How to Build Brand Recall in a Clickless World

Thanks to part 1, “SERP Visibility Decline: How To Grow Brand Awareness When Organic Traffic Stalls,” you already know that the introduction and adoption of LLM searches and AI overviews have an impact.

Navigating new internet technologies to successfully generate brand awareness can feel progressively difficult.

If you wish to thrive rather than simply survive, it’s time to make a strategic investment in building brand equity. 

The Enduring Power of Brand Equity

What is brand equity?

Brand equity is the social value of a brand; the collective thoughts, feelings, and attitudes that consumers hold about it.

This priceless, yet intangible, thing serves as a critical but underestimated driver of growth, influencing several key performance indicators (KPIs) and strategic approaches.

What business outcomes does brand equity drive?

The two important business outcomes that brand equity improves are price sensitivity and market share.

Lower price sensitivity and expand market share

Price sensitivity (or relative price) is a measure of the change in price that consumers will accept before jumping to a competitor. Brands with strong brand equity can charge higher prices for an otherwise identical product or service.

Market share represents the share of total purchases consumers make in your product category with you. Every business has growth goals, but growth is limited by the total size of your market. Market share is a measure of growth that maintains a perspective of your place among competitors. 

The following aspects of brand equity are all factors that influence price sensitivity and market share.  

Differentiation

In a busy category, a highly familiar brand stands out from the competition. You can understand brand differentiation as how different the brand is from others in the category in terms of actual product attributes and in terms of overall perceived quality, including psychological perceptions that consumers have about the brand in addition to its physical attributes.

Share of Voice (SOV)

A brand can estimate share of voice as the ratio of a brand's annual advertising expenditures compared to those for the entire industry. Increased share of voice correlates to better performance for a brand in both price sensitivity and market share.

Purchase loyalty

Purchase loyalty measures consumer willingness to make repeat purchases with your brand. Consumers who have positive perceptions of and experiences with a brand are more likely to make repeat purchases. This loyalty reduces customer acquisition costs (CAC) and creates stable and predictable revenue. Purchase loyalty directly affects market share.

Attitudinal loyalty

Attitudinal Loyalty means commitment to your brand based on emotional attachment or brand preference. This can stem from nostalgia, a strong personal preference, or a values-based alignment with the brand. That’s when you get true customer advocates who champion you wherever they are. Attitudinal Loyalty directly affects price sensitivity.

Brand trust

Brand trust is the customer expectation that your brand’s behavior and product reflects the promise you make, such as maintaining a high standard of quality and service. It gives consumers the feels, happy, trustworthy feelings.

Brand affect

Brand affect measures the likelihood your product or brand brings positive emotions to a consumer through use. Both brand affect and brand trust have influence on each type of loyalty.

Hedonic and utilitarian value

Brand equity contributes to both the emotional enjoyment (AKA hedonic value) and the functional performance (AKA utilitarian value) that customers get out of product or service. Highly creative and emotional ad campaigns can be crafted to lean into and amplify the hedonic value, creating lasting emotional connections.

Hedonic value exerts an influence over brand affect while utilitarian value influences both brand affect and brand trust.

How Brand Awareness Influences Purchase Decisions

• Drives purchase intent and confidence: A brand that is familiar creates confidence and a sense of security in consumers. This trust directly translates into an increased purchase intent, as well as an assumed lower risk when buying.

• Creates competitive preference in a crowded place: When people see endless options in a product category, they are more likely to lean toward and choose a brand they already know. Familiarity acts as a default decision making process. And a valuable one at that.

• Helps you enter the crucial consideration set: During the purchasing process, searchers typically narrow down their initial options to a consideration set—a select group of brands they will actively evaluate and compare before making a final decision. High brand awareness is essential for a brand to secure a coveted and competitive spot in the consideration set.

• Reduces resistance to ad messages and increases receptivity: If you know a brand well, consumers are more likely to receive their advertising messages. They are also more likely to pay attention, process the info they’re given, and be persuaded. As research indicates, "Subjects… showed an overwhelming preference for the high awareness brand, despite quality and price differences."

• Enhance retargeting efforts and ROI: An high level of brand awareness with consumers improves the efficacy and return on investment (ROI) of follow up retargeting campaigns. Consumers who already recognize a brand are far more likely to engage with and convert from retargeting ads.

Brand Awareness Outcomes to Aim For

Brand awareness is not a passive byproduct. It’s a deliberate and strategic plan designed to achieve two outcomes:

• Recognition (Aided recall): AKA a consumer’s ability to identify a brand when they see or hear it in the wild. When you’re feeling fancy, you can call this aided recall. Think of it this way: you see a logo or hear a jingle. You’ve encountered this before… right? That’s aided recall and it creates familiarity and confirms prior brand encounters.

• Recall (Unaided recall): AKA a consumer’s ability to randomly remember a specific brand without any cues. So if asked to name sodas you probably recall a specific brand or two. This means they’ve got strong, deeply ingrained memories and high mental availability in the minds of their customers and prospects. To get technical, we call this unaided recall. 

Both brand recognition and strong brand recall are critical in creating powerful and lasting brand associations. This familiarity is important in the consumer journey, as it impacts many key behaviors.

The Strategic Approach to Cultivating Brand Equity: Tactical Plays for Maximizing Brand Awareness Strategies

To achieve these outcomes and build lasting brand equity, a comprehensive, full-funnel advertising strategy is absolutely crucial. This strategy must have dedicated brand awareness ads across a diverse array of ad formats and digital channels, ensuring maximum reach and consistent brand exposure. 

• Display ads: Visually compelling banner ads strategically placed on a vast network of websites and mobile apps. These ads leverage creative imagery and concise messaging to capture attention.

• Native ads: Ads designed to blend seamlessly with the surrounding content of a site or platform. Their non-disruptive nature leads to higher engagement rates and a more positive user experience.

• Video ads: Highly engaging and dynamic video content distributed across various platforms, like social media, video-sharing sites, and publisher networks. Video is a strong format for storytelling and emotional connection.

• Connected TV (CTV) ads: Ads delivered directly through streaming services on smart TVs and connected devices. CTV provides a premium, big-screen viewing experience, reaching engaged and attentive audiences in their homes.

• Social ads: Highly targeted ad campaigns running across social platforms. These ads use demographic, interest-based, and behavioral targeting capabilities to reach precise audience segments.

• In-App ads: Advertisements thoughtfully integrated within mobile apps. These can take various forms, including banners, interstitial ads, or rewarded video ads, offering many engagement opportunities within the app ecosystem.

Beyond the choice of ad formats and channels, highly effective targeting is key. 

It is absolutely essential that brand awareness ads consistently reach the most relevant and receptive audiences, maximizing impact and minimizing wasted ad spend. 

This means using data insights to find ideal customer profiles (ICPs) and segment audiences based on demographics, interests, behaviors, and online activities.

However, your brand awareness strategies must seamlessly feed into your conversion strategies, too.

Measuring Brand Equity and Brand Awareness With Precision

Accurate measurement of the impact and ROI of brand building efforts is vital for ongoing optimization and strategic decision-making. 

Advanced cross-channel attribution models play a critical role. Attribution enables brands to understand how different marketing and ad touchpoints contribute to brand equity and overall growth.

Efficient models move beyond last-click attribution to provide a more holistic view of the customer journey. Key metrics to track include:

• Brand lift studies: Measuring the direct impact of campaigns on brand perception, ad recall, and purchase intent.

• Surveys: Assessing brand recognition, recall, associations, and attitudes among target audiences.

• Website traffic and direct searches: Analyzing increases in direct website visits and searches for the brand name.

• Social listening: Monitoring brand mentions, sentiment, and engagement across social media.

• Market share and sales data: Correlating brand awareness efforts with shifts in market dominance and revenue.

• Customer lifetime value (CLTV): Understanding how brand equity contributes to long-term customer relationships and profitability.

Get Started With AdRoll: Your Partner in Building Brand Equity

With AdRoll, you can run brand awareness campaigns across a variety of channels, including display, native, video, mobile, social, and CTV. Our AI-powered bidding engine does the heavy lifting, backed by 15+ years of industry, consumer, and historical performance data. Target your ideal audience, build brand equity, and convert prospects into customers with our powerful connected advertising platform. 

Last updated on October 24th, 2025.