The “Short-Term Performance” Trap: Why Must Businesses Shift to Brandformance on TikTok Immediately?
During periods of rising prices, business owners generally try to cut every cost that does not produce immediate revenue. Branding budgets are often the first casualty. According to a report by WARC (2023), 46% of advertisers are putting their money into short-term campaigns.
This approach may seem safe, but in reality it is destroying the profits of your business.
A report on The Long-Term Impact of Advertising revealed a striking fact: 58% of profit is overlooked when you focus only on short-term metrics. Running only performance advertisements is like trying to harvest rice without planting new seeds. The field will soon be depleted, and acquiring new customers will become increasingly expensive.
The solution is not to choose branding OR performance. The solution is Brandformance.
Brandformance: Challenging the Idea of Wasting Money
Many people mistakenly believe Brandformance is a term agencies invented to make things sound complicated. But at Height Media, we view it from a purely financial perspective.
Brandformance is a strategy that uses upper-funnel brand advertising to prepare the market, making lower-funnel performance advertising more effective and less expensive.
Why does it work?
The TikTok shopping journey is a loop. Customers rarely purchase the first time they see an advertisement. They need to:
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Know & Like (Branding): Through entertainment content, TopView and Reach.
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Trust & Buy (Performance): Through sales content and Shopping Ads.
When you run both in parallel, you create a mutually reinforcing ecosystem. TikTok's internal data has shown:
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Reduce Costs (CPA): Lower by 36%. Because customers already know you, they are more likely to purchase.
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Increase conversions: Results were 4.3 times higher.
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Improve Performance (ROAS): Significantly higher than running isolated campaigns.
Real-World Growth Drivers from Pioneering Brands
Do not just listen to theory; look at the results:
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Flip (Fintech): Instead of repeatedly pushing advertisements asking people to download the app, they first ran brand campaigns to build trust. The result? They reduced costs by 10.9% per new registration.
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Y.O.U Skincare: This brand used Brandformance during Mega Sale season. They used display advertising to establish a presence in customers' minds before the sale, then Shopping Ads to generate sales. The result: purchase intent increased by 5.5%.
3 Golden Rules for Implementing Brandformance
To keep the campaign coherent, follow these 3 principles:
1. Consistency Do not let brand advertisements say one thing while sales advertisements say another. The logo, colours, tone, mood and message must be consistent. Customers should recognise your brand immediately at every touchpoint.
2. Audience Distribution Strategy
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Upper Funnel (Branding): Target broadly to attract new users.
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Lower Funnel (Performance): Retarget people who watched brand videos to close sales. This is where the difference appears: you are selling to familiar audiences rather than strangers.
3. Holistic Measurement Do not judge a branding campaign by immediate order numbers. Assess how it helps reduce the performance campaign's CPA and by how much. Look at the overall picture.
Are You Ready to Escape the Short-Term Trap?
Switching to Brandformance requires the courage to invest in the future and skilful budget management. If you keep chasing quick-win campaigns, your business will remain stagnant while costs keep rising.
Height Media is here to help you design a sustainable growth roadmap. We provide all-in-one Brandformance solutions:
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Plan the optimal budget allocation.
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Create a connected content series spanning branding through to sales.
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Performance commitments based on practical metrics: CPA, ROAS and Brand Lift.
Invest intelligently for sustainable returns!
Contact Height Media experts today:
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Hotline: 0792.818.883
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Address: Duy Nguyên Building, 6/7 Lê Đức Thọ - Cầu Giấy - Hà Nội
