A paid social campaign on Instagram and Google Ads promoting a limited-time offer. Every click, conversion, and cost-per-acquisition is tracked. The goal is immediate sales and measurable ROI. That’s performance marketing.
A storytelling video campaign that’s full of emotion. It isn’t pushing a specific product; it’s creating an emotional connection to the brand. The goal is long-term brand equity, awareness, and loyalty. That’s brand marketing.
Many brands are moving towards a performance mindset in their approach to marketing strategy. They’re seeking agency partners that understand and can execute in the way performance marketing ecosystems require. But brand marketing is still the heart of many
companies.
We spoke with Leap Group’s co-founder and CMO, Alan Gilleo about goals, trade-offs, measurement, resource allocation, and strategy when it comes to performance and brand marketing.
Here’s what he had to say:
It depends on the maturity of the brand and their business goals.
Performance converts intent; brand creates it. You can’t scale one without the other for long. A lot of brands focus on micro-campaigns to get quick boosts in sales, move inventory, etc. and never commit to longer-term investments in their brand. It becomes increasingly hard to get more sales without some sort of promotion, discount, incentive because there is no brand loyalty built into the consumer’s mind.
I don’t think you should. I could argue there’s value if you’re trying to drive e-commerce volume, promote a time-sensitive offer, or gathering data to inform future creative or media performance, but even if you’re running quick hit or sustained performance campaigns, every company should have some level commitment to their brand building.
Yes. Spend weight should shift with market conditions, lifecycle stage, or seasonal opportunity.
A couple of examples:
Leap’s approach is to continuously rebalance based on diminishing return curves—once performance efficiency flattens, brand investment becomes the lever to expand audience potential.
No, what you need is an agency that understands how the two integrate.
A pure-performance shop can win on short-term metrics but miss emotional and creative resonance.
A pure-brand agency can win on emotion but miss conversions and leveraging that emotion connection into purchase.
Leap’s structure (Human(x), (matter), (amp), and (spark) intentionally combines both—data science, creative, media, and production under one roof—to close that gap.
We often step in after a brand has tried siloed partners and has realized efficiency without meaning doesn’t scale.
They both have a time and a place. They should be working together in unison to drive business outcomes. They are a continuous feedback loop, if you will.Â
Brand marketing builds desire and trust – loyalty.
Performance marketing captures and quantifies it and converts.
Analyzing the data from performance informs brand message refinement to maintain relevance. But then leaning back into the brand strength improves media efficiency and conversion over time. We have seen time and time again that well designed and positive creative and brand messaging outperforms within any media placement against a purely performance or transactional placement.
Performance =
ROI, revenue, leads,
measurable conversions.
Brand =
Awareness, storytelling, long-
term perception of the brand
Performance =
CPA, ROAS, LTV, CTR,
Conversions
Brand =
Reach, impressions, brand lift,
sentiment, SOV
Performance =
Data-driven, test variations,
kill losers and scale winners
Brand =
Big ideas and campaigns; highly
polished creative, emotional storytelling
Performance =
Agile, constant testing,
optimization in real-time
Brand =
Campaign-based, planned
months in advance
1.
Core Focus
Performance =
ROI, revenue, leads,
measurable conversions.
Brand =
Awareness, storytelling, long-
term perception of the brand
2.
Metrics Focus
Performance =
CPA, ROAS, LTV, CTR,
Conversions
Brand =
Reach, impressions, brand lift,
sentiment, SOV
3.
Approach to
Creative
Performance =
Data-driven, test variations,
kill losers and scale winners
Brand =
Big ideas and campaigns; highly
polished creative, emotional storytelling
4.
Speed &
Iteration Â
Performance =
Agile, constant testing,
optimization in real-time
Brand =
Campaign-based, planned
months in advance
The Performance Marketing team at Leap doesn’t just run ads or do organic activities for clients. We tie every dollar spent to measurable outcomes like leads, sales, or lifetime value. We are then constantly optimizing to maximize results
Bridges Brand and Media: Everyone becomes accountable to outcomes, not just craft.
Activates Strategy in All Work: From production to CRM, every group designs for performance.
Normalizes Collaboration: “Performance” becomes the common language between creative, media, and tech teams.
Empowers Leadership Conversations: Clients want business results. This gives your team a framework to translate creative output into revenue impact.
How we’ve put it into practice.
Over the years we’ve been able to create incredible outcomes for our clients with our balanced approach to performance and brand. Here are a few of our favorite examples:
Lunazul® Tequila is a handcrafted, estate-grown 100% Blue Weber agave spirit steeped in multi-generational tradition named “Tequila of the Year” at the International Wine & Spirit Competition.
When Lunazul came to Leap Group, they had a smooth-drinking tequila that was languishing on the bottom shelves of liquor stores. Previous marketing efforts had focused on functional attributes, but that wasn’t going to cut through the noise of a crowded market with ever-increasing knowledge of quality in a tequila.
We began with a campaign that integrated brand and performance marketing. Inspired by the wolf embossed on every bottle of Lunazul Tequila, we created a provocative brand mantra that was also a stirring call to action. We let the wolf become a metaphor for their own hunger for life and sense of adventure.
Plot Twist
Which turned out to be a problem
It was so successful the Lunazul estate couldn’t keep up with the demand and had to look elsewhere to source other agave for their tequila. So, in the meantime we focused purely on brand marketing to keep Lunazul top of mind. We developed the Lunazul heritage campaign and told microstudies of their legacy and exceptional ingredients.
And when Lunazul hit the shelves in full force again we moved to performance marketing, working with Travel Channel and Discovery Channel host and influencer Josh Gates, generating more than 366 million impressions, nearly 20,000 social engagements and more than 76,000 visits to the custom landing page and saw consumer consideration increase from 11.8% to 16.5%, 7.8X better than Meta’s own CPG benchmarks.
For more than 140 years, the non-profit American Kennel Club (AKC) has been the authority on all things dog-related, from maintaining the largest purebred dog registry in the world to promoting responsible dog ownership and advancing canine health. But as younger generations of pet parents continue to grow, AKC saw an opportunity to modernize its brand and engage Millennial and Gen Z dog owners, many of whom weren’t fully aware of the services and resources the organization provides.
As their Agency of Record, we developed national brand campaign that would not only raise brand awareness but also connect emotionally with today’s dog owners. The result was “Everything We Do, We Do for Dogs,” a message that serves as both a mission statement and a rallying cry for anyone who shares their life with a dog.
The campaign launched with the :60 spot, debuting during the AKC National Championship Dog Show on ABC and streaming platforms on New Year’s Day 2025. From there we created a holistic media strategy to lead audiences from awareness to consideration to conversion across
multiple verticals.
Marketing Performance
Year over year results
Cost Per Visit Decreased
Now Just $0.63
Revenue Increased
From Paid Campaigns
Return on
Ad Spend
Overall ROAS
Confluent Health operates a nationwide network of physical therapy clinics under 40+ regionally branded partners. Leap Group was engaged to modernize and unify digital performance across paid media, website infrastructure, and creative storytelling—while maintaining the localized autonomy essential to each franchise’s success.
Each partner brand needed a digital experience tailored to its local market—without sacrificing consistency or performance.
So to create overall brand affinity and recognition, while also getting customers in the door for each location, we created a multi-channel approach built to balance efficiency with scalability across 40+ unique regions.
Website Rebuild & UX Transformation
Leap Group redesigned Confluent Health’s partner websites with a focus on modularity, mobile
Patient Acquisition:
Paid Media Strategy
We restructured paid media accounts around a localized, scalable framework. Each region and clinic were treated as a standalone asset within a portfolio model—allowing for customized strategy at the location level, while sharing learning across the system
Brand Building:
YouTube & Meta Video
To complement lower-funnel performance media, we launched video campaigns across Metaand YouTube for partners including Foothills, Motion, ProActive, and TexPTS
Landing Page
+ UX Audit
To improve funnel efficiency, we conducted an in-depth audit of conversion pathways
Exceptional Growth Across All Metrics
All key performance indicators show strong year-over-year improvement
Kubota is a global leader in engineering and manufacturing, delivering innovative agricultural, construction, and industrial solutions that power progress and sustainability in more than 120 countries worldwide.
And what they needed was a major overhaul (along with some new construction) for their website. It had become an unorganized dumping ground of product information and was not categorized well. It needed to not only entice and emotionally connect with consumers, but also deliver information and drive sales.
Based on our findings from our PhD-led, in-house research team, we developed personas and journey maps to speak emotionally and tactically to six different audiences: Residential, Commercial, Hobbyists, Experienced Farmers, UTV Recreational, and Construction Workers. Then we removed any barriers to conversion and ensured all the content would satisfy the
specific needs of each different persona segments.
When we’d finished, we had created an award-winning website that attracted educated potential customers as it motivated them to move down the sales funnel and complete their Kubota purchase.
We also created a full suite of B2B and B2C materials, and well as trade show support and a digital campaign that promoted the new website with a full digital campaign, encompassing email, social, PR and YouTube channels, generating impressive results:
Performance marketing might win the moment, but brand marketing wins the market. When creativity and data work in harmony, brands stop chasing clicks and start building lasting connections. Leap Group’s mission is to make brands relevant by integrating creativity, technology, media, data, and strategy into experiences people actually want to be part of. And we do it through Logic + Magic. Logic is data, research, and analysis. Magic is emotion, intuition, and creativity. Relevance lives where the two collide, where every impression tells a story, and every story drives performance.