Growth & Strategy
Personas
SaaS & Startup
Time to ROI
Medium-term (3-6 months)
Three months into running Facebook ads for a B2B SaaS client, I was staring at beautiful brand awareness metrics. Impressions were through the roof, reach was impressive, and the client was getting mentioned in industry Slack channels. Everyone was happy.
Then I looked at the actual signup numbers. They were terrible.
We were spending thousands on "brand awareness" while the trial conversion rate stayed flat and revenue barely moved. The harsh reality? We were optimizing for vanity metrics while the business was starving for actual growth.
This experience taught me that most SaaS founders are measuring brand awareness completely wrong. They're tracking metrics that make them feel good but don't correlate with business outcomes. Meanwhile, the metrics that actually predict revenue growth are sitting right under their noses.
Here's what you'll learn from my expensive mistakes:
Why traditional brand awareness metrics are misleading for SaaS
The three metrics that actually predict revenue from brand efforts
How to track brand awareness without expensive tools
The framework I use to connect brand metrics to business outcomes
When to ignore brand awareness entirely and focus on distribution
This isn't about dismissing brand awareness—it's about measuring what matters for your business, not what looks good in reports.
Industry Reality
The brand awareness metrics everyone tracks
Walk into any SaaS marketing meeting, and you'll hear the same brand awareness metrics being discussed. It's like everyone read the same playbook and decided these were the numbers that matter:
Impressions and Reach: How many people saw your content across social media, ads, and content marketing
Social Media Mentions: Tracking brand mentions across Twitter, LinkedIn, and industry forums
Website Traffic: Overall visitors and unique users as a proxy for brand interest
Brand Search Volume: People searching for your company name or branded terms
Share of Voice: Your mention volume compared to competitors in industry conversations
Marketing agencies love these metrics because they're easy to improve and look impressive in reports. Spend more on ads, and impressions go up. Create controversy on LinkedIn, and mentions increase. Push more content, and traffic grows.
The problem? These metrics exist in a vacuum. They tell you about activity, not impact. You can have massive brand awareness and still struggle to convert prospects into paying customers.
Here's why this conventional approach fails SaaS companies: brand awareness without distribution is just expensive entertainment. Most SaaS founders spend months building "awareness" while their competitors are busy solving the same prospects' problems through direct outreach, SEO, or partnerships.
The real question isn't "How many people know about us?" It's "How many people who know about us actually become customers?" That's where traditional brand metrics fall apart.
Consider me as your business complice.
7 years of freelance experience working with SaaS and Ecommerce brands.
The wake-up call came from a B2B SaaS client in the project management space. They'd raised a Series A and decided it was time to "build the brand." The founder was convinced that brand awareness was the missing piece in their growth strategy.
We launched what looked like a textbook brand awareness campaign. LinkedIn thought leadership content, industry podcast sponsorships, and targeted display ads across relevant publications. Within 60 days, the metrics looked amazing:
Brand mention volume increased 300%
Website traffic grew 150%
Social media reach expanded to 50K+ professionals monthly
But here's what didn't change: trial signups. They stayed completely flat. Even worse, the quality of signups actually decreased. We were attracting people who were vaguely interested in project management tools but had no immediate buying intent.
The founder started asking tough questions: "Why are we spending $8,000 per month on brand awareness if it's not driving business results?" I didn't have a good answer.
That's when I realized we were measuring the wrong things. We were tracking vanity metrics that made us feel productive while ignoring the signals that actually predicted revenue growth. The problem wasn't our execution—it was our entire approach to measuring brand awareness.
I needed to find metrics that connected brand efforts to business outcomes. Otherwise, we were just throwing money at impressions and hoping something would stick.
Here's my playbook
What I ended up doing and the results.
After that expensive lesson, I developed what I call the "Brand-to-Revenue Framework." Instead of tracking traditional awareness metrics, I focused on three key indicators that actually correlated with SaaS growth:
1. Qualified Brand Traffic
Not all website traffic is created equal. I started tracking visitors who exhibited buying-intent behaviors: visiting pricing pages, downloading product demos, or engaging with multiple product-focused pages in a single session. This metric separated curious browsers from potential buyers.
The setup was simple: I created custom segments in Google Analytics based on page views and engagement patterns. A "qualified" visitor had to visit at least two product pages or spend more than 3 minutes on high-intent pages like pricing, features, or case studies.
2. Attribution-Weighted Conversions
Here's where it gets interesting. Instead of using last-click attribution, I implemented a system that tracked the complete customer journey. Many trials and signups had multiple touchpoints—they might discover the brand through content, return via direct search, and finally convert through a retargeting ad.
I used UTM parameters and customer surveys to map these journeys. The key insight: brand awareness campaigns rarely drove direct conversions, but they significantly influenced the conversion rates of other channels. A prospect who knew the brand was 3x more likely to convert from a cold email or sign up after finding the company through Google search.
3. Brand-Assisted Revenue
This was the game-changer. I started tracking revenue from customers who had any brand touchpoint in their journey, not just direct conversions from brand campaigns. This included prospects who:
Engaged with brand content before converting through sales outreach
Mentioned they'd heard of the company during sales calls
Converted faster than average (indicating prior familiarity)
To track this, I integrated HubSpot with our content engagement data and added a simple question to our trial signup form: "How did you first hear about us?" Combined with sales call notes, this gave us a complete picture of brand influence on revenue.
The results were eye-opening. While direct conversions from brand campaigns remained low, brand-assisted revenue accounted for 40% of our total MRR growth. Brand awareness wasn't driving immediate action, but it was making everything else more effective.
Revenue Attribution
Track how brand touchpoints influence the entire sales funnel—not just direct conversions
Behavior Segmentation
Separate curious visitors from qualified prospects using engagement patterns and page views
Multi-Touch Mapping
Map complete customer journeys to understand brand's role in complex B2B buying processes
Efficiency Multiplier
Measure how brand awareness improves conversion rates across all other marketing channels
The framework delivered results that traditional metrics couldn't show. Within 90 days of implementing the new measurement approach, we discovered that our brand efforts were actually working—just not in the way we expected.
Brand-assisted revenue grew 156% over six months, even though direct conversions from brand campaigns remained relatively low. More importantly, the cost per acquisition across all channels decreased by 34% as prospects became pre-warmed through brand touchpoints.
The most surprising finding: brand awareness shortened sales cycles by an average of 23 days. Prospects who had prior brand exposure required fewer sales touches and closed faster than completely cold prospects. This wasn't visible in traditional brand metrics but had massive impact on sales efficiency.
Perhaps most valuable was the insight into channel performance. We discovered that LinkedIn content—which showed mediocre engagement rates—was actually our highest-performing brand channel when measured by revenue influence. Meanwhile, display ads with impressive click-through rates contributed almost nothing to actual sales.
The framework also revealed timing patterns. Brand-assisted conversions peaked 14-21 days after initial brand exposure, giving us clear guidelines for retargeting windows and sales follow-up sequences. This allowed us to optimize our entire marketing stack around actual buying behavior, not vanity metrics.
What I've learned and the mistakes I've made.
Sharing so you don't make them.
Brand awareness is a multiplier, not a standalone channel. It doesn't drive direct conversions but makes every other marketing activity more effective. Measure it accordingly.
Attribution windows matter more than impression counts. B2B buying cycles are long. Track influence over 60-90 days, not just immediate conversions.
Qualification beats volume every time. 1,000 qualified visitors who match your ICP are worth more than 10,000 random impressions.
Sales feedback is your best brand metric. If prospects aren't mentioning your brand in sales calls, your awareness efforts aren't reaching the right people.
Channel performance isn't what it seems. High-engagement content might have low revenue impact, while "boring" channels might drive significant brand-assisted sales.
Speed matters more than scale. Brand awareness that shortens sales cycles is more valuable than awareness that increases top-of-funnel volume.
Context beats content. Where and when prospects encounter your brand matters more than what you're saying. Focus on placement over creative.
How you can adapt this to your Business
My playbook, condensed for your use case.
For your SaaS / Startup
For SaaS startups, implement these measurement approaches:
Track qualified traffic using product page engagement
Set up multi-touch attribution in your CRM
Add brand discovery questions to your signup flow
Monitor sales cycle length changes
For your Ecommerce store
For ecommerce stores, focus on these brand metrics:
Track return customer rates from brand campaigns
Monitor average order value by traffic source
Measure brand search volume growth
Track conversion rate improvements by channel