Brand health metrics are essential for measuring the performance of your brand. These valuable indicators provide insights into how consumers perceive and interact with your company, products, or services.
In 2024, simply having a great product or service is not enough. You need to understand how your brand resonates with your target audience and how it compares to competitors. Brand health metrics offer a data-driven approach to assessing your brand’s strength, allowing you to make informed decisions.
In this article, we’ll discuss the most important metrics you should be monitoring to track brand health. From brand reputation and consideration to purchase intent and customer loyalty, we’ll explore how these insights can help you build a stronger, more successful brand.
Table of Contents
What are brand health metrics?
Brand health metrics are quantifiable measures that evaluate a brand’s performance and effectiveness in the market. Using advanced data analysis techniques such as regression analysis and sentiment analysis we can gain a comprehensive view of a brand’s health across various industry sectors.
Brand tracking is essential for several reasons:
- Performance assessment: Benchmark the overall health of a brand
- Goal alignment: They ensure marketing efforts align with business objectives
- Issue identification: Metrics flag potential problems before they escalate
- Competitive analysis: They allow for comparisons with industry benchmarks
- ROI measurement: Justify marketing spend and resource allocation
By consistently monitoring key brand health metrics through omnichannel approaches and leveraging social listening tools, we can make data-driven decisions, optimise brand strategies, and adapt to emerging trends in digital transformation.
Associated Reading: What is Brand Tracking?
Important brand health metrics include:
- Brand awareness
- Brand consideration
- Purchase intent
- Customer loyalty
- Brand equity
- Net Promoter Score (NPS)
Each of these provides unique insights into different aspects of how well your brand is performing, allowing for a comprehensive understanding of a brand’s strengths and weaknesses.
The importance of using metrics to track your brand equity
Brand equity, a component of brand valuation, is the tangible and intangible value of your brand in the marketplace. It is often assessed through sophisticated brand architecture and portfolio strategy analyses. It can also be assessed through indicators such as price premium (ability to charge higher prices than competitors) and market share.
These metrics offer insights into how customers perceive your brand, market and brand positioning, and give you a picture of brand health.
Why are brand metrics important for business growth?
Brand metrics are essential for business growth for several reasons:
- Informed decision-making: Get data-driven insights that guide strategic decisions. By analysing these metrics, we can identify trends, opportunities, and areas for improvement.
- ROI measurement: Tracking brand metrics allows us to evaluate the return on investment for marketing and branding initiatives. We can determine which strategies are most effective in driving brand equity and allocate resources accordingly.
- Competitive advantage: Benchmark your brand’s health and performance against competitors. This comparison enables us to identify areas where a brand excels and where it needs improvement to stay ahead in the market.
- Customer understanding: By measuring brand health, we gain insights into customer perception of your brand. This understanding helps tailor brand strategies to better meet customer needs and expectations.
- Long-term brand health: Consistently tracking and analysing your brand monitors the long term health. We can identify early warning signs of brand decline and take proactive measures to maintain and improve brand sentiment over time.
Brand metrics to consider tracking
Brand tracking metrics provide insights into a brand’s performance and customer perceptions. Here are key metrics businesses should consider tracking:
Brand Awareness
Brand awareness, a fundamental aspect of customer journey mapping, includes both aided and unaided awareness, often measured through a combination of quantitative surveys and qualitative research methods such as in-depth interviews and ethnographic studies.
This helps you to monitor customer awareness of your brand, other competitors customers may be aware of, and associations within your industry. These include:
- Unaided awareness: Percentage of buyers who mention a brand without prompting
- Aided awareness: Percentage of buyers who recognise a brand when shown a list
- Top-of-mind awareness: First brand recalled in a category
Brand Attributes and Brand Associations
Brand attributes and associations are components of brand health metrics that provide deep insights into how users perceive and relate to a brand. These metrics go beyond simple awareness or sales figures to reveal the emotional and psychological connections that buyers form with a brand.
Key metrics to track include:
- Key attributes: Specific qualities or characteristics that users consistently associate with a brand. (e.g., innovative, reliable). By measuring these key attributes, companies can determine whether their brand is successfully communicating its intended values and qualities to its target audience.
- Brand personality: The human characteristics or traits that consumers attribute to a brand. Understanding a brand’s personality helps companies craft marketing messages and brand experiences that resonate more deeply with their target audience. It also allows for more effective brand positioning and differentiation in crowded markets.
- Brand image: A holistic concept that combines various elements, including the brand’s attributes, personality, values, and the experiences people have had with the brand. Brand image often drives shopper behaviour – people are more likely to purchase from brands that have a positive image aligned with their own values and self-image. By measuring brand image, companies can gauge how well their brand is perceived in the market and identify any discrepancies between the intended brand image and the actual consumer perception.
These factors are examined through research methods such as surveys, focus groups, social media sentiment analysis, and brand tracking studies. By regularly assessing these aspects of brand health, companies can:
- Align their marketing strategies with end user perceptions
2. Identify areas where the brand might be misunderstood or underperforming
3. Track changes in brand perception over time
4. Develop more targeted and effective communication strategies
5. Make informed decisions about brand extensions or repositioning efforts
In essence, brand attributes and brand associations provide a window into the buyers mind, allowing companies to see their brand through the eyes of their target audience. This perspective is invaluable for maintaining a healthy, strong brand that resonates with consumers and stands out in a competitive marketplace.
Perceived Quality
Perceived quality judges the overall excellence or superiority of a brand’s offerings. This goes beyond objective quality measures to capture the subjective evaluations and impressions that consumers form about a brand.
It’s a critical factor in brand health because it directly influences behaviour, including purchasing decisions, brand loyalty, and willingness to pay premium prices.
The 3 main aspects of perceived quality are:
- Product Quality Ratings:
Assessments of the physical products or tangible offerings of a brand. Product quality ratings encompass various factors such as:
– Performance: How well does the product fulfill its primary function?
– Features: What additional capabilities does the product offer?
– Reliability: How consistently does the product perform without issues?
– Durability: How long does the product last under normal usage conditions?
– Aesthetics: How appealing is the product’s design and appearance?
– Conformance to specifications: Does the product meet industry standards and consumer expectations?
- Service Quality Assessments:
For many brands, especially in the service industry or those offering after-sales support, service quality is an important component of perceived quality. Service quality assessments evaluate:
– Reliability: Consistency and dependability of the service
– Responsiveness: Willingness to help customers promptly
– Assurance: Knowledge and courtesy of employees, and their ability to inspire trust and confidence
– Empathy: Individualized attention and care provided to customers
– Tangibles: Appearance of physical facilities, equipment, personnel, and communication materials
These assessments can be gathered through customer feedback surveys, mystery shopping programs, and analysis of customer service interactions.
- Value for Money Perceptions:
This aspect of perceived quality measures how shoppers evaluate the worth of a brand’s offerings relative to its cost. It’s not just about being the cheapest option, but rather about providing the best balance of benefits to costs. Value for money perceptions consider:
– Price-quality ratio: Do purchasers feel they’re getting good quality for the price paid?
– Competitive pricing: How does the brand’s pricing compare to alternatives in the market?
– Perceived benefits: What additional value (beyond the core product/service) does the brand offer?
– Total cost of ownership: For durable goods, how do long-term costs (maintenance, repairs, etc.) factor into value perceptions?
These perceptions are often appraised through survey questions that ask buyers to rate the value they receive from a brand. Conjoint analysis techniques can also assess how shoppers trade off different product attributes against price.
By regularly measuring and analysing these aspects of perceived quality, businesses can:
– Identify areas where they’re meeting, exceeding, or falling short of consumer expectations
– Adjust their product development, service delivery, and pricing strategies
– Benchmark their performance against competitors
– Justify premium pricing strategies
– Develop marketing messages that highlight their strengths in quality and value
It’s important to note that perceived quality can vary significantly across different consumer segments. What one group perceives as high quality might not align with another group’s expectations.
We often need to analyse this metric across different demographic, psychographic, or behavioural segments to get a comprehensive understanding of their brand health.
Perceived quality is not a static measurement. It can change over time due to factors like product improvements, changes in competitive offerings, shifts in consumer expectations, or external events that impact brand perception.
Regular monitoring allows brands to stay attuned to these changes and respond proactively to maintain or improve their brand health.
Brand Loyalty
Brand loyalty metrics indicate customers’ commitment to repurchase or continue using your brand:
- Net Promoter Score (NPS): Likelihood of customers recommending the brand – these are your brand advocates
- Customer retention rate: Percentage of customers who continue to buy from the brand
- Repeat purchase rate: Frequency of repeat purchases
Brand Preference
Brand preference metrics show how consumers rank a brand compared to competitors:
- First choice preference: Percentage of consumers who choose the brand as their top option
- Consideration set inclusion: Frequency of brand inclusion in consumers’ consideration sets
Brand Usage
Brand usage metrics track how often and in what ways consumers use a brand:
- Usage frequency: How often consumers use the brand
- Share of wallet: Percentage of category spending allocated to the brand
- Usage occasions: Specific situations where consumers use the brand
Brand Purchase
Brand purchase metrics measure actual buying behaviour:
- Market share: Brand’s sales as a percentage of total category sales
- Sales volume: Number of units sold
- Average transaction value: Average amount spent per purchase
Website Statistics
Website data provide insights into online brand performance:
- Unique visitors: Number of individual users visiting the site
- Bounce rate: Percentage of visitors who leave after viewing only one page
- Conversion rate: Percentage of visitors who complete a desired action
Social Media Marketing Metrics
Social media metrics track brand performance on social platforms:
- Follower growth rate: Increase in followers over time
- Engagement rate: Likes, comments, and shares as a percentage of followers
- Social share of voice: Brand mentions compared to competitors
- Average purchase value
- Purchase frequency
- Customer lifespan
- Acquisition costs
How do you track brand awareness metrics?
We track brand awareness metrics through several key methods:
Net Promoter Score (NPS)
NPS measures customer loyalty by asking how likely they are to recommend the brand to others. It’s calculated by subtracting the percentage of detractors from promoters, resulting in a score between -100 and 100.
Brand Loyalty
This metric tracks the likelihood of customers continuing to purchase from the brand. It’s often measured through purchase intent surveys or repeat purchase behaviour analysis.
Brand Awareness
Brand awareness includes both aided and unaided awareness:
- Aided awareness: Respondents are shown a list of brands and asked which ones they recognise.
- Unaided awareness: Respondents are asked to name brands in a specific category without prompts.
Brand Recall
This measures how easily consumers remember the brand without prompting. It’s typically assessed through open-ended questions about specific product categories.
Customer Sentiment
We analyse customer opinions and attitudes towards the brand through:
- Social media mentions
- Feedback surveys
Branded Search Volume
This metric tracks how often people search for the brand name specifically. It’s a strong indicator of brand recognition and can be monitored using tools like Google Trends or SEO platforms.
Share of Voice
Share of Voice measures the brand’s visibility compared to competitors in the market. It’s calculated by analysing mentions across various channels, including social media, news, and industry publications.
In brand tracking, it’s crucial to distinguish between metrics and KPIs to ensure a focused approach to measuring and improving brand performance. By selecting the right combination of metrics and KPIs, you can create a comprehensive brand tracking strategy that aligns with overall business objectives and drives meaningful growth.
How to choose which metrics to track
When selecting brand tracking metrics, consider several criteria to ensure they provide valuable insights and drive meaningful brand growth:
- Align with Long-Term Strategy: Choose metrics that reflect your brand’s long-term goals rather than short-term tactics. This approach ensures we’re measuring progress towards our overarching objectives.
- Customer-Centric Focus: Prioritise metrics that accurately analyse your brand from the target audience’s perspective. This helps you understand how customers perceive and interact with your brand.
- Competitive Benchmarking: Select metrics that allow you to compare your brand’s performance against both established competitors and emerging players in the market.
- Actionable Insights: The metrics chosen must provide actionable insights that you can use to drive tangible improvements in your brand strategy and performance.
- Flexibility: Ensure your metrics are flexible enough to adapt to changing market conditions and campaign activities, allowing you to maintain relevance in a dynamic environment.
- Distribution Strategy Alignment: Select metrics that apply to all channels and touchpoints used by your brand, providing a comprehensive view of performance across various platforms.
- Conciseness: To avoid overwhelming respondents and ensure meaningful insights, keep metrics concise and focused on the most important areas of brand performance.
Metrics vs. KPIs
Brand tracking metrics and Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) are often confused, but they serve distinct purposes in measuring brand performance.
Brand tracking metrics focus on specific aspects of brand performance, whilst Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) are strategic metrics directly tied to business objectives.
Metrics are more granular and frequent, while KPIs are broader, less frequent, and higher in the organisational hierarchy. KPIs often incorporate multiple metrics to provide a comprehensive view of business performance.
Differences between these two essential measurement tools include:
Metrics:
- Quantifiable measures that track specific aspects of brand performance
- Provide raw data and insights about various brand elements
- Examples: brand awareness percentage, social media engagement rates, Net Promoter Score
KPIs:
- Strategic metrics directly tied to business objectives
- Fewer in number, focusing on critical success factors
- Examples: customer acquisition cost, customer lifetime value, market share
Key differences:
- Scope: Metrics cover a broad range of measurements, while KPIs are a focused subset of metrics aligned with strategic goals.
- Purpose: Metrics offer general insights, whereas KPIs indicate progress towards specific business objectives.
- Frequency: Metrics are often tracked more frequently, while KPIs are typically monitored at regular intervals (e.g., quarterly, annually).
- Hierarchy: KPIs are higher-level indicators, often comprising multiple metrics to provide a comprehensive view of performance.
To illustrate the relationship between metrics and KPIs, consider this example:
Metric | KPI |
Brand awareness percentage | Increase brand awareness by 15% in the target market |
Customer satisfaction score | Achieve a customer satisfaction score of 4.5/5 |
Website traffic | Increase website conversions by 20% |
How to use metrics to improve your brand health
Brand tracking metrics are invaluable tools for understanding and enhancing your brand’s health. By consistently monitoring these metrics you’ll gain insights into consumer perceptions, attitudes and behaviours. This data empowers you to make informed decisions, identify areas for improvement and capitalise on your brand’s strengths.
Remember, the key is not just collecting data but using it strategically through advanced marketing attribution models, competitive intelligence gathering, and SWOT analysis to inform your brand positioning and market segmentation strategies.
Align your metrics with your business goals regularly analyse trends and be prepared to adjust your strategies based on the insights you gain. With a well-implemented brand tracking system you’ll be well-equipped to navigate the competitive landscape and build a stronger, more resonant brand.
Frequently Asked Questions
A brand health study is a comprehensive analysis of various brand health metrics to gain insights into the overall strength and performance of a brand. It often involves surveys, data analysis, and comparison with competitors.
A brand health check involves analysing various brand health metrics, such as awareness, reputation, and loyalty. This often includes surveys, social media sentiment analysis, and reviewing sales and customer data.
A healthy brand consistently performs well across various brand health metrics. A strong brand typically has high brand awareness, positive reputation, and strong customer loyalty. While related, a brand can be healthy without necessarily being the strongest in its category.
Tracking brand health is important because it helps you understand how consumers view your brand, identify areas for improvement, and make informed decisions to boost your brand’s performance and reputation.
Common brand tracking metrics include brand awareness, consideration, purchase intent, customer loyalty, brand attributes, and perceived quality. Online metrics such as social media engagement, website traffic, and search volume are also important. These metrics provide a comprehensive view of how a brand is performing across various dimensions.
Businesses should select brand tracking metrics that align with their overall objectives and strategy. Consider factors such as customer lifetime value, brand affinity, and the broader competitive landscape to create a strong brand health benchmarking system. Choose a combination of metrics that provide a holistic view of brand performance. Regular review and adjustment of these metrics ensure they remain relevant and actionable.
The frequency of brand health measurement can vary, but many companies conduct comprehensive brand health studies annually or bi-annually, with more frequent tracking of specific metrics like social media sentiment or sales performance.
Conclusion
Tracking brand health is a way for businesses to find new opportunities and stay competitive. These metrics likely provide the focus needed to take informed actions, helping companies know where they stand and look for areas of improvement.
Gathering and analysing this data can be challenging, especially for smaller businesses or startups with limited resources. This is where Insights Exchange can help. Our research company provides access to market research and connects businesses with global insights specialists, making it possible for organisations of all sizes to measure and improve their brand health.
Whether you’re looking to gauge brand awareness, assess customer loyalty, or find out your competitive positioning, partnering with a versatile research company such as Insights Exchange can provide the expertise and tools needed to take your brand to new heights.
With the right insights, you’re more likely to know how to focus your efforts and look for ways to build a stronger, healthier brand in the long run.
