From awareness to action: how effectively do the world’s top brands convert?

This week marks the launch of YouGov's Best Brand Rankings 2026 – our annual report highlighting the brands that have achieved the highest Index scores based on over six million consumer interviews across 28 global markets.

To accompany this report, we take a deeper look at how the top 10 global brands perform across the full purchase funnel – from awareness to action.

Gaining insights into a brand’s ability to guide consumers through different stages of the purchase funnel is a crucial part of understanding marketing performance. This understanding provides valuable information about the brand's competitive standing in the industry and enables an assessment of its effectiveness in translating consumer awareness into actual sales.

We look at the whole of 2025, to uncover how successful they are at converting consumers, from Awareness to Consideration and finally Purchase Intent.

Stage 1: Awareness

At the top of the purchase funnel is Awareness, measuring if consumers have ever heard of a brand. As you’d expect, all of these major companies have high rates of Awareness among adults around the world with WhatsApp at 84.9%, Samsung at 86.3%, YouTube at 89.8%, Google at 85.9%, adidas at 85.8%, Nike at 87.2%, Netflix at 83.9%, Dettol at 71.2%, Colgate at 75.1% and Toyota at 84.6%.

Stage 2: Consideration

When it comes to the brands consumers would consider visiting, using, or purchasing, YouTube leads the pack with a 56.4% Consideration score. WhatsApp and Google are neck-and-neck with a 53.4% and 51.5% Consideration score respectively.

YouTube’s conversion rate from Awareness to Consideration is at 63% indicating that the company is effective at converting nearly two-thirds of consumers into considerers. WhatsApp and Google have similar conversion rates at 63% and 60%, respectively.

Roughly two fifths (41.7%) of consumers would consider Samsung and 40.0% would consider Netflix and these brands convert from Awareness to Consideration at a rate of 48% each.

Despite Dettol and Colgate’s lower Awareness scores (71.2% and 75.1%), they hold strong with conversion to Consideration, recording 44% and 48% respectively.

Stage 3: Purchase Intent

The Purchase intent stage goes beyond what consumers are considering and reflects what they are likely to use or buy in the near future.

WhatsApp (23.5%) earns the highest Purchase Intent score, followed by Samsung at 20.9% and Netflix at 15.6%. While more than two-fifths of considerers are converted to Purchase Intent from WhatsApp (44%), roughly half are converted from Samsung (50%).

Toyota records a notable 45% conversion rate from the Consideration stage to the Purchase Intent stage.

Nike and adidas earn Purchase Intent scores of 11.2% and 10.3% and converts at 35% and 33% from the Consideration stage, respectively.

Methodology: All scores are based on data from YouGov BrandIndex, with Index scores between January 1, 2025, and December 31, 2025. All scores are rounded to one decimal place. If brands have the same rounded score, rank is determined by differences beyond the first decimal place. Global scores are an average of individual market scores. Featured brands are tracked in a minimum of 10 out of the 28 markets analyzed in total. The markets are Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, Colombia, Denmark, Egypt, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, Netherlands, Norway, Philippines, Poland, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Spain, Sweden, Thailand, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom, United States, and Vietnam.

Image: Getty Images