The performance versus brand debate is often viewed as a budgeting question – 60:40 or 70:30? We assume that if we could agree on the ideal media investment split between brand and performance for our business, the problem would be solved.
Having worked in the Middle East region for almost two decades, especially in categories where trust is fundamental, I’ve come to see it differently. This isn’t about split ratios; it’s about designing a system in which performance marketing and brand awareness work together towards sustainable growth. This requires leaders to remain aware of other factors such as the diversity of products and target audiences.
Performance marketing plays a vital role in today’s environment. The UAE market moves quickly. Audiences are diverse and highly informed. Competition is intense. Consumers expect brands to connect with them in ways that are fast, relevant and contextual.
This is where it comes into play. It is an essential capability that improves discoverability and helps capture demand efficiently. It allows marketers to learn rapidly, test and optimise continuously, and automate actions that convert intent into sign-ups.
What happens when performance becomes the sole engine of growth?
The choice to rely solely on performance marketing usually happens when capturing demand is mistaken for creating it. Over time, performance-activity can become increasingly focused on the same audiences, the same messages and the same optimisation levers. While this can deliver short-term efficiency, it can also lead to rising costs, creative fatigue and incremental – rather than sustainable – growth.
Brand awareness is often treated as a soft or secondary metric. In practice, it is a meaningful driver. Strong, positive brand awareness builds familiarity, credibility and confidence, which reduce friction at the moment of choice. In competitive markets such as the UAE, where customers have multiple high-quality options, trust influences conversion behaviour.
The ‘messy middle’ further complicates the supposedly-linear marketing funnel – from awareness to conversion. Brand awareness can no longer be seen as a top of-the-funnel layer that sits above performance activity. The relationship is more integrated. When brands are clear, consistent and recognisable, performance marketing becomes more efficient. Messages then require less explanation, offers require less urgency, and conversion journeys feel more natural.
Brand awareness should help increase the effectiveness of performance, not compete with it. Instead of seeing performance and brand as competing forces, a more practical viewpoint would be to explore the untapped benefits of the way they complement each other.
Brand awareness: Building familiarity that fosters trust for long-term brand impact
Building trust takes time. Marketers should use brand awareness to humanise the way products speak to customers. They should also experiment with content formats, duration, storytelling style and customisation to ensure messages are relevant to the UAE’s highly diverse population
Relevant measures would include the wider measurement lens, such as brand health, consideration, retention, and audience growth over time.
Discoverability that fast-tracks conversion
This is the hard-working, day-to-day engine that includes creative testing, onboarding journey optimisation, audience learning and real-time channel improvements. Speed matters. Performance marketing answers immediate questions about what is working now and where value can be unlocked quickly.
When these two forces work in harmony, the conversation changes. Brand activity is no longer judged solely through short-term conversion metrics. Performance activity is no longer evaluated only on immediate efficiency. Marketing success is viewed through both immediate outcomes and longer term contribution.
Artificial intelligence (AI) has significantly enhanced the capabilities of performance marketing by accelerating optimisation and enabling personalisation at scale. Strong brands create clearer, more trusted signals through recognition and consistency, which AI-driven systems then amplify.
Finding the right balance in practice
It’s not about equal investment or rigid formulas; it’s about clarity of role and mutual reinforcement.
Brand awareness should make performance more effective: when brand awareness is strong, performance messaging can focus on relevance rather than reassurance. High reach activity builds familiarity, allowing always on performance channels to convert intent more efficiently.
Performance should sharpen brand understanding: performance data provides valuable insight into customer language, motivations and barriers. When used thoughtfully, these signals can inform broader storytelling, product positioning and communication clarity.
Customer experience connects the two: if brand messaging promises ease and confidence but the experience feels complex, then performance impact is diluted. Conversely, overly aggressive performance messaging may convert in the short term but needs to be accompanied by brand messaging that signals longer-term trust.
To deliver sustainable growth, we need to recognise that while performance marketing delivers answers, sustained brand awareness builds trust over time. Both are necessary and perform better together.
In a world optimised for immediacy, enduring growth belongs to brands that balance what converts now with what people will continue to choose over time.
By Asih Wulansari, Vice President, Marketing Strategy, Mashreq.
