Why Values Are the Secret to Better Marketing ROI Across the Entire Funnel
Let’s be honest: marketing isn’t getting any easier.
If you’re a marketing leader right now, you’re juggling a lot—ROI targets, brand equity, performance campaigns, and maybe a strong urge to scream into a pillow. Meanwhile, your audience is splintered across dozens of platforms and seems allergic to anything that feels like a sales pitch.
So, what actually works?
That’s what Britt Gannon from Amazon Advertising and I talked about onstage at the Cannes Lions Leaders Summit. Because no matter how much demographic and psychographic data there is to sift through, marketers are still left using a lot of guesswork about what will get customers to say yes. Why? Because we're still trying to understand people based on age, income, or job titles—stuff that barely scratches the surface.
Instead, let’s focus on what matters most to people – what they value. That’s where the real power is.
First, Let’s Talk About the Funnel
You know the classic marketing funnel: awareness at the top, action at the bottom. It’s still useful. But what’s changed is how people move through it—and what actually gets them to take the next step.
We’ve all been trained to think in terms of demographics. “Target women aged 35–44.” Or “focus on Gen Z.” But here’s the thing: two people born the same year could want completely different things from a brand. And it turns out, that’s exactly what’s happening.
Demographics tell you WHAT people are. Not WHO they are. And definitely not HOW they decide what to buy.
Meet Valuegraphics: The Third Leg of the Stool
Think of a three-legged stool. You’ve got demographics to put a fence around a group of people and give you a way to focus your resources. Psychographics to reveal patterns in past behavior that might be useful. But the holy grail of marketing is to know what will make people say yes, and that’s about valuegraphics – the third leg of the three-legged stool of audience insights. Because people will always choose the option that matches their values. Always. Human brains are hard-wired this way.
Valuegraphics identify the specific shared values of your target audience, the factors that drive their decisions. We’ve mapped 56 core values across 180 countries – values like Family, Belonging, Health & Well-Being, Community, and Creativity. And we use this global database to pinpoint What Matters Most to a target audience; which values they share. From there, it’s dead simple to see how to trigger a purchase decision.
But wait, as they say, there’s more! When a brand aligns with a customer’s values, not only does it boost response, but we also see:
A 12% increase in what people are willing to pay
A 20% boost in trust
A 40% jump in engagement
Those are the kind of KPI’s that make both the CMO and the CFO smile, which is, as we all know, not something that happens every day.
Example: Patagonia vs. The North Face
Let’s say you’re selling outdoor gear. You might assume Patagonia and The North Face customers are pretty similar demographically. And even psychographically, they have things in common: they hike, they like nature, and they enjoy eating trail mix.
However, when we examined the customers of these two well-known brands through a valuegraphic lens, the story changed. Dramatically different values are driving people to choose one brand over the other. Launching campaigns with similar messages for both would be like giving the same Spotify playlist to a death metal fan and a jazz lover. Total miss.
This is a gross oversimplification of very complex data, but here’s a valuegraphic fact for each target audience.
Fans of The North Face over-index on the value of Creativity. This may help explain, anecdotally, why I see North Face logos all over the crews working on film sets. Patagonia fans, on the other hand, over-index on the value of Personal Responsibility. They like to feel like they are making things happen, and Patagonia has figured this out over the years through trial and error. It's why, I suspect, Patagonia offers micro-grants for individuals to fund environmental projects in their communities, instead of writing enormous checks themselves and taking the power of Personal Responsibility away from their customers.
That’s just one value for each brand from a complex valuegraphic profile and segmentation model. But it makes the point: once you know what people value, it’s easy to see what you should do. And demographics just won’t get you there.
Values Show Up in What People Do
Britt shared something smart and super valuable onstage, so I’m passing it along here. Amazon recently commissioned a study called "Beyond the Generational Divide," and it found that people are 2.3 times more connected by what they watch than by their age. Turns out, streaming habits say more about your values than your birth year.
Example: If you’re into Twitch and community-based livestreams, you probably care about Belonging. If you binge documentaries, you likely value Education or Personal Growth.
So yeah—behavior is a clue to what people value.
The secret is to weave values into the funnel from top to bottom. Too many brands disconnect performance marketing from brand marketing, but the magic happens when all touch points are aligned with What Matters Most to customers – their values.
Quick Stories About Marketing That Works
Mars Petcare tested different kinds of branding for their James Wellbeloved dog food line. They brought their brand and performance marketing teams together and focused on values. They didn’t just improve results—they cut their cost per acquisition by 57%.
Citizen Watches leaned into sustainability with a fully integrated brand and performance marketing approach for their Earth Month campaign, and saw a 52% bump in ad sales over the previous year.
That’s what happens when your message is consistent across the full funnel, and actually connects with values: what matters most to the people you need to inspire.
Why Isn’t Everyone Doing This?
Honestly? Because there is no readily available marketing automation to facilitate this. In fact, until valuegraphics came along, marketing teams didn’t have the tools to identify values and build values-driven segments at all, automation aside.
But that’s where we come in.
Amazon has a bazillion behavioral signals—what people watch, search for, and buy. These are like little breadcrumbs leading us back to the values that matter.
And we have the ability to pinpoint where the shared values of a brand's target audience intersect with those behavioral signals.
So it’s possible now to stop guessing. And start focusing full-funnel efforts on specific shared values that will build trust, loyalty, engagement, and compel consumers to take action. From the brand work at the top of the funnel to the performance efforts at the bottom, values can now be used to unify messages around What Matters Most to the people you need to inspire.
Final Thought
People want to feel seen. They want brands to get them. That won’t happen if we keep putting them in buckets based on age or income. And it won’t happen without connecting brand marketing and performance marketing with the undeniably powerful thread of shared values.
If you want better marketing results, start by asking a simple question: what matters most to our customers? In other words, what values drive the decisions they make?
Because when you answer that, everything else gets easy.
Want to know What Matters Most to the people you need to inspire?
Download free guides and resources.
Use the free Valueprint Finder to see how your values compare.
Find out why people call David “The Values Guy.”
Search the blog library for ways to put values to work for you.
