Top 5 awareness channels to grow branded search (2026)

The five channels that most reliably grow branded search, direct visits and brand lift are YouTube, Meta (Facebook and Instagram), TikTok, connected TV and digital audio. They put your name in front of people who aren’t searching yet, so more of them search for you, type in your web address, or recognise you when your conversion ads appear. Run them alongside your conversion campaigns, not instead of them, and judge them on branded search, direct sessions and lift studies, because last-click reports will always undersell them.

This guide covers why awareness makes conversion campaigns work harder, how to buy and measure each channel, and how to prove the effect without a big-brand budget.

Why awareness helps your conversion campaigns

Conversion campaigns mostly capture demand that already exists. Search ads only reach people already searching, and retargeting only reaches people who have already visited. Awareness grows the pool they draw from:

• More brand searches. People who have seen your ads search for your name, and branded clicks are usually the cheapest and highest-converting clicks you can buy.
• More direct and organic visits. Some people skip the ads and type your address, or click your organic listing.
• Better conversion ads. A name people recognise tends to get more clicks and more sales from the same conversion ads.
• Bigger retargeting audiences. Video viewers and engagers become warm audiences for your conversion campaigns.

The best-known evidence is the IPA’s research by Les Binet and Peter Field. Across hundreds of IPA effectiveness cases, the best long-term results came from a split of about 60% brand building and 40% sales activation, and a later IPA report found almost the same, 62:38. That’s an average for established brands judged over years, though, not a rule for every business. A smaller brand adding awareness for the first time usually starts with a smaller test budget, set up so the effect can be measured (see below).

The top 5 at a glance

1. YouTube

YouTube is the UK’s second most-watched video service, behind the BBC and ahead of ITV, according to Ofcom’s 2025 Media Nations research. People watched 39 minutes a day at home in 2024, 16 of them on the TV set, so a YouTube campaign now runs on the biggest screen in the house as well as on phones.

How to buy it:

• Video reach campaigns for awareness. Efficient reach gets the most reach for your budget across bumpers, skippable in-stream, in-feed and Shorts. Non-skippable reach uses 6-second bumpers and 15-second non-skippable ads when you need the whole message seen. Target frequency reaches the same people several times.
• Demand Gen to move people from awareness to consideration, with video and image ads across YouTube, Discover and Gmail.

Creative: show and say your brand name in the first few seconds, because many people skip after five. Make vertical versions for Shorts.

Measurement: YouTube has the best built-in tools of the five. Google’s Brand Lift surveys people who saw your ads and a control group who didn’t, measuring ad recall, awareness and consideration. Search Lift measures how much your YouTube ads increase searches for your brand, which is exactly the effect this guide is about. In the UK, both need at least $10,000 (US dollars) over 28 days, and Search Lift isn’t available to every account, so ask your Google rep.

2. Meta (Facebook and Instagram)

Meta reaches most UK adults at a lower cost per thousand impressions than TV, and Reels and Stories give you full-screen video on the phone.

How to buy it: use the Awareness objective, with reach or ad recall lift as the goal. Reach lets you cap how often each person sees your ads, which matters for awareness: you want lots of people to see you a few times, not a few people to see you constantly.

Creative: on Meta, the creative does much of the targeting, so a few clearly different ideas work better than one advert in many sizes. See Meta Andromeda: why creative is now your targeting. Put your logo and name early, and keep text clear of the app buttons with our social ad safe zone checker.

Measurement: Ads Manager shows estimated ad recall lift, which is a modelled estimate, not a survey of your audience, so treat it as a guide. Meta runs proper brand lift tests for eligible advertisers, usually through a Meta rep, with minimum budgets that depend on the country. Video viewers and engagers are also worth saving as audiences for your conversion campaigns.

3. TikTok

TikTok is where many under-35s discover brands, and content that looks native, often made with creators, usually beats polished adverts.

How to buy it:

• Reach campaigns in the normal auction for most budgets.
• Reach & Frequency, which reserves a set amount of reach at a fixed cost per thousand impressions, for launches and big moments. It isn’t available to every account, so check with TikTok.
• Spark Ads to run creators’ own posts as ads, which tend to feel less like advertising.

Creative: hook in the first second, and talk to camera. Our guide on how to market to Gen Z with paid media covers formats and the rules for under-18s.

Measurement: TikTok offers Brand Lift Studies for eligible campaigns, set up through a TikTok rep. For smaller budgets, watch branded search on Google and ask new customers how they heard about you.

4. Connected TV

Connected TV (CTV) means ads on streaming services and apps watched on smart TVs. Ofcom’s 2026 research found more people are watching broadcasters’ on-demand services than before, and CTV lets you buy that TV-screen time by audience and region, with budgets far below a traditional TV campaign. It’s bought through a demand-side platform as part of programmatic advertising.

Why it suits this goal: CTV ads usually can’t be clicked. People who want to find out more search for you or type your address on another device, so CTV shows up almost entirely as branded search and direct visits. That’s the effect you want, but it also means CTV will never look good in a last-click report.

Creative: 15 or 30 seconds, sound on, with your name said out loud and a simple web address on screen at the end. Some apps support interactive formats, but don’t rely on them.

Measurement: run CTV in some regions and not others, then compare branded search and direct sessions between the two (see the geo test below). Platforms such as StackAdapt also link CTV exposure to later site visits across devices, which is useful as a guide.

5. Digital audio and podcasts

Audio reaches people when other channels can’t: commuting, at the gym, cooking or working. Podcast host-read ads in particular can feel more like a recommendation than an advert.

How to buy it: through Spotify Advertising, which offers audio, video and podcast ads, or programmatically across music streaming and podcasts through a demand-side platform.

Creative: say your brand name at least twice, and use a web address that’s easy to remember and spell. If you can’t say your address in one breath, people won’t remember it.

Measurement: audio can’t be clicked either, so it also shows up as branded search and direct visits. Add a unique promo code, or a short web address that redirects to your site with UTM tags, so you can count the visits it sends. Bigger campaigns can use brand lift studies or a geo test.

What about LinkedIn, display and out-of-home?

• B2B brands: swap TikTok for LinkedIn. Video and thought leader ads to your target accounts build the familiarity that makes later sales conversations easier. See our LinkedIn ads service and what LinkedIn ads cost in the UK.
• Display and native: cheap reach, but on their own they rarely move branded search as much as video. We use them mainly to support video campaigns and for retargeting.
• Digital out-of-home: digital screens in stations, shopping centres and roadsides, bought programmatically. Useful for local launches and events, and measured by region.

How to measure branded search, direct traffic and brand lift

Branded search

• Google Search Console. Since November 2025, the Performance report has a branded queries filter that splits clicks and impressions into branded and non-branded searches. Google classifies the queries automatically, so check it has recognised your brand name and common misspellings. It isn’t available for sub-folder properties or sites with few impressions.
• Your brand search campaign. If your brand campaign shows for nearly every brand search, its impressions are a good daily measure of how many people search for you.
• Google Trends shows relative search interest by region, which helps with geo tests.

Always compare with the same weeks last year, so a seasonal rise isn’t mistaken for your campaign working.

Direct sessions

In Google Analytics 4, a session counts as Direct when the source is “(direct)” and the medium is “(none)” or “(not set)”. That includes people who typed your address, but also clicks from untagged emails, apps and messaging, so tag every link you control with UTM parameters. Our UTM builder makes that quick. Then a rise in Direct is far more likely to mean people remembered you. New users arriving direct to your homepage are a particularly useful signal.

Brand lift

Brand lift studies survey people who saw your ads and a control group who didn’t, and compare answers on ad recall, awareness and consideration. Google, Meta and TikTok all offer them, but they need meaningful budgets. With smaller budgets:

• Add a “How did you hear about us?” question to your checkout or enquiry form.
• Watch branded search and direct sessions each week against a baseline.
• Run a geo test.

Prove it with a geo test

This is the most reliable way to show what awareness adds, at almost any budget:

1. Pick matched regions, similar in size and past sales, and run the awareness campaign in only half of them.
2. Run it for long enough to see a change, usually at least four to six weeks.
3. Compare branded search, direct sessions and total sales in the test regions with the control regions, against the same period before the test.

An illustrative example: branded search impressions rise 18% in the test regions over the period and 4% in the control regions. The extra 14 points or so are a fair estimate of what the awareness campaign added. Our incrementality calculator helps with the maths, and our guide to lift tests explains the set-up. For bigger tests, Google’s free GeoX tool can plan the regions and read the result. With bigger budgets across many channels, marketing mix modelling estimates the effect of each channel over time.

Make awareness and conversion work together

• Protect the searches you create. Run a brand search campaign so competitors and resellers don’t take the people your awareness ads send to Google. In Performance Max, check how much of your spend goes on brand searches; see Performance Max best practices.
• Feed the funnel. Use video viewers and engagers as warm audiences in your conversion campaigns, alongside your first-party data.
• Keep the message joined up. The idea in your awareness ads should appear in your conversion ads too, so people recognise you at the moment they decide. See one unified media plan.
• Judge the whole, not each channel. Look at total revenue against total ad spend and new customers, not each channel’s own numbers. See MER vs ROAS vs POAS and why commercial alignment beats channel metrics.
• Time it before your peaks. Awareness takes time to turn into searches, so start weeks before your busiest season, not on the day. See our Black Friday plan.

Common mistakes

1. Judging awareness on last-click ROAS, then switching it off because it “doesn’t convert”.
2. Too little budget, too briefly, so nothing measurable changes.
3. Spreading a small budget across all five channels. Start with one or two and prove them first.
4. Brand names that appear too late, or not at all, in the first seconds of the ad.
5. Untagged links that inflate Direct, so it no longer measures anything.
6. No brand search campaign, so competitors capture the searches your ads created.
7. Changing everything at once, so nobody can tell what worked.

What Brightpace charges

We plan and run awareness alongside conversion campaigns across YouTube, Meta, TikTok, LinkedIn and programmatic, including connected TV, audio and digital out-of-home. Our fee is a monthly fee agreed up front, scaled to your ad spend and scope, no setup fee and a 30-day rolling contract. Ad spend is paid directly to the platforms, and programmatic media is billed at cost with no markup. See how we approach measurement.

FAQs

What are the best awareness channels for a small business?

Usually Meta and YouTube, because they work at modest budgets, reach most UK adults and let you save video viewers as audiences for your conversion ads. TikTok suits brands with a younger audience, and connected TV and audio work best once those are running well.

Does awareness advertising increase branded search?

It should. People who see your ads but aren’t ready to click often search for your name later. Google’s Search Lift study measures this directly for YouTube, and a geo test can measure it for any channel by comparing branded searches in regions with and without the ads.

How do I measure brand lift without a big budget?

Platform brand lift studies need meaningful budgets, so use a geo test instead: run the ads in some regions and not others, then compare branded search, direct sessions and sales. Add a “How did you hear about us?” question to your checkout or enquiry form as well.

How much should I spend on awareness versus conversion?

The IPA’s research found that established brands get the best long-term results from about 60% brand building and 40% activation. Smaller or newer brands usually start with a much smaller awareness budget, set up as a measured test, and increase it once it has proven it adds sales.

Is direct traffic a good measure of brand awareness?

It can be, once your links are tagged. GA4 counts any visit without a known source as Direct, including untagged emails and app links. Tag every link you control with UTM parameters, and a rise in direct visits, especially new users landing on your homepage, becomes a useful sign more people know your name.

In short

YouTube, Meta, TikTok, connected TV and digital audio are the five strongest channels for growing branded search, direct visits and brand lift. Run them alongside conversion campaigns, protect the searches they create with a brand search campaign, and feed their viewers into retargeting. Measure them on branded search, direct sessions and lift studies rather than last-click sales, and use a geo test to prove what they really add.

Sources

The research and platform documentation this guide is checked against. Last checked October 2026.

• Tuning into YouTube: UK’s media habits revealed, Ofcom
• Media Nations 2026, Ofcom
• The next chapter for ‘The Long and The Short of It’, IPA
• Comparing lift types, Google Ads Help
• About Search Lift budget recommendations, Google Ads Help
• Video reach campaigns, Google Ads Help
• Introducing the branded queries filter in Search Console, Google Search Central Blog
• Default channel group, Google Analytics Help
• About Reach & Frequency, TikTok Business Help Center
• Introduction to Meridian GeoX, Google for Developers
• Connected TV advertising, StackAdapt
• Spotify Advertising, Spotify

Want awareness that shows up in your sales, not just your reach figures? See how we run programmatic and paid social, or let’s chat.