Brand Tracking Agency
Brand tracking will help you understand your brand’s performance and health, providing the knowledge and guidance you need to maximise your brand’s strength, and grow its market share and profitability.
Our Research Methods
What is Brand Tracking?
Brand tracking is a piece of ongoing, survey-based, brand market research that evaluates the health of your brand versus the competition. Our agency does this by first benchmarking, and then monitoring the individual criteria that define the nature of the relationship between the target audience and your brand.
Learn more in our complete guide to Brand Tracking Research in our Blog
The Benefits of Brand Tracking
Some of the primary benefits of working with a Brand Tracking Agency.
Monitor strength
of your brand’s equity across measures like brand awareness, brand perception and associations, purchase patterns, brand loyalty, and future consideration.
Make direct comparison
between the performance of your own brand and those of your competitors
Identify and understand
key customer differences within and across international markets
Monitor brand metrics
across your customer segments so that you can take incisive action, when necessary
Identify high ROI activities
and the ones with low ROI - so you can make highly targeted adjustments to the marketing plan
Generate greater profits
and enable greater acquisition, retention & greater ROI on your marketing efforts
Working With A Brand Tracking Agency
What Does a Brand Tracking Agency Do?
Your brand is unique, so your tracker should be too.
That’s why, as your brand tracking agency, we’ll start by making sure we understand your brand inside out. Only then, do we design your bespoke brand tracker – everything is unique to you and your brand; the questions we ask, the audiences we target, the frequency of the fieldwork, right through to the analysis and reporting.
When Should You Use Brand Tracking?
Beyond regular brand health monitoring, brand tracking can be used by any organisation that wishes to improve the strength and performance of its brand, by identifying the areas in which it is and isn’t performing as well as it should.
Developing The Right Brand Tracker For You
Common Questions we get asked about Brand Trackers
Start with the end in mind.
Take the time to think through and capture what you’re trying to achieve, and how the insights you obtain will feed back into your business.
A good brand tracker should be developed with you and for you.
A key part of that development lies in defining the metrics and measures that matter. Brand funnel metrics (e.g. awareness, perceptions, associations, consideration, and purchase) always spring readily to mind, but if you have a brand model that focuses on other facets, then the tracker needs to reflect those too.
A good tracker will measure your brand’s performance within the context with your competitive set.
The key is to include the right competitors from the start.
Your main competitors should obviously be included, but it’s also worth spending time thinking about a secondary set; e.g. new players in the market that are making a big splash, or outliers you want to keep an eye on.
This way you can monitor how your sector may be changing shape over time, and be ready to respond.
Identifying the frequency sweet spot is key.
Brand tracking needs to be repeated often enough to identify significant market shifts while you can still make use of the insights, but not so often that you’re tracking micro-movements that become another round of ‘so-whats?’.
When determining tracker-frequency, start by considering the dynamics of your sector. In FMCG a monthly tracker may be just right, but in low purchase-frequency categories a quarterly or 6-monthly cadence might be more appropriate.
It’s relatively common to weave in a communications section so that advertising and marketing comms performance and impact can be measured, from cut-through and take-out, to impact on audience attitudes and behaviours.
But it all adds to survey length (one of the variable costs in brand tracking fees), and also requires more involvement from you and from your research agency.
In short, it’s going to cost you more money! If you have a comms programme with significant investment, we’d definitely recommend a comms section, but if your comms are sporadic, low spend, or niche, then save your money.
It’s imperative that everything about your brand tracker remains stable over time so that you have full confidence that any changes seen in the data are a reflection of activity in the market. Adding in, removing, or even moving questions around can have a destabilising effect on the wave-on-wave data so it’s best practice that they’re left alone.
But sometimes things might happen that you need to explore – for example, the launch of a new product or service by a key competitor. By including a ‘flexi-section’ in your tracker you can explore these kinds of topical events. In essence, a ‘flexi-section’ is an allocated blank space – usually at the end of the survey – where additional questions can be added in and taken out as required. This retains the stability of the core tracker whilst offering enough flexibility to respond to unplanned events.
The pattern of reporting is typically sequential.
From close of fieldwork through to analysis and reporting usually takes 6-8 weeks.
Clearly, if you’re running a monthly tracker, then this delay can have real implications on your ability to respond and react to shifts in your brand’s performance.
But there are other options. Consider development of an ‘always on’ digital dashboard, designed to pull in data and display key metrics as soon as the data comes in.
This is a much more agile output, giving you the information you need at the right time.
For less frequent tracking waves the turnaround time from fieldwork to reporting may not be as crucial.
Irrespective of cadence, reporting is usually face-to-face (online or in person) in a presentation format that includes data charts, tables, and a narrative. The key attributes of a good ‘debrief’ include:
- A narrative arc that tells you the story of your brand’s performance in the marketplace
- A focus on what this means for your business activities whether; marketing, comms, pricing, distribution, product mix, etc.
- Actionable insights and guidance
Other reporting tools and techniques can range from a regular ‘dashboard’ update showing key metrics in an infographic style output, through to a strategic annual deep-dive convened in a workshop style setting.
Consider, upfront, who your internal and external audiences are, what input they should have during tracker set-up, and what they will need in terms of ongoing reporting.
Internal audiences may include marketing, brand teams and sales teams, operations managers and the board.
External audiences are not so obvious but can include media buying agencies, advertising agencies, investors, and the press/media if you’re custodians of a household brand.
Avoiding the Pitfalls
Too many cooks
Whilst it is important to involve internal audiences, you also need to set boundaries. What starts out as a pristine, hyper-focused tracking study on commission can quickly become messy, cumbersome and ‘not fit for purpose’, if too many different parties are involved.
- Protect the questionnaire design so that it stays focused on the brand measures and metrics it’s meant to capture
- Don’t allow ever-changing ‘tweaks’ to the questions that mean it’s impossible to compare data wave on wave
- Guard the integrity of the reporting – keep it focused on the agreed objectives.
One last thing..
Make sure you trust your agency.
Brand tracking is probably one of the biggest ongoing research investments you’re going to make and you’ll be developing a long-term relationship with them.
So get to know them, find out about their credentials, talk them through your brand goals, share your fears and ambitions with them. And in those conversations, ask yourself ‘do I trust them as my brand tracking agency?’
If the answer is ‘no’ or even ‘not sure’ then continue the search – your agency should be on your side to offer guidance and support throughout the journey.
It’s important you find the right brand tracking agency!
Get in Touch
Brandspeak are specialists in Brand Tracking, Customer Segmentation, and Usage & Attitude surveys. For more information about our services please get in touch or call: +44 (0) 203 858 0052
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Testimonials
- I have worked with Brandspeak for some time now as a supplier, writing content such as blogs and articles. You can tell a lot about a company by how it treats suppliers - especially freelancers. Jeremy is unfailingly thoughtful and responsive, gives detailed, clear and easy to follow briefs, always gives feedback and - the holy grail for freelancers - pays super fast. Overall, a pleasure to work for.
- Judith Staig
- Brandspeak are a highly professional research agency. As a supplier they are welcoming, easy to work with and always appreciative of the services I supply. I look forward to continuing our enjoyable, working relationship in the future.
- Sarah Taylor
- TEAKI LTD
- Brandspeak is an absolute pleasure to work with! I’ve collaborated with them on a few projects for online research for their clients. The experience they bring to each and every project is very thorough, and their survey design work is very well put together. Looking forward to many more projects with the folks at Brandspeak!
- Ann Spelman
- Professional & friendly with a great team to support your research needs!
- Lauren Williams
- We worked with Brandspeak on a brand awareness project and we were extremely pleased the quality of service and the process. They understood the complexity of the briefs and ask plenty of questions to make sure they fully understand the objectives. They interacted with all levels of people in our business and understood the differences within the market and suggested ways to tie the research together so it was still comparable. The results were delivered with easy to digest summaries that could be used across the business. We would highly recommend using them
- Steven Hughes
- Regatta Ltd
- Brandspeak are fantastic to work with. They listened to our brief carefully, understood exactly what was required, then got cracking. They delivered exactly what we were after, presenting to us often complex data in an easy-to-understand fashion, enabling us to take the work forward and really make use out of it. Mark in particular was amazing to work alongside, and I wouldn't hesitate to recommend both him and Brandspeak in the future. Thank you!
- Sam Heague
- Extracover Limited
- Brandspeak were very helpful through this project. With regular check ins with the team to finesse the brief, through to consistent communication during the research and results delivered promptly, I can't fault the team. The results have been helpful in shaping the future of our brand strategy
- Harry
- Brandspeak are fantastic to work with. They listened to our brief carefully, understood exactly what was required, then got cracking. They delivered exactly what we were after, presenting to us often complex data in an easy-to-understand fashion, enabling us to take the work forward and really make use out of it. Mark in particular was amazing to work alongside, and I wouldn't hesitate to recommend both him and Brandspeak in the future
- Zego
- Brandspeak were very helpful through this project. With regular check ins with the team to finesse the brief, through to consistent communication during the research and results delivered promptly, I can't fault the team. The results have been helpful in shaping the future of our brand strategy
- Lifestory
- We worked with Brandspeak on a brand awareness project and we were extremely pleased the quality of service and the process. They understood the complexity of the briefs and ask plenty of questions to make sure they fully understand the objectives. They interacted with all levels of people in our business and understood the differences within the market and suggested ways to tie the research together so it was still comparable. The results were delivered with easy to digest summaries that could be used across the business. We would highly recommend using them
- Regatta Outdoors
- We've used Brandspeak for a number of projects over the years and have always found them a great font of knowledge and a great team to work with on consumer insights and data. Their work has been incredibly valuable to us and we'd have no hesitation working with them again in the future
- Dairy UK
- Brandspeak are a fantastic market research partner. They tackle briefs head on and ask plenty of questions to make sure they fully understand the objectives, as well as challenge anything that could impact the quality of the research. They're good storytellers and presenters so it's very easy to understand their findings and share further with stakeholders. Would highly recommend.
- Samantha Neville
- Communications & Engagement Manager | NHS
- We asked support for the Campaign Evaluation Research of our TVCM campaign. They organized and prepared everything on time, and we could get the necessary information as requested. Thanks to them, we could learn a lot of things and could improve our future marketing strategies. We are looking forward to working with them again!
- Tomoki Kawai
- Marketing Manger | Kikkoman
- Brandspeak were a pleasure to work with. They're extremely helpful and professional and truly experts in everything they do. They were able to help us and provide valuable knowledge throughout the entire process, from helping curate survey questions, carrying out the research and feeding back the results in a clear and proficient way, all with exceptional communication. Thank you Mark Bagnall and the Brandspeak team. Would recommend and definitely use again.
- Grace Hughes
- Blink
- Working with Jeremy from Brandspeak has opened my eyes to how powerful good quality quantitative data can be to inform and drive better business decisions.
- Adrian Chatterton
- UK Product Manager, Spine & Orthobiologics, Stryker
- We worked with Brandspeak on some qualitative research for a significant redesign of our products and our brandmark. Their approach was extremely professional, they took the time to clearly understand the brief and overall were very informed in the world of research. I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend them or use them again in the future.
- Victoria Leigh-Pearson
- Director, Group Sales & Marketing, John Ross Jr (Aberdeen) Ltd/Coln Valley Smokery Ltd/PR Foods
- It is always a pleasure – and a relief! – to work with researchers who get the whole thing – effortlessly… a heartfelt thanks.
- DLKW
- From their initial proposal they displayed an understanding of financial services and a clarity of thinking that made them stand out. Since then they have consistently delivered to demanding timescales. But what really sets them apart are their actionable and business focused recommendations which give them the credibility to influence senior internal stakeholders. I have really enjoyed working with them and look forward to doing so again.
- Leading life and pensions provider
- From the moment I contacted Brandspeak I can't thank Jeremy and his team enough. Offering a professional approach they took the time and effort to make the whole process easy and effortless. I highly recommend Brandspeak and look forward to working with them again in the future.
- Verity Kimber
- EU Transition Manager, SHOTT Beverages
- Brandspeak helped us with getting invaluable market insights! They showed great flexibility and professionalism throughout the entire process and provided us exactly with the results we needed. I would recommend working with Brandspeak to anyone and anytime.
- Tom Suberg
- IT Project Manager at J.H. Tönnjes E.A.S.T. GmbH & Co. KG
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