I sympathize with your dilemma Hitesh. The truth is that investment in brand does require a long-term view and not too many metrics will reflect change in the very short-term. (Even a Brand Track may not significantly move every quarter). Let’s not even go into the many different ways that companies calculate CAC. I am sure your company, like most, is loath to add a lumpy brand spend to CAC and probably puts it under a separate discretionary head. The best short-term metrics for brand spend are usually:

• Organic traffic
• Google trends

If you are doing a large-scale brand spend like TV advertising, these should show immediate upward movement. They will fall once you cut the spend, but at the end of an effective marketing campaign, will settle at higher levels than when you started. Smaller, targeted spends like events are more complex to measure. Try running tightly targeted awareness surveys before and after. My best advice would be to explore two sets of metrics:

• The traditional long-term brand measures
• Short-term ‘before and after’ metrics that are specific to the spend

Remember to agree on both of these with your management and document them! Be very sure of the audience you are tapping into for the metrics – make sure it is the right one. In my experience, often metrics fall apart because their base respondents are questionable.