How to Measure Brand Awareness ROI in Social Media 

Brand awareness ROI—these three little words can strike fear into the heart of any marketer.

Why? Because measuring the return on investment for brand awareness campaigns on social media isn’t as straightforward as tracking clicks, conversions, or sales.

Awareness campaigns are meant to plant seeds, not harvest crops—but leadership (understandably) still wants to know if the spend is worthwhile.

So how do you measure ROI for something as intangible as brand awareness? And just as importantly, how do you explain those results in a way that keeps stakeholders happy?

In this guide, we’ll show you how to measure brand awareness ROI, improve it over time, and present your findings in a way that makes even the most skeptical stakeholder a believer.

Social media ROI vs brand awareness ROI

First, let’s get our terms straight.

Social media ROI measures the value gained from all social media efforts, including sales, customer service interactions, and lead generation.

It’s a combined measure of different types of campaigns, including paid social (e.g. advertising, influencer collabs) and organic social (e.g. brand awareness campaigns, employee-generated content).

Brand awareness ROI, on the other hand, narrows the focus to the value of campaigns that aim to get your brand out there—its reach, recognition, and resonance.

The distinction matters because awareness campaigns often drive indirect value.

They pave the way for other metrics to grow, like customer acquisition and lifetime value, which can take time to show up in your reports.

How to calculate brand awareness ROI on social media

The classic social media ROI formula tells you to subtract the cost of social media investment from the value it generated, divide the result by the total costs, and then multiply by 100:

(Value generated from social media – Costs of social media investment) / Costs)*100

For example, if your social media campaign generated $10,000 in value and cost $5,000, the formula would be:

((10,000−5,000)/5,000)∗100=100%

This means you earned a 100% ROI, effectively doubling your social media investment.

But does this formula work for measuring brand awareness?

In our view, not always.

Calculating ROI for awareness campaigns requires shifting your perspective from revenue to impact. Here’s a formula to help:

Brand Awareness ROI = Campaign Investment / Value of Awareness Outcomes​*100

But how do you define “value of awareness outcomes”? Consider these proxy metrics:

• Reach: How many people saw your content.
• Impressions: How often your content was displayed.
• Engagement rate: How actively people interacted with your posts.
• Website traffic from social media: Particularly new visitors.
• Share of voice: How often your brand is mentioned compared to competitors.

Let’s use a practical example to visualize how this works.

If your brand awareness campaign reached 500,000 users and led to a 10% increase in branded search queries (worth $10,000 in projected revenue) for a $5,000 spend, then your brand awareness ROI is 200%.

The formula, in this case, would be:

(500,000/5,000)*100=10,000

How to report brand awareness ROI to stakeholders

Stakeholders don’t want a firehose of metrics—they want a clear, compelling narrative that is grounded on solid data.

To achieve this, you can connect brand awareness efforts to tangible business goals while addressing the reality of long-term value. Here’s how:

1. Start with the why

Open your report with the campaign’s objective. Were you launching a new product? Expanding into a new market? Driving recognition in a specific audience?

For example: “Our goal was to increase awareness of [product] among [target audience] and position our brand as a leader in [category].”

2. Focus on strategic metrics

Present metrics that stakeholders can relate to business outcomes, such as:

• Reach and impressions: Highlight how many people saw your content and how often.
• Engagement metrics: Showcase actions like clicks, shares, and comments as indicators of interest.
• Brand lift: If available, include shifts in favorability, consideration, or intent based on pre and post-campaign studies.

For example: “The campaign reached 1.2 million unique users, with 75,000 engagements and a 20% lift in brand favorability among our target audience.”

3. Visualize ROI with context

Use data visualization to make your ROI more digestible. Pair ROI metrics with narratives to tie them to outcomes:

For example: “For every $1 spent, the campaign generated $3 in potential long-term revenue based on increases in branded search traffic and direct site visits.”

4. Tie awareness to the customer journey

Explain how awareness contributes to downstream metrics, like customer acquisition or sales.

Even if the full impact takes time, connecting the dots will build trust.

For example: “This campaign generated a 35% increase in new visitors to our site, and we’re tracking their path to conversion over the next quarter.”

5. Close with insights and recommendations

End your report by sharing lessons learned and how they’ll improve future efforts:

For example: “The campaign showed high engagement with video content. For our next campaign, we recommend allocating more budget to similar formats to maximize ROI.”

How to improve brand awareness ROI

To improve brand awareness ROI, you need to augment the value of your efforts while reducing costs.

However, this is surface-level advice, so here are a few actual tactics to bring it to life:

• Experiment with high-value content formats like short-form video, user-generated content, and micro/niche influencer collaborations.
• Optimize campaign spend – whether this means investing in AI, switching formats, or trying new platforms, shift budgets toward top performers and kill underperforming efforts early.
• Repurpose and redistribute content. Some accounts thrive on repurposed content, focusing on frequency and distribution rather than creation.

Other ways to measure brand awareness

ROI isn’t the only way to assess brand awareness success. Consider these approaches for a fuller picture:

Brand lift studies
Use surveys or platform tools (e.g. Facebook Brand Lift) to measure changes in key brand metrics like awareness, consideration, and intent.

Aided and unaided recall studies
If your ICPs can recall your brand (aided or unaided), that’s something you can measure to assess the impact of a brand awareness investment.

Share of voice (SOV)
Analyze how your brand’s mentions and engagement compare to competitors. A higher SOV often correlates with market leadership.

Customer sentiment analysis
Track how people are talking about your brand online. Sentiment analysis tools can measure whether your campaigns evoke positive, neutral, or negative responses.

First-party data
Use CRM tools to assess whether your awareness campaigns lead to increases in email signups, app downloads, or other actions tied to your owned channels.

Conclusion

Measuring brand awareness ROI on social media doesn’t have to be a wild goose chase.

By setting clear goals, using the right metrics, and presenting data in a way that connects to long-term value, you can make ROI work for you—not against you.

While the impact may not always show up in this quarter’s revenue, brand awareness efforts’ contribution to recognition, trust, and loyalty is invaluable.

And when you’re ready to take your brand awareness efforts to the next level, Sculpt is here to help. Partner with us to make your social media spend count!