I measure the success of all my campaigns strictly with the data I see from a direct-response basis. Often-times, I’ve found using managed placements on Google’s Display Network to generate excellent direct responses (sometimes even more so than Google’s Search Network). However, I always see PPC marketers claim that the Display Network is excellent for branding…

My questions is this: How would you measure the success of a brand building campaign using AdWords? – particularly with the Display Network. I suppose this doesn’t have to adhere strictly to AdWords, as this could be related to all media buying where conversions cannot be directly tracked…

I’ve asked how one would measure a brand building campaign to Perry Marshall’s associate (Matthew Gillogly) during a seminar. His answer ticked me off (something I blogged about here: blog link is down). He gave me a one sentence answer: “Brand building is voodoo, you’re not CocaCola.” But I’m not sold on this… I asked this question on behalf of a client who is a top ten company within their multibillion dollar industry..

I’d appreciate all input and/or links to resources that speaks on this issue.

Thank you very much.

I wrote an article on this subject a while ago that covers most of my thoughts: http://searchengineland.com/when-a-0001-conversion-rate-means-branding-success-44528

I hope that gets you started. If you have any other questions, just let me know.

I liked your message of taking a holistic view of the metrics to measure branding success. I found the conversion chart you capped off with particularly useful. This definitely gives me something to work with. Thank you Brad.