Brand awareness: how to tell whether anyone remembers you
How many people know your shop exists, and how many think of you first. Hard to measure, easy to waste money on, and the reason people search for you by name.
- 010Brand Awareness
- The extent to which consumers recognise and remember a brand. Email marketing enhances brand awareness by consistently delivering branded content to subscribers, keeping the brand top-of-mind.
- Two kinds
- Recognition when they see you, recall when they need what you sell
- Free signal
- Searches for your brand name, in Google Search Console
- Built by
- Press, creators, packaging, word of mouth and paid reach
- Email's part
- Keeping recall alive among people who already know you
Recognition and recall are different jobs
Brand awareness gets talked about as one thing. It's two. Recognition is somebody seeing your packaging or your ad and knowing it's you. Recall is somebody needing what you sell and typing your name into Google, not the category.
Recall is the one that pays. A shopper who searches for you by name skips the comparison with everyone else. Recognition without recall is a lot of people who've heard of you buying from somebody else.
Measuring brand awareness without a survey budget
Big brands pay for awareness surveys. You probably don't need one. A few signals you already own will tell you whether more people know your name this year than last.
- Branded searches in Google Search Console, month on month
- Direct visits, people typing your address in, which is rough but free
- A how did you hear about us question after the first order
- Sign-ups from press, creators and word of mouth, tagged at the form
That survey question is zero-party data at its most useful. Watch the trend, not the level. A single month means nothing. A year of branded search climbing while ad spend stays flat means something.
What email can and can't do for brand awareness
Let's face it: email doesn't make strangers aware of you. It only reaches people who've already signed up. What it does is stop awareness decaying. Somebody who bought once and then heard nothing for a year has to rediscover you. Somebody who's had a useful email from you every few weeks doesn't.
There's a catch. It only works if the emails are worth opening. A run of discount codes builds recall for the discount, not the brand.
Catching the awareness that press and creators create
Awareness arrives in spikes: a magazine feature, a creator's post, a podcast mention. Each one fades within days, and whatever you capture while it's happening is what you keep. That's the thinking behind turning press coverage into sales, with a sign-up moment built for the visitor the coverage sends.
Digital PR earns the coverage. Email is what turns a reader who was impressed for a day into somebody who still remembers you next year.
Related terms
FAQs
Can email marketing build brand awareness?
Not among strangers, because email only reaches people who've signed up. It builds recall among people who already know you, so your name comes to mind before the category does when they need what you sell. That only works if the emails are worth opening. Discount after discount teaches them to remember the discount.
Does brand awareness show up in Klaviyo?
Indirectly. Klaviyo can't count the strangers who know your name. It can show sign-ups by source, if you tag them at the form, and how many people on the list buy again. More sign-ups arriving from direct visits and branded search is a fair sign that more people are looking for you by name.
Should a small brand spend money on brand awareness?
Not directly, at first. A small brand picks up awareness through press, creators, packaging and customers telling friends. Spend first on catching and keeping the attention you already get: a sign-up form, a welcome flow, a reason to come back. Buy reach once those are working.
Rather we explained it on your own account?
Bring your Klaviyo account to a growth consultation. We'll walk through what this means for your numbers, in plain English, and what we'd fix first.
Half an hour with Theo, our founder.
We're all about relationships built on trust, mutual respect and a shared vision for success. If that sounds like your vibe, let's make some waves together 🌊
