Why Awareness Campaigns Fuel Sales: Lessons from Marketing Science

Lauren Ridgley
3 days ago
5 min read

Many brands ask whether awareness campaigns are worth investing in when the primary goal is sales. The short answer is yes.

Why? Because new customers do not buy products they have never heard of.

This answer is not based on intuition alone. It is supported by decades of marketing science from respected researchers including Byron Sharp, Les Binet, Mark Ritson, and Andrew Tindall.

Their collective work consistently shows that awareness and performance campaigns are not competing strategies. They are complementary forces that work together to drive sustainable growth.

The Spark and Oxygen Analogy

Think of marketing like lighting a match.

Awareness is the spark. Performance is the oxygen.

You need both to create a flame that lasts.

Awareness campaigns expand the pool of people who recognize your brand, notice it on shelf, or pause when they see your ad.

When performance campaigns or promotions follow, those efforts work faster and more efficiently because the audience already has some familiarity with the brand.

Without awareness, performance campaigns are trying to convert strangers. With awareness, they are engaging people who already recognize and trust the brand at some level.

The 95/5 Rule: Why Most Buyers Aren’t Ready Today

Marketing science reveals a fundamental truth about consumer behavior: roughly 95 percent of potential buyers are not ready to purchase today, but they will be at some point in the future.

This insight, highlighted in the work of Les Binet and Peter Field, reframes how brands should think about investment.

If only five percent of the market is actively shopping at any given moment, a performance-only strategy focuses on a very small pool of immediate demand while ignoring the much larger group of future buyers.

Byron Sharp’s research in How Brands Grow reinforces this point. He found that growth comes primarily from acquiring light buyers. These are people who purchase a category infrequently but represent the largest share of potential customers. Before they can buy, they need to know the brand exists.

The Mathematics of Awareness and Penetration

Research shows that to grow market share, brand awareness must significantly exceed current market penetration. In many categories, awareness needs to be roughly 3.5 times higher than penetration to support growth.

For example, a brand aiming to grow from two percent to ten percent penetration often needs awareness closer to 35 percent. This reflects the reality that many people who are aware of a brand will not convert immediately, but will do so when the category need arises.

Mark Ritson frequently highlights this dynamic, noting that brands focused exclusively on performance marketing often hit growth ceilings. Once the pool of ready-to-buy consumers is exhausted, growth stalls unless awareness among future buyers is built.

The Timeline: Why Patience Pays Off

One of the most important lessons from marketing science is that awareness-driven sales growth typically appears over a six to eighteen-month window, depending on purchase frequency and category dynamics.

Binet and Field’s analysis of the IPA Effectiveness Awards database shows that campaigns combining brand-building and activation significantly outperform those focused on one approach alone. Their research suggests that an approximate 60/40 split between brand-building and activation is often optimal for established brands seeking growth.

This time lag has historically created tension for marketers. Branding efforts take time to show financial impact, which helps explain why leaders often face pressure before results fully materialize.

Real-World Evidence: When Awareness Drives Sales

The link between awareness and sales is not theoretical. Consider Hedepy, a European online therapy platform that plateaued after relying heavily on performance marketing. They had already captured most of the active demand in the category.

After launching their first brand-building TV campaign, brand awareness doubled from 13 percent to 26 percent within months. Sales increased by 50 percent shortly after, breaking through the growth ceiling.

This pattern appears across categories. Research shows that when brands stop advertising entirely, sales decline by an average of 16 percent after one year and by roughly 25 percent over longer periods.

When awareness erodes, future sales efforts become less effective.

The Consumer Psychology Behind Brand Preference

Byron Sharp’s work explains why awareness matters so deeply.

Consumers are more likely to buy from brands they recognize. Around 60 percent of people prefer familiar brands, and roughly half are more willing to try new products from brands they already know.

This preference is driven by cognitive ease. Recognized brands are easier to recall and evaluate, which simplifies decision-making.

Andrew Tindall’s work on memory structures shows that brands with strong mental availability capture a greater share of category purchases.

Without awareness, even superior products face an uphill battle. Consumers are being asked to choose an unfamiliar brand, which adds friction to the decision process.

Building Mental Availability for Future Purchases

Sharp’s research emphasizes that brands grow by being noticed and thought of by more people in more buying situations.

This mental availability is built through consistent, repeated exposure over time.

Mental availability operates on two levels:

Brand recall: whether consumers can think of your brand when the category need arises
Brand recognition: whether consumers notice and recognize your brand when they encounter it

Performance campaigns typically work with consumers who already have some level of mental availability.

Awareness campaigns create that foundation among future buyers.

Integrating Awareness and Performance Across the Funnel

Modern marketing science supports a full-funnel approach that integrates awareness and performance. These efforts are not budget competitors. They are complementary tools serving different roles at different stages of the customer journey.

As Mark Ritson often notes, awareness builds memorability and consideration, while performance drives action among consumers already in-market. The effectiveness comes from understanding how these efforts work together over time.

Improved measurement frameworks now allow brands to track delayed effects more accurately. Metrics such as mental market share can signal future sales growth well before revenue results appear.

Practical Implications for Brand Growth

The evidence is clear.

Brands seeking sustainable growth need both awareness and performance campaigns working together.

Remember these key takeaways:

Budget allocation matters. Research consistently favors meaningful investment in brand-building for growth-focused brands.
Timelines matter. Awareness-driven sales impact typically appears over six to eighteen months.
Measurement matters. Leading indicators of future performance should be tracked alongside short-term conversions.
Category dynamics matter. High-frequency categories often convert awareness to sales more quickly than low-frequency ones.

The conclusion is straightforward. If sales growth is the goal, awareness campaigns are not optional. They expand the future buyer pool, strengthen brand preference, and make every downstream marketing dollar more effective.

As Byron Sharp famously notes, you cannot harvest what you have not planted.

Awareness campaigns are the planting.

Performance campaigns are the harvest.

Sustainable growth requires both.

Looking for a media agency to help build an awareness campaign that fuels sales for your brand? Left Hand Agency offers specialized media expertise to help your brand grow. We'd love to connect and discuss your plans.