Why your brand health tracking isn’t working – and how to fix it

James “JT” Turner, Founder & President

Brand health tracking isn’t new. Just a few years ago, brand health trackers were one of the few ways brands could understand their category, consumers, and communications. As a trusted way to understand the brand funnel, marketing directors and their ad agencies waited in anticipation for the research agency presentation each quarter. And whilst results may not have always been positive, the independent researchers, the robust methodologies, and simply the fact it was real consumers and audiences giving their opinion, meant that brands listened and acted.

The world moved more slowly then. A time before social listening promised the world real-time data. Those were the days before every social network offered unique ad measurement. A time with simpler, less fragmented media and channels.

As the world sped up, and the new digital channels gained traction, marketers had to stretch the research budget further. Some brands moved to more regular brand tracking. But increasing frequency of brand tracking was expensive. Research agencies offered little cost efficiencies due to the manual processes and slow data collection. So, brand tracking was often trimmed down or sacrificed altogether to make way for new tools.

It doesn’t have to be this way

Today, smart brands continue to rely on brand health tracking by using it alongside other data sources, with weekly measurement*, and data connected directly into their business as the key to maintaining value and utilisation of brand tracking data.

(* Some work with Delineate and get daily brand tracking data!)

But for those that are not yet working in this way, let’s debunk some of the myths around brand health tracking, and look at how you can get yours back on track…

It’s too slow

Whilst some research agencies are still manual and slow, others have embraced technology and automation. Research technology – or “ResTech” – removes manual steps and speeds up data delivery. Delineate Proximity™ delivers daily data to clients, not weekly or monthly, so it behaves more like a grown up, more representative version of social media listening. Data reporting has also moved on since the “portals” of the early 2000s; brand tracking can be self-serve in easy-to-use BI tools, combined with other data sources and can be distributed around your organisation internally.

It’s not responsive

With many marketing campaigns now focused on specific channels, with multiple creatives, brand managers may worry that campaign tracking research won’t include consumers that have been exposed to a campaign. With automated sampling techniques, more targeted interviews can be achieved allowing for highly representative results.

It’s not continuous

By making a brand tracker “always on”, consumer opinions can be collected every moment of every day. This is true for data collection, but also for data delivery. Receiving daily updates ensures that decisions are made with the best data available. By being “always on”, rather than running a wave or “dip” survey, you won’t miss crucial decisions.

We have other metrics

With other tools such as social listening being more readily available, brands have used proxies such as volume of mentions and sentiment to understand brand perceptions. These are not the same as brand consideration, preference, rejection, image, and repertoire achieved through brand tracking. Importantly, when designed well, brand tracking data is a better predictor of many business outcomes.

It’s too expensive           

By using ResTech to automate much of the manual processing, time and effort can be saved across the whole brand tracking process. Delineate also allows clients direct access to the data via API or BI tools, reducing traditional client servicing costs. You can flex up and get additional help on-demand.

So, how do you fix your brand health tracking process?

Our platform, Delineate Proximity™, allows you to manage your brand and campaigns in real-time and in context. Whether it’s making in-flight decisions on campaign performance or understanding a key shift in category dynamics to a real-time daily tracker lets you see the changes as they are happening, so you can redirect budgets and resources to where they’re needed most. This can have a significant impact on both the short-term and long-term performance of your brand.

The answer is an always-on solution that delivers daily, connected survey data.

Your consumers, live and direct.