There are only 2 types of marketing.
1. Direct response
2. Image portraying/Branding

Direct response is when your goal as a marketer is to make a person who is exposed to a message act upon that message in the desired for you way – buy, call, sign up, vote, like, comment, etc. 

Image portraying or branding is generally trying to build a certain perception in certain people about you or the company, the products, etc. that will lead to more popularity, recognition, trust and so on.

Sometimes these 2 work together, sometimes they are used separately,  and sometimes one facilitates the other.

With that being said I believe that at least 95% of all marketing is direct response and there is a good reason for that. It’s just way more effective in general.

Even though one can say that there is no such thing as 100% direct response message and there is no such thing as 100% pure branding message because every direct response message leaves impression (branding points) and every branding message gets some sort of direct reaction (whether conscious or not).

Still direct response is number one.

You never buy anything without some sort of direct response mechanism, If you think about it, everything you buy or do is caused by direct marketing at some point.

Everything sale happens with direct response marketing implied whether you get something from Amazon, big retail outlet, the AppStore, boutique shop or a small stand at some street.

Pure perception based marketing can be only found in some TV ads, few print and online banners, billboards, logos, motos and packaging.  And even with these mediums we see more and more direct response practices.

Again, as I said, there is no 100% direct response or branding marketing campaign. They usually work great put together in the right balance. But if you are in doubt in any second which one should be your priority – the answer is 99% of the time – direct marketing.

Note… In the context of this article substituting the world marketing with the word advertising will make sense. However they are not exactly the same thing. One is part of the other.