traffic percentage actually decreased.
What happened was that better distribution brought in more qualified prospects who were ready to evaluate solutions. These prospects often found the company through educational content, consumed multiple resources, and then searched for the company name to sign up for a trial.
The most interesting result was how the quality of both branded and non-branded traffic improved simultaneously. When you build distribution around solving real problems, you attract people with buying intent regardless of how they're categorized in analytics.
For ecommerce clients using this approach, we typically see 60-80% increases in organic traffic that actually converts, plus natural growth in brand searches as customers recommend products to others. The branded traffic comes as a result of good distribution, not as a goal in itself.
The timeline for seeing results is usually 3-6 months, which aligns with how long it takes to build consistent content distribution and for customers to move through longer evaluation cycles. The key is measuring leading indicators like content engagement and qualified inquiries rather than waiting for traffic type ratios to shift.
What I've learned and the mistakes I've made.
Sharing so you don't make them.
After running this approach across dozens of client projects, here are the most important lessons about branded vs non-branded traffic:
Traffic labels don't predict business value - I've seen 90% non-branded traffic convert better than 70% branded traffic when the non-branded traffic comes from problem-aware prospects
Good distribution creates both traffic types - When you consistently solve problems publicly, people both discover you organically and seek you out directly
Attribution is broken by default - Most "branded" traffic is actually the final step in a multi-touch journey that started elsewhere
Content-first distribution works across industries - Whether B2B SaaS or ecommerce, being helpful where customers look for solutions builds sustainable traffic growth
Quality beats quantity every time - 100 visitors with buying intent outperform 1000 visitors who are just browsing
Personal branding drives business results - Founder-led content often provides the best ROI for distribution, regardless of traffic labels
Long-term thinking wins - Building distribution takes 3-6 months but creates compounding returns that paid advertising can't match
The biggest mistake I see companies make is optimizing campaigns to increase branded traffic percentage. This backwards approach leads to brand campaigns that generate awareness but not customers. Focus on building distribution that solves real problems, and the traffic metrics will follow naturally.
If I were starting over, I'd skip traffic type analysis entirely for the first year and focus purely on customer journey mapping and content distribution. The insights are more actionable and the results more predictable.
How you can adapt this to your Business
My playbook, condensed for your use case.
For your SaaS / Startup
For SaaS startups:
Track trial-to-paid conversion by traffic source, not traffic type
Build founder-led content around customer problems
Use customer interviews to map real discovery journeys
Focus on qualified demo requests over total branded traffic
For your Ecommerce store
For ecommerce stores:
Optimize for revenue per visitor by traffic source
Create product education content that drives organic discovery
Track customer lifetime value by first-touch attribution
Build distribution through helpful product recommendations