How to Increase Brand Awareness: Strategies, Tips, and Benefits
This blog was originally published on February 16, 2023, and later refreshed on October 8, 2026.
People buy from brands they have already heard of. If your name never comes to mind when a customer starts looking, every sale has to be won from scratch. Learning how to increase brand awareness means choosing the few channels where your audience already spends time, showing up there consistently, and measuring whether people remember you.
What Is Brand Awareness?
Brand awareness is how familiar your target audience is with your brand and how readily they connect it with what you sell. It usually works on two levels:
- Recognition: people know your name or logo when they see it, for example on a shelf, in an app store or in search results
- Recall: people think of you unprompted when they need something in your category
Recall is harder to earn and worth more, because it puts you on the shortlist before a buyer compares options.
Why Brand Awareness Matters
Awareness rarely produces a sale on its own, but it makes every other channel work harder.
It gets you onto the shortlist. Buyers often compare only the handful of brands they already know. Being one of them changes the odds before any ad runs.
It lifts performance marketing. Ads, emails and search listings from a familiar brand tend to get more clicks and more trust than the same message from an unknown one.
It earns branded search. As awareness grows, more people search for you by name. Those searches are high intent and usually cheap or free to win.
It supports pricing and loyalty. A known, trusted brand has more room to compete on value than on price alone.
How to Measure Brand Awareness
Awareness feels vague until you pick a few signals and track them over time. Useful ones include:
| Signal | Where to find it | What it tells you |
|---|---|---|
| Branded search volume | Google Search Console, Google Trends | How many people look for you by name |
| Direct traffic | Your analytics platform | How many people come straight to your site |
| Share of voice | Social listening and media monitoring tools | How often you are mentioned compared with competitors |
| Ad recall and awareness lift | Google Ads Brand Lift or platform equivalents | Whether a campaign changed what people remember |
| Mentions in AI answers | AI visibility tracking tools | Whether assistants name you for category questions |
| Survey responses | Customer and prospect surveys | Aided and unaided recall in your own words |
Google’s Brand Lift runs on Video and Demand Gen campaigns and measures ad recall, brand awareness and consideration through surveys, so it isolates the effect of a specific campaign. For the other signals, set a baseline before you start and compare month over month.
Brand Awareness Strategies That Work
The brands that grow awareness fastest on limited budgets usually pick one or two channels and commit, instead of spreading thin. Start with the audience, then choose from the strategies below.
Define Your Audience and Pick Your Channels
Write down who you want to reach, where they spend time online and offline, and which sources they trust. A B2B buyer may live on LinkedIn, podcasts and industry newsletters. A Gen Z app user may discover brands through TikTok and creators. Choose the channels that match, and plan to show up there consistently for months.
Keep Your Brand Identity Consistent
Awareness builds through repetition, and repetition only works if people recognize you each time. Use the same name, visual style, tone and core message across your site, social profiles, ads, app store listing and emails. A brand that looks different on every channel makes people start from zero each time.
Publish Helpful Content and Invest in SEO
Content that answers the questions your audience searches for keeps putting your name in front of new people long after it is published. Guides, tools, calculators and original data are especially shareable. Pair content with organic search work so it actually ranks.
Earn Media Coverage and Mentions
Press coverage, expert commentary, podcast appearances and industry awards put your brand in front of audiences that trust the outlet. Earned mentions also feed AI answers, which draw on third-party sources. Our PR guide covers how to build a media strategy, and our PR team runs campaigns for tech and mobile brands.
Work With Creators and Encourage UGC
Creators lend you their audience’s attention and trust. Several smaller creators with engaged niche followings often reach the right people more efficiently than one large name. Content made by real customers adds social proof you can reuse across channels. For depth, see our posts on how influencers increase brand awareness and user-generated content.
Partner With Complementary Brands
Co-marketing with a brand that serves the same audience without competing with you puts your name in front of people who are already likely buyers. Joint content, bundles, webinars and cross-promotions all work.
Show Up in Communities
Answer questions and share useful insight in the forums, subreddits, Slack and Discord groups and events where your audience gathers. Promotion-first posts get ignored or removed. Helpful contributions build a reputation that people remember.
Use Paid Media to Speed Things Up
Paid social, video and search buy reach immediately. Use them to put your best content in front of the right audience, and to protect your branded search terms from competitors. Our paid search strategy guide covers how search fits into an awareness plan.
Brand Awareness in AI Search
More people now ask AI assistants which brand, tool or app to choose. Those answers draw on what the web says about you: your own site, reviews, press coverage, comparison articles and community discussions.
To be named in those answers, make sure your category, products and differentiators are described clearly and consistently across your site and third-party profiles, and keep earning mentions from sources AI systems already cite. Track how often assistants mention you for your core category questions, alongside branded search. Our AEO and AI SEO team works on this layer of visibility.
Building Brand Awareness That Lasts
Awareness grows from consistent presence in the right places. Know your audience, pick a few channels, keep your identity recognizable, earn mentions from sources people trust, and measure recall over time. If you want help building that plan, our marketing strategy team can map it with you.
FAQs
Paid media in the channels your audience uses builds reach the fastest. Pair it with consistent branding so people remember what they saw. Organic content and PR take longer but keep working after spend stops.
Brand awareness is important because it helps build trust and credibility for a business. It can be the difference Focus on one or two channels where your audience already spends time. Publish helpful content, take part in relevant communities and partner with complementary brands. Small creators with engaged followings are often more affordable than large ones.
Track branded search volume, direct traffic and share of voice over time. Use surveys or Google Brand Lift to measure recall from specific campaigns. Set a baseline first so you can see change.
Paid campaigns can lift recall within weeks. Lasting awareness usually builds over months of consistent presence. Track signals monthly to see the trend.
Yes, AI assistants draw on what trusted sources say about your brand. Clear, consistent information and mentions in press and reviews improve your chances of being named. Track how often assistants mention you for category questions.
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