Consumer & Market Insights teams have long struggled to unite increasingly fragmented data to deliver the accurate insights that support timely business decision-making. Marketing Week’s Language of Effectiveness Study reveals that only 23% of organizations are integrating short and long-term brand performance data to connect brand tracking to broader consumer insights. Siloed data, the technical limitations of existing tools, and misalignment between reporting capabilities and business goals is hindering effective integration – and the effectiveness of insights teams overall.

Integrating brand tracking data doesn’t have to be complex – and with the right provider, it isn’t. When switching to a new brand tracker, consider how vendors are going beyond the minimum requirements across:

• Types & Formats – Can your potential provider collate a variety of qualitative and quantitative brand data types such as awareness, associations, perception, recall, NPS and equity? Do they have the tools and techniques to extract meaningful information from structured and unstructured data across Excel spreadsheets, email feedback, Instagram posts and consumer videos?
• Approach – Does the vendor use compliance-sensitive ETL, the faster and more efficient ELT, or other real-time or streaming data process and transfer methods? Your business’ speed, flexibility, scalability and quality requirements for brand tracking insights will dictate the best brand and consumer data integration approach.
• Frequency – Can the provider combine asynchronous data over time to deliver both instant analysis that optimizes campaigns in-flight, and the right reporting cadences for senior leadership decision-making?
• Quality – Can the vendor guarantee respondent data quality with consistent cleaning, storage and management processes? Are they effectively harnessing (or at the very least experimenting with) synthetic data sets, and how do they build, test and validate these to accurately match target audiences?

“More than 75% of CEOs tell us that consumer insight is critical to accelerating growth, but few companies are actually using all the consumer information they have available.”

Linda Ellett, Head Of Consumer Markets, KPMG UK

CPG insights leaders have an invaluable opportunity to integrate brand tracking data with all consumer data to reveal the transparent picture of the whole consumer experience. Unified insights into behaviors, actions, interests, and preferences informs the targeting and personalization decisions that boost conversions, purchases, customer lifetime value and brand loyalty.

How McDonalds are Converting Brand Insights Into Sales Growth by Integrating Brand and Consumer Data

‘As goes our brand, so goes the economic health of the company.’

McDonald’s CEO Chris Kempczinski

One of the world’s most valuable brands of 2025 with a 96% UK brand awareness score, McDonald’s has improved consumer experiences across channels by integrating brand tracking data with all consumer data globally. Scalable system architecture combines data across sources, types and channels including:

• Brand Perception Metrics – Quality and value scores
• Customer Feedback – Reviews and ratings on owned and external channels
• Brand Campaigns – Asset performance in driving awareness and recognition across social media, events, TV and OOH advertising
• Mobile App Data – Rewards use, content interactions and the influence of brand loyalty
• Sales – Purchase behaviors and preferences across online, kiosk and drive-thru retail.

Tariq Hassan, Chief Marketing and Customer Experience Officer at McDonald’s USA, highlights the value of integrating brand tracking data in enhancing the consumer experience: ‘Data is currency and language. We think long and hard not only about how we collect the data, but how to connect it to create long-term value and relationships with our customers. What separates brands is when you’re actually developing your own really significant first party data set. Now the question is: not only can you collect that data or can you keep it, but can you expand it?’

Integrating brand data across sources means McDonald’s can deliver targeted offers, personalize communications and improve brand experiences that influence purchase choices and grow frequency of sales.

HubSpot reports that 87% of marketers believe data is their company’s most under-utilized asset, with the inherently complex nature of brand data contributing to its neglect. With even knowledgeable marketing teams struggling to apply data to decision-making, other non-technical departments see far lower application of brand tracking insights to inform decisions. All organizational departments must both understand the relevance of brand tracking in their own roles and KPIs, and actually be able to use brand tracking data by customizing it to meet their needs.

The best brand trackers will contain the following features to democratize data across departments:

• Dashboards – Customizable views that allow any user to get the most relevant data they need and create their own reports for actionable department-level insights
• User-Friendly Interfaces – Fast and simple to set up, and easy to use from the beginning. Designed to be accessed by users of any background and capability, with easy navigation and built-in usage guides
• Visualization – Instantly understandable charts, graphs and infographics that bring data to life, equipping non-technical teams to apply storytelling techniques to any business challenge
• Collaboration – Sharing capabilities to export and present analysis in a meaningful way to aid communication between teams and stakeholder presentations
• Reporting Cadences – Analysis in the hands of non-insights teams must first be translated through an I&A lens to prevent reactive decisions to real-time (unfiltered and uncontextualized) data. Trackers must provide data on demand but enable CMI teams to curate and deliver insights at timely cadences, to share with teams the true impact of brand campaign activity long-term.

Democratizing brand analytics empowers relevant individuals to communicate analysis of their own data in a language that any stakeholder can understand. Better comprehension of brand data and insights allows all teams to:

• Improve the consumer experience by tailoring products and campaigns to preferences
• Compare purchases before and after brand campaigns to attribute revenue growth and sales increases to the brand-building activities behind them
• Make urgent, important decisions that mitigate reputational damage during a crisis
• Identify gaps to meaningfully differentiate from competitors and capitalize on brand growth opportunities
• Future-proof your brand by predicting trends and consumer preferences ahead of time.

How Zara Democratizes Consumer Data to Leverage Valuable Brand Insights

One of the world’s most valuable consumer brands, fashion house Zara maintains a deep understanding of its audience by balancing AI-powered brand data democratization with expert interpretation and application of insights.

Zara’s centralized data hub collates brand interactions, social media discussions, influencer opinions, search data, online reviews, customer feedback surveys and data from its own ecommerce platform. AI-powered Data Chat democratizes consumer data access from the sales floor to the Boardroom, with an intuitive interface and real-time data querying aiding faster, smarter decisions. Tiered training programs teach teams to use NLP and build custom dashboards tracking department-level KPIs, with strategic workshops helping leaders interpret AI-generated predictions.

Zara measures Media Impact Value to understand the influence of campaigns on brand visibility in different regions and analyses this data alongside other consumer insights. Localized market research identifies brand sentiment and consumer preferences in target regions. Neural networks leverage machine learning to inform campaign and communication optimization to best engage local audiences.

Zara automates brand and consumer data gathering and analysis, with real-time data interpreted meaningfully by insights teams who deliver recommendations at the right cadences for stakeholders. Data-driven decision-making is supported by predicting future trends and capitalizing on sentiment to establish the brand long-term in the life of the consumer audience.

Isabella Vega, Retail Technology Leader at Zara, advises on democratizing brand and consumer data, The key is to start small and scale up gradually. Make sure your data is clean and well-organized: AI thrives on good data. Involve your team from the beginning. AI can enhance creativity in design and buying, so it’s important for everyone, from buyers to designers, to understand how these tools can support their work. Building a culture of collaboration with AI is crucial for success.’

Doug Martin, Chief Marketing Officer at General Mills, reveals the importance of brand perception insights in a whole category context to address fast-changing consumer needs. ‘As budgets come under pressure, consumers are thinking about trading down. We need to make sure that we are consistently listening and learning across the whole market: what is most meaningful and personal for our consumers, and how can we connect more authentically than competitors? If we are going to meet our consumers where they are in their daily lives, we have to work continuously to keep up with daily change. Now and into the future, agility will be the most important thing that we can build into our audience connection strategy.’

Brand perception insights are only pivotal to decision-making when viewed holistically. A comprehensive overview of brand health means the full picture of what your consumer thinks and feels about your brand against all the choices they have available to them. The best trackers share the industry and category context to reveal your true position in the market, measuring brand uplift from your own campaigns and your campaign effectiveness in comparison to competitors’.

All brand trackers will analyze your competitors, but key features to assess in your next vendor include:

• Funnel Metrics – Tracking the impact of your brand across your consumer funnel from awareness to consideration to preference to conversion. Seeing the full impact of your brand campaigns on your total addressable market, relative to the size and growth of your category, and compared to direct competitors over time
• Associations – Understanding which brands are trusted, preferred and resonating best in your category by analyzing the words and statements your audiences are using in discussions, and how you compare across keywords relating to consumer beliefs
• Perception – Benchmarking quality, value and customer satisfaction
• Media Monitoring – Social listening tools to follow mentions of your brand, your competitors and your share of voice
• Sentiment Analysis – Surfacing detailed thoughts and feelings on your brand by moving beyond NPS and basic positive, negative and neutral classifications, to capture emotional nuances as well as dynamic shifts in opinion
• Campaign Impact – Understanding the impact of individual campaigns and continued investment on brand health by identifying daily and long-term changes in brand salience, buzz, prompted and unprompted recall, and aided and unaided awareness
• Customized Reporting – Using both real-time and historical data on consumer habits and brand perception to identify long-term trends. Filtered reports can isolate niche demographics and local markets, measure multiple and individual competitor brand performance against your own, and compare time periods to see the effectiveness of campaigns on brand perception.

How Corona Uses Competitor Brand Tracking to Drive Brand Growth Opportunities

Constellation Brands tracks companies within the global beer and spirits category such as Budweiser, Carling and Heineken to inform insights into perceptions and performance of their own Corona brand. Measuring market consumption patterns, audience responses to new product launches, social media mentions and consumer conversations identifies existing attitudes and shifts towards upcoming trends. Competitor brand tracking helps Constellation Brands apply predictive analytics to brand innovation in a rapidly changing market.

Data-driven insights helped Corona capitalize on preferences for alcohol moderation by launching a new product offering whilst maintaining its position as the beer brand of choice in the same audience. Messaging and campaigns communicate that consumers can moderate with different beverages from the same brand within a single occasion, starting their evening with a Corona Extra and finishing with the new Corona Non-Alcoholic.

‘We are relentless in anticipating what consumers want. Building a consumer obsession means applying our deep consumer understanding to new ideas, brand innovation and new business ventures.’ Brand tracking helps the company ‘accelerate performance today and drive brand growth opportunities for the future.’

Mallika Monteiro, Chief Growth & Digital Officer at Constellation Brands

59% of marketing leaders believe that CEOs do not understand the importance of brand building in revenue growth. Short-term pressures  from senior leadership and sales teams will continue to dominate unless insights leaders can prove ROI on marketing spend, and demonstrate the connection between long-term brand building and sustainable business growth.

Fiona Blades elaborates, ‘We need to move away from relying on measures that aren’t necessarily impacting brand equity, outcomes and return on investment.’

Brand tracking will only help I&A leaders evidence the tangible ROI from marketing activity if their chosen vendor can:

• Focus on the right data and the right methods for your organization, aligning your brand tracking metrics and goals to departmental and business KPIs
• Measure the whole customer journey across channels to reveal increases in awareness, ad recall, purchase intent and consideration directly influenced by branding campaigns
• Serve as a true business partner by helping CMI teams communicate the dangers of a short-term focus and demonstrate to senior stakeholders how brand tracking works with, not instead of, short-term sales metrics.

How Salomon Translated Brand Value into Business Return from the Right Brand Tracking Partnership

The Coca-Cola Company partnered with Delineate to understand which brand communications and experiences were truly resonating with and influencing consumers.

Delineate has tracked over 2,000 consumer experiences across 1,000 campaigns in Coca-Cola’s 40 key global markets. Integrating always-on connectivity and live-stream data into a constantly updating dashboard readied The Coca-Cola Company to optimize campaigns in-flight. A standardized approach to data collection, asset management and reporting applied learnings at scale, leveraging only the most relevant consumer insights to drive both creative innovation and strategic decision-making globally.

Sylwia Borawska, Senior Insights Manager at The Coca-Cola Company reinforces, ‘It’s so easy to promote too much and erode your margin or brand equity. We need to be relevant as brands because that’s what people are still willing to pay more for: the right experiences, the right placement, the right occasion. Combining creativity with data is what catches attention. With Delineate, we don’t have to rely on surveys. We now have the ability to shape and adjust campaigns on the fly, enabling us to increase campaign effectiveness by 25%.’

Salmon partnered with Delineate to better understand the real impact of its global rebrand in historic and new territories.

Delineate’s always-on flexible tracking platform isolated the influence of Salomon’s brand and advertising investments across varied audiences. Robust daily sampling at both national and city level revealed the effect of the rebrand on global and local consumer attitudes.

Delineate’s analysis quantified the significance of Salomon’s Superbowl campaigns in increasing brand awareness. Daily data equipped Salomon to optimize brand campaigns in-flight, and actionable insights maximized the impact of ongoing brand advertising investment.

Yasmin Dufournet, Salmon’s Consumer Insights Director emphasizes, ‘Always on tracking is essential to better, closer consumer understanding. Insights into campaign performance as it happens ensures we stay ahead of the curve in an ever-evolving consumer landscape. Delineate’s methodology provided us with a revolutionary way to collect, analyze and react to our data, getting our learnings back at lightning speed for quicker and more informed decisions.’

‘Different types of data and technology have given insights leaders more edge. But we’re creating incredibly sophisticated models with crazy amounts of effort, delivering innovation for the sake of innovation. Brand tracking works; what’s broken is the commercial model of collecting, disseminating, interpreting and using brand data. Ultimately, brand tracking is about understanding how humans are behaving, what they’re feeling, and finding the incremental impact of brand on commercial outcomes.’ – JT Turner

Assessing potential brand trackers is just the first step in aligning brand activity to business ROI. Translating brand tracking insights into better, faster decisions requires a collaborative partnership between I&A teams and their brand tracking partners.

Accurate brand insights lay the foundations for the right responses to ever-changing consumer preferences and rapid market shifts. Delineate delivers data on demand at the moments that matter most, and applies world-leading insights expertise to help I&A teams generate business impact from brand insights.